Where is She Now?

Were you a participant in J4J? Did you send a tape or attend a screening?
Please share your memories with us. Select the link that best applies to you:
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Chainletter Filmmakers:

U-Matic Chainletter

Dulcie Clarkson, How the Miracle of Masturbation Saved Me From Becoming a Teenage Space Alien (also How The Miracle of Masturbation Saved Me From Becoming a Teenage Space Alien on Joanie 4 Jackie 4Ever and A Wild Horse Rider on U-Matic Chainletter)
November 5, 2016

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?

My first film, “A Fucker, A Fighter, A Wild Horse Rider” was in the U-matic Chainletter in ’97, and I imagine I had heard about the Chainletter either because I was a fan of Tammy Rae Carland, whose films had been in the first two Chainletters, or because Miranda had been in and out of Olympia where I had been living. I was 24 then and had just graduated from College, left Olympia and moved back to my small town where I was teaching drama, film, and feminist history at two different private schools, and using my students to help me shoot my 2nd movie.

What interested you about the project?
I really related to having an almost secret media channel between girls, like a diary trade. It felt necessary to have a place where women felt safe to use their own unique voices to tell stories to each other, stories that might not meet certain critical standards, but for that reason would be more raw and more real. I had been watching girls do the same thing in the music scene with the Riot Grrrl movement and it seemed thrilling that women in film could have a similar space. Also I just love the “Message in a Bottle” aspect of the Chainletter where fate takes your film and sends it off on an unknown journey to meet strangers.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
Around the time that my movies were traveling around on the Chainletter, they also won in the Black Maria Film Fest so they were playing places like RISD and the Smithsonian, and I was feeling like a filmmaker, though I was also starting to wonder how I would move forward without moving to New York or LA. It was sort of the moment that I was considering the juncture between Artist and Professional, feeling like I needed to grow up, but unsure how I would accomplish that without selling out. I ended up deciding to just try writing a screenplay because I didn’t want to leave the country, and I didn’t want to go into a local Cable TV job. Joanie 4 Jackie gave me the feeling that my artist self was still banging around out in the world, whispering secret stories, while I existed in a small town America reality.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with your movie?
I had a great time shooting my movie because I got to hang out with all these wonderful kids that I had grown up with. It was a little like running a Summer camp, as I ended up having to cook for them and mediate some dramas. I remember I borrowed a van and took a bunch of punk rock kids to the city to shoot and they started panhandling between shots. I worried I was in over my head a few times.On one really crucial day, a day with a lot of dialog, I noticed that my sound guy was being really flakey and when I asked him what was going on he admitted that he and my ‘camera assistant’ had taken mushrooms. It was definitely challenging having an all teenage crew but my goal was to have the shoot be as real a part of the experience as the final movie.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
At the time I thought it was an underground video zine to be shared among young women. I feel the same now, but I’m surprised that it’s still circulating in the culture.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
My Olympia housemates, Wendy Jo Carlton, at the time a filmmaker and currently the Director of the webseries Easy Abby, and Kirsten Schaffer, who was a young firebrand and is now the Executive Director of Women in Film in Los Angeles; Riot Grrrl and all the female bands that grew out of Olympia; my friends’ zines like Pinto, and Shark Fear/Shark Awareness, Bikini Kill, and many others; Bust magazine; Female Directors Jane Campion, Allison Anders, Julie Dash; Alt Newspaper ‘In These Times’; The Capitol Theater in Olympia; Evergreen College; My friends from the Young Communist League of America; The fabulous artists who raised me: Kate Brown, Marilyn Gendron, Robin Parson, Dina Tagliabue and Frankie Benoit and my Mom who is an bad-ass environmental activist and artist.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I manage an 800 acre Ranch in the Rocky Mountains with my husband. I’m raising two boys, often homeschooling them. I’m still involved with various media and eco activism projects. I just co-produced a music video/short film for musician Neil Young.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
Links to online venues for young feminist artist?

Fiona (Fingerface) (Saunders) Helmsley, Best Friends (also Princess and Lois on Joanie 4 Jackie 4Ever and The Silence of the Barettes on U-Matic Chainletter)
September 3, 2017

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill. We met her after a show at Gilman Street. My boyfriend at the time had recorded Bikini Kill playing and wanted to give them a copy of the tape. When we told Kathleen we also made short films, she said we should contact Miranda and gave us her address. I was 19.

