Lucretia X

I am a painter, writer, and filmmaker. I was born in Boston, but I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. I received a BFA in filmmaking with honors from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University in 1988.  I received an MFA in creative writing from California Institute of the Arts in 2006.  Steady income has come from my work as a scenic painter, and as a library clerk.

I am the Co-Founder of Revolution Rising, a collective whose purpose was to provide access to and a space for the tools and creation of artmaking through grassroots fundraising (concerts and benefits, t-shirts, stickers, zines).   My work with them financed one of my short films, and several art exhibitions in Los Angeles.  My short films (16mm, video, and PXL) have been screened at local coffeehouses, art spaces, and universities.  My paintings have been purchased by private collectors.  I have been awarded grants to take art classes at UCLA.

I utilize most mediums. My writing is often nonfiction, but sometimes fiction and poetry.  Publication credits include The Los Angeles Review, RE/Search!, and Flyway Literary Review.  My work has been accepted for publication by Poetry Motel and The Sun.  I am the recipient of the Sweet Corn Literary Award, and an award from the National League of American Pen Women.  I make zines, and was interviewed by RE/Search! about my zine The Meat Hook.  Filmmaker, writer, and performance artist Miranda July chose my short film daybreak for distribution by her Big Miss Moviola Chain Letter.  Visual and written work have been selected for inclusion by the Kentucky Girlhood Project 2007.  Currently I am working on my first novel which began as my thesis in the form of a zine, and am preparing for my first solo art exhibition.  

 

Ted Bundy SOLD

This painting was inspired by the ghosts of the women serial rapist and serial killer Ted Bundy harmed.
1974

  • Jan. 4: Joni Lenz (survived). Bludgeoned in her bed as she slept.
  • Feb. 1: Lynda Ann Healy (19). Beaten & bludgeoned unconscious while asleep and abducted from the house she shared with other University of Washington co-eds.
  • Mar. 12: Donna Gail Manson (19). Abducted while walking to a jazz concert on The Evergreen State College campus, Olympia, Washington.
  • Apr. 17: Susan Rancourt (18). Disappeared as she walked across Ellensburg's Central Washington State College campus at night.
  • May 6: Roberta Kathleen Parks (22). Vanished from Oregon State University in Corvallis while walking to another dorm hall to have coffee with friends.
  • May 25: Brenda Ball (22). Disappeared from the Flame Tavern in Burien, Washington.
  • Jun. 11: Georgeann Hawkins (18). Disappeared from behind her sorority house, Kappa Alpha Theta, at the University of Washington in Seattle.
  • Jul. 14: Janice Ott (23) and Denise Naslund (19), both from Lake Sammamish State Park in Issaquah, Washington.
  • Aug. 2: Carol Valenzuela (20). Last seen at a welfare office in Vancouver, Washington.
  • Oct. 2: Nancy Wilcox (16). Disappeared in Holladay, Utah.
  • Oct. 18: Melissa Smith (17). Vanished from Midvale, Utah on her way to a friend's house.
  • Oct. 31: Laura Aime (17). Disappeared from a Halloween party at Lehi, Utah.
  • Nov. 8: Carol DaRonch (survived). Escaped from Bundy by jumping out from his car in Murray, Utah.
  • Nov. 8: Debra (Debby) Kent (17). Vanished from the parking lot of a school in Bountiful, Utah, hours after DaRonch escaped from Bundy.

1975

  • Jan. 12: Caryn Campbell (23). While on a ski trip with her fiancé in Aspen, Colorado, Campbell vanished between the hotel lounge and her room.
  • Mar. 15: Julie Cunningham (26). Disappeared while on her way to a nearby tavern in Vail, Colorado.
  • Apr. 6: Denise Oliverson (25). Abducted while visiting her parents in Grand Junction, Colorado.
  • May 6: Lynette Culver (13). Snatched from a school playground at Alameda Junior High School, Pocatello, Idaho.
  • June 28: Susan Curtis (15). Disappeared while attending a youth conference at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
  • July 4: Nancy Baird (23). Disappeared while working at a convenience store. Confessed shortly before his execution. Layton, Utah.

1978

  • Jan. 15: Lisa Levy (20), Margaret Bowman (21), Karen Chandler (survived), Kathy Kleiner Deshields (survived). The Chi Omega killings, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida.
  • Jan. 15: Cheryl Thomas (survived). Bludgeoned in her bed, eight blocks away from the Chi Omega Sorority house.
  • Feb. 9: Kimberly Leach (12), kidnapped from her junior high school in Lake City, Florida. She was raped, murdered and discarded in Suwannee State Park.

The above information is from Wikipedia.

 

Most exhibited artwork makes no room for women’s desire except as object of desire.  Never subject but subjected to.  The ghost of woman embodied in the distant but definite description of her insulted form.  Insults, and sexualized descriptions - it is the woman who is mocked, and often violated, in the language of art.  It may be true that as objects and never subject, women are thus outside of language, never able to enter it, only to be entered through it. A ghost author simultaneously elevated and demeaned until she forms herself and makes herself manifest.    

I want to be the author of my own desire.  I want to speak the language of art too!  The swagger, the insistence. To take up space like a man, or a subject.  Someone who makes art!  Someone who authors desire!   Someone who lives.

 

lsmith@calarts.edu