ABOUT THE ARTIST
Calling her work the examination of “an ambiguous and often fragmented world,” JACKIE FELIX (1929–2009) often explored the nebulous zone of those “popular sources (comic books, film noir, the daily papers)” so often reflective of our immediate cultural amnesia toward those everyday horrors we witness or inhabit. Continues Jackie: “I catch my figures (sometimes alone, sometimes attracted, repelled) in the stop action of a single frame of film . . . a coherency of thought and imagery, a realm in which to examine human sexuality and power,” perhaps nowhere more evident than in her series of six paintings We’re Really Happy. Not oblivious to the humor necessary to excavate such societal ills as the abuse of power—both in spheres domestic and militarized—Jackie lent a generosity of wit to her friends and colleagues, and to those younger artists she befriended. Jackie, who held an MFA and BFA from the University at Buffalo, was also the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, including those awarded by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the Millay Colony for the Arts Residency.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BEN LYLE BEDARD is a writer living in Buffalo. His work can be read in BlazeVox, fhole, Jacket, Ninth Letter, P-Queue, Damn the Caesars, Artvoice, and our own Yellow Edenwald Field. His first chapbook, Implicit Lyrics, was published in 2007 by Punch Press. We’re Really Happy was written in 2008 in collaboration with Jackie Felix and performed at Soundlab on February 26, 2009 as part of the show “Planned Obsolescence.”
CREDITS
Copyright © 2009 The Buffalo Ochre Papers, with all visual rights and textual rights reverting to Alvin Felix and to Ben Bedard respectively upon publication.
Design and production by Edric Mesmer and Jude Vasseur.
We’re Really Happy was printed in a limited edition of 150.
