User:Shorne1989/HollyHughes

Holly Hughes (Born March 10, 1955) is a American female performance artist. She is best known for her connection with the NEA Four, where she was denied funding from the endowment, and The WOW,Women's One World, Cafe. She began as a feminist painter in New York and quickly became a household name in the feminist world as a very inspirational playwright. She explores sexuality, body images, and the female mind in her works and continues to write today. She is the recipient of several awards including the Lambda Book Award and the Obie Award. She currently resides in her home state of Michigan as a professor of the fine arts.

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Biography
Born in Saginaw, Michigan on March 10, 1955. she graduated from Kalamazoo College in 1977 and moved to New York City two years later. She originally moved to New York to become a feminist painter. She started her career as a performance artist alongside Peggy Shaw, featured in Holly's O Solo Homo, and Lois Weaver, directing and performing in Dress Suits to Hiree. Battling her inner turmoil with subjects on sexuality, masturbation, Jesus,etc, her plays generally tend to elaborate on the different topics she dealt with as a young girl in college and how that transformed her into the self-suffient woman she is today. In 1990 Hughes earned national attention as one of the so-called NEA Four, artists whose funding from the National Endowment for the Arts was vetoed. She addresses the NEA conrtoversy in Clit Notes. Holly Hughes was a member of the Women's One World Cafe (Wow Cafe) where she was able to "Tell the stories she so desperately wanted to be told as a child." After writing several performances pieces, plays, and solo works, Holly Hughes now works in her home state at University of Michigan School of Art and Design.

Connection with the WOW Cafe
After moving from Kalamazoo, Michigan; Hughes settled in New York. For a while she struggled to find her footing and even remarked "I felt like a waitress without a cause. Why had I moved to New York City to live in an even crummier apartment and do the same things that I was doing in Kalamazoo?" . Hughes then found a poster detailing a "Double X-rated Christmas party" to be held in the basement of a Catholic church. Upon entering she found females stripping for females, kissing booths, and a highly sexual atmosphere. Hughes notes that from that point on, she was hooked. After many parties, Hughes became more involved with the group and began doing theater with them because as she states: "that's what they were doing". Hughes' first performance at the WOW Cafe was a piece called "My Life as a Glamour Don't", about various fashion mistakes. She followed this up with "Shrimp in a Basket" and then her breakthrough The Well of Horniness.

List of Work

 * Well of Horniness (1983)
 * The Lady Dick (1984)
 * World Without End (1989)


 * Dress Suits to Hire (1989)
 * Clit Notes (1996)


 * O Solo Homo(1998)

Creative Process
In 1996, Hughes released perhaps her most famous and influential performances: Clit Notes. Much of what can be seen in this work can be viewed as autobiographical and much insight is given into Hughes' creative process. The stage directions of Clit Notes indicate Hughes' just as "the performer" so there is no delineation between Hughes and the character that she is portraying on stage, and in many ways it muddles the distinction between real and representation. Throughout much of Clit Notes, Hughes performs several roles: herself at different ages, her mother, and various lovers that she has had. This is Hughes' way of showing that her life and her art are one in the same and exist in a symbiotic relationship. Her writing is a way for Hughes' to explore herself and to understand the events that have shaped her life, often using her writing to escape from different elements that aimed to repress her beliefs.