self-portrait, San Francisco, California Š2006 by M.Sturm

STATEMENT

I've been an obsessive journal writer from a young age, and some time in my early twenties a friend mentioned that diary keeping is art, "like Anais Nin." That was a convenient justification in case I needed one. For me, writing was something to fill in the gaps in my day while I pondered which direction to take with my life. Journal writing led me into poetry, which has recently led me into lyrics . . .

At the University of Michigan I took art classes and quickly learned that "art' is potentially the same old "cog-in-the-wheel," specialized, capitalist pursuit as business or whatever. I graduated with a transpersonal psychology degree and then went on to pursue a focused life of "non-specialization" (i.e. travel, watercolors, flute, tarot, photography, ashrams, video, monasteries, off-balanced men, and a lot of reading).

I've managed to support myself by working with marginalized populations: ex-felons, gang members, teenage drug addicts, and primarily, the homeless mentally ill. I have found these American throwaway, bi-product populations interesting to work with. These work environments necessitate a humanism, which in turn necessitates a leniency and flexibility in work schedules. Plus, it is here there is an undeniable life force that while "crazy" is refreshingly not repressed.

When I turned thirty, I went San Francisco State to study narrative, experimental, and documentary filmmaking. I'm attracted to all of these forms and their interweaving. Filmmaking is the medium where I feel I can communicate most directly. Psychologically, politically, aesthetically. As well, filmmaking (and art in general) is my spiritual main vein to the transcendental.

Marjorie Sturm

@ Willard North, San Francisco, California Š2006 by M.Sturm

BIO

Marjorie Sturm was raised in New York. She studied psychology and art at the University of Michigan and then moved out to San Francisco in the early nineties. She received her MFA in filmmaking from San Francisco