Miranda July is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist. July’s career encompasses iconic films such as Me and You and Everyone We Know & Kajillionaire, books like her short story collection No One Belongs Here More Than You + debut novel The First Bad Man, as well as bountiful performance and art work, all of which you can find on her website. Her upcoming novel, All Fours, comes out on May 14th and is available for preorder here, and you can catch her on tour for it in various cities throughout the US and Europe. Her solo exhibition, “Miranda July: New Society”, is also on view at Fondazione Prada Osservatorio in Milan through October 15th. Lucky for us, Miranda is here to tell us what she’s into.
🎨
I started renting the house behind my studio a couple months ago, even though the space was *wrecked* (the location tho…!) I couldn’t conceive of how I would renovate it into a beautiful home until I began to think of it as art project. Crucial to the plan was 24 year-old Nico B Young, a genius artist who had never made a cabinet in his life but was game for the challenge of completely rebuilding the kitchen from scratch. He carved these shiny, butter yellow cupboards and counters that you just want to eat. The whole thing is a perfect installation that I made crepes for my child in this morning.
📖
I read and stared at every page of this book in the first few days I lived in the new little home-behind-my-studio, a very emotionally intense time. I had been a long time fan of the interdisciplinary design studio, Bless — wore their clothes, coveted their objects — without really understanding the scope of what they do. I think this happens with all of us artists who don’t fit cleanly into a category — it’s a lot to expect people to understand every nuance of your intentions. But a book can do it; I really got it. The book set the tone for how I was living and thinking in this new space and this new chapter of my life — which I am thinking might be the whole second half until the end.
🍊
For the last 20 years I completely ignored the orange tree in the backyard of my studio because my backyard was the front yard of the guy who rented the back house. But now I’m that guy, so the orange tree is all mine. It’s almost completely replaced the internet for me. You’ve got the bright orange dots, like out of a painting of California, and the drama of the squirrels running away with the oranges. Then there’s the hummingbirds, who I have trouble playing it cool around, I just stare and stare. And now: orange blossoms! That smell like sexy beautiful perfume! I keep cutting off sprigs and sending them off with guests.
🌸
The orange blossoms made me think of this one. Marissa is an independent perfumier and kind of an underground cult sensation. My child and I visited her studio a couple years ago and she sent us off with a bunch of samples and I gave one to the nanny and the next day I realized the nanny smelled INCREDIBLE and I slightly regretted giving that one away (Flaming Creature) but then my child walked by, also smelling incredible, and this was great news because children don’t really wear perfume so I stole their one (Ching Shih) and used every last drop. Perfume is hard to smell on yourself.
🧤
I’ve been using scrubby gloves on every inch of my body for last 25 years, ever since independent curator Astria Supark said “they’re really good for getting into all the nooks and crannies.” For only a few bucks you can be completely smooth and polished at all times. Before taking them off I like to say, “Hey everybody, it’s me, Mickey Mouse!” in a special mouse voice, which some people thought was funny the first few times. (Because Mickey Mouse also wears gloves.)
👩🎨
Back when Astria recommended the scrubby gloves to me she was solely an independent curator (she curated tape for my project joanie4jackie.com) but now her work straddles creative and scholarly work. Her cross-disciplinary projects often draw from publicly available tools and databases, chronicling subcultures and perspectives that have been left out but in a very pop way. Look for her show Asian Futures Without Asians, it’s a knock out.
RELATED
Perfectly Imperfect
0