What interested you about the project?
My boyfriend and I had a public access show, and had making been a bunch of short films with friends. (He was much more technologically savvy than I was, and still works in film.) I did a zine then, and the project seemed really similar to that: sending off something I had made to a person I didn’t know, but suspected I had something in common with, living in an unfamiliar destination. I also loved Kathleen Hanna, and since the project had her blessing, I was curious.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I considered myself a writer. My boyfriend at the time had been making short unscripted films for years, but the films we made together always had some kind of script (whether or not it was actually honored), or at least some loose idea of plot and theme. My magic is not spontaneous. My magic benefits from both forethought and planning.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with your movie?
Associations I make with the movies: Silence of the Barettes (the spelling error was not intentional) was made in Berkeley; we were staying there at the time. Before the internet, writing letters was really important. So were classified ads in the back of magazines. It was how you made connections with people who shared your interests in the outside world. My boyfriend and I were really into punk rock, and most of the cast were people from bands we liked who we came into contact with through writing letters, trading zines, and buying records. Princess and Lois was filmed at my mom’s house. There is a scene in my old bedroom; you can see my posters on the wall. I think one of them is a Big Miss Moviola poster. The scene on the railroad tracks is down the street from my mother’s house, we had done a lot of the graffiti you see.

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I thought it was awesome. I still think it’s awesome.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
Oh gosh, I’m pretty sure I went to more than one, but the one I remember most clearly was at CBGB. Maybe it was 1996? Miranda had set up a video camera in a little closet and there was a question people were supposed to answer and their answers were recorded, and played back to the audience. It was the first time I met Miranda. We had been writing letters back and forth. I still have some of them! I was about to move to New York City and she gave me a lot of advice about different things and people to look into. She was always really supportive. I had a crush on her for sure.

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
Punk rock and riot grrl. Maximumrocknroll was huge, in part, because of their classified ads. Erick Lyle did a great zine called SCAM (it’s actually still around–he just released a 25th anniversary issue.) I loved Film Threat magazine: In the 1990s, they were a great resource for learning about underground films. I was a big John Waters fan. I was also interested in the films Lydia Lunch was making with Richard Kern (though that influence might not be so obvious. I think the John Waters influence is pretty obvious).

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am a writer. I’ve written two books. My second book Girls Gone Out just came out in August.

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
All of the movies. Maybe we could publish all our old letters to each other?

Malado Baldwin(-Tejeda), Day Ditty
April 13, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
Miranda July gave a talk and screening of her films in our school’s performance hall. Somehow with her outfit and persona it became this beautiful performance- at once outgoing and reclusive, she reached out to us, to me it felt, and invited submissions to her new Chainletter project. I later contacted her and submitted my film. I was in my early twenties at the time.

What interested you about the project?
I was making a lot of home movies at the time, and there were few resources for young filmmakers.

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
Yes, I considered myself both a student of film and a filmmaker.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?:
(see below)

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I was a student in college, part of a new film program at Swarthmore. Miranda July was invited by my professor Patti White to lecture at the school, and she blew my mind! She left quite and impression. I got really excited knowing there were other girls out there doing it themselves.

Joanie4Jackie was a rare opportunity to see other women filmmakers and what they were up to.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
During intermission, Miranda assigned us a task of making our own mini movies with cameras she had set up around the building I remember that my best friend Jesse and I thought it would be funny and appropriate to shoot in the ladies room. So we went to the bathroom down the hall, got up on the sinks, and peed in them. At the time we thought it was hilarious and rebellious… I wonder what she ever did with these films!

After the talk, a few of us went back to the dorms to hang out, and I painted Miranda’s portrait while we chatted. I remember she had a crazy blonde spiky wig, and layers of pantyhose pulled over her platform shoes. It was very tank girl meets raver chic meets fairy …

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
I had emerged from the 90s DC punk, riot-girl, positive force scene– a background which emphasized DIY political, musical and artistic movements. Then, in college, I studied feminist literature, alternative cinema and postmodern theory.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?
I am a filmmaker and artist, currently completing a film project called LUX/NOX.
My website: www.maladobaldwin.com

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
More pictures and more of the film clips!

Shannon Kringen, Goddess Kring (also Goddess Kring on Perfect 10: The Chainletter and Goddess Kring on The Underwater Chainletter)
March 28, 2013

How did you find out about Joanie 4 Jackie and how old were you at the time?
I am 44 now so I was in my mid to late 20’s at the time I think? I worked at Kinkos in Seattle and saw a “Big Miss Moviola” zine in the recycle bin or on the counter I think? Or maybe Miranda gave me one? I was the cashier. I worked there from 1994-1997.

What interested you about the project?
I wanted to be with a group of artists and get my work out there and seen in a supportive homegrown handmade funky way. I did a public access TV show called “Goddess KRING” from 1995-2011 and submitting video to this project was an extension of that. I wanted my voice heard and seen and was curious how others would respond to me. I wanted to feel I could be my real authentic self and belong at the same time. This is an ongoing battle for me. I want to be authentic and yet connected. I feel like the loner miss fit odd person most of the time! I don’t like “blending in” but want to be included. I like “standing out.”

At the time you participated in Joanie 4 Jackie did you consider yourself a filmmaker? What was your relationship to making movies?
I consider myself a multi media aRtist. (capital R intentional) Making movies is a way to get what is inside me out into the world. I love how powerful video is in combining audio/visual and motion in one medium…and that it can be seen online, television and screened in aRt galleries or movie houses. I also paint and take photos, write poetry and record my spoken word. I do silkscreening and printmaking and collage as well.

Do you have any specific anecdotes or memories associated with the project?
I wish I had gone further in submitting and done more!

What did you think/feel about the Joanie 4 Jackie at the time? And now, in retrospect?
I think it’s a lovely concept. I get sick when I think about the competitive mean spirited way in which some creative people treat each other. To share work and distribute work in this way is very cooperative and friendly and reminds me of being in kindergarten and playing.

If you attended a screening, can you tell us where and when it was and anything else you remember about it?
Not sure if I did or not? I have done many things over the years. If there was one in Seattle I might have? At 911 Media aRts Center?

What institutions, groups, people, publications and movements were inspiring you at the time of your participation in J4J?
Public access TV, figure modeling for art schools (that is my “day job” and has been for 21 years. spiritual groups around Seattle, World Naked Bike Ride, Summer Solstice Parade people in Seattle. naturists, nudists, Tom Petty and Tori Amos music. Was at the time and still is.

What do you do now – professionally and otherwise? Are you still involved in filmmaking?

I model for aRt classes nude for a living and I sell my aRtwork on my website. I hand paint shoes (gave one pair I made for Tori Amos to her in 1996 and she wore them on stage at the paramount theatre during one of her concerts).

I still make Goddess KRING videos and put them online here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/shannonkringen

A short doc was made about me called “Typecast Dragon.” It screened at the following:
1. Toronto Film Festival, 2. Seattle Film Festival, 3. Bumbershoot, 4. Northwest Film Forum, 5. Was a finalist in the 2012 International Documentary Challenge.
Seattle cult icon Goddess Kring wrestles with her public access fame as she transitions into a new cycle in her life. A finalist in the 2012 International Documentary Challenge, “Typecast Dragon” premiered Internationally at the Hot Docs Film Festival and premiered in the US at the Seattle International Film Festival.

I also self published this book recently and it’s selling:
aRt, Identity and the Sacred
Shannon Kringen’s 140 page book of multi media aRt. (mostly photography) and her philosophy on how aRt, Identity and the Sacred relate to each other. aRt as a spiritual practice.
http://www.blurb.com/b/4063156-art-identity-and-the-sacred

I am finishing my BA degree at Antioch University in Seattle and might go on to earn my masters combining aRt and psych.

I plan to write a book about my life story and fill it with synchronicity travel stories and multi media aRtwork. I have friends in many other countries and would love to figure model and couch surf my way around the world and write a book about that or make a film about it.

My main sites are here:
http://shannonkringen.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shannonkringen/
http://shannonkringen.livejournal.com/

Anything you would like to see on the J4J site?
Not sure? Maybe a bio and links to everyone involved…their websites and what they are doing now? Future collaborations? A book about this project? Interview us all and make a documentary?

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