June 7, 2025 11:06 pm
My performance art hero and good friend John M. White has left this world just shy of his 88th birthday.
I first met him in 1991 when I wandered into his performance art class at the Univ. of California, Irvine.
I didn’t know what performance art was, not really, or that the burly, mustached guy teaching it was a famous painter & sculptor, and also one of the early pioneers of L.A.’s performance art scene in the 70s & 80s.
But what he taught blew my mind. He helped becoming-artists dig deep, and many went full throttle, embodying the surreal to unleash emotional undercurrents that were often pure chaos & danger & gorgeous & that sometimes escalated so quickly that John had to grab the reins.
I saw artists throw themselves into walls and out of trees, risk knees & elbows rolling hard across concrete floors, bare their souls while eating lipstick, tap-dance across live electrical wires, one guy played hockey with a cow tongue, somebody else prattled Walt Whitman while pulling out a loaded gun (the gun was a terrible cliche, been done at least a hundred times & the student got expelled, but holey moley). Turning people into anarchic provocateurs wasn’t necessarily John’s intention, but it happened often because he was so good at providing safe spaces without limits.
After college, he took me around and introduced me to kick-ass L.A. performance art venues & artists who took me in like family, and John took me in too. I ate meals at his house. He gave me my first paid art jobs (I painted objects for his art installations around town, Warhol-factory-style). I met his wildly talented wife Sylvia, a driven art dealer/curator who went on to open successful galleries from NY to LA to Mexico while running a business that taught artists how to market themselves. And I met their hilarious little daughter Rachel, who John brought to class so she could critique students’ performance art pieces. “Did you like that performance?” John would ask, to which Rachel would often scream, “NO!” Lolol. (She liked my pieces, thank god!)
John started his 5x5x5 series in L.A. (five 5-minute pieces by 5 artists). The show later moved up to Ventura, which is home to incredible artists and amaaaazing audiences who are game for anything. Hundreds of performances (maybe thousands) erupted in gallery spaces with artists sweating, gambling everything, audiences thrilled & packed to the walls, the things we saw were a miracle, and this went on for decades.
A formally trained painter, John’s need to make art was rabid. Walk into his studio day or night, and you’d see at least 5 paintings going at once on a wall, paint dripping down to the carpet. His paintings are now part of American history in collections at the Guggenheim, LACMA, Smithsonian, Broad, and many others. His favorite studio was a Ventura strip mall storefront located next to a police substation — the cops would drive by the studio slowwww nightly to see what latest wild things were on display.
An avid fisherman and insatiable flirt, he was constantly surrounded by adoring friends and family and artists, and he was always quick to offer art advice, especially when it came to performance. Since he never stopped critiquing my work, I guess I was his student for 34 years (and I’d gladly take 34 more).
I got to hug him just hours before he departed. I reminded him of his favorite performances — some of these included a 6-foot penis; his student Beth who stood on a busy street corner holding a sign that read “Will F**k For Money” that almost caused several traffic accidents; and, the guy (we could never remember his name) who peed on the audience and almost started a riot but still got applause. John also liked the time I did a testicle puppet show, and the time when I asked fellow artists to sell me their souls for a dollar (many did, and I still have those signed contracts! lol).
A memorial was held at the 5x5x5 in Ventura at Art City this past week. The gallery was packed to the gills with artists and friends, and I had the honor of performing a flurry of John White bits referencing his life and long performance art history that spanned 50 years (not easy to sum up in 5 minutes, but I tried!).
Since John was once a pro golfer, it seemed necessary to dump hundreds of golf balls into the audience at the end. Handwritten on each was “87″ (John’s age) and the initials “JW.” Watching everyone trying to exit afterward with all those balls underfoot was a slowgoing delight John would’ve enjoyed.
On my way up to the show from L.A., I stopped off to pick up John’s ashes, which were packed into a container held in a red velvet bag. It was surreal, driving to the 5x5x5 with John’s remains in my car. When I reached Ventura, I put the bag into a black box John had given me in the 1990s, carried it into the gallery, and set it on a tall white pedestal (John would’ve loved that! lol) so he could be physically present for the 5x5x5 one last time.
If you’d told me in 1991 that 34 years later, I would carry John White in my arms into a Ventura gallery where he would sit on stage to watch me perform a retrospective of his life’s work, I’m not sure I would’ve believed it. Talk about full circle.
The final performance of the 5x5x5 memorial was a great piece by Steve Nagler of The Shrimps, who set a tiny empty chair made of matchsticks on fire. We all watched it burn to ash. It was moving, gorgeous, and the perfect finale.
I feel insanely lucky that I got to be part of these many amazing adventures, all thanks to my longtime mentor, doting husband and father, artist and teacher extraordinaire, and loyal friend to so many, John M. White.
Performance art saved many lives (including mine), thanks to him.
(In case it’s not 100% obvious that I’m a rabid John White fan, check out this happy birthday video I made for him in 2021…hahaha. And of course, my novel about performance art is dedicated to John too).
And for making John’s memorial a massive success, THANK YOU to Ventura’s 5x5x5 artists & wild fans for your endless talents + support, to brilliant musician Steve Aguilar for organizing & hosting & playing guitar, to Paul Lindhard & Art City Studios for hosting the 5x5x5 all these years, and to my cheerleader, photographer, logician, & creative partner KayDee Kersten for all her magic. xoxo
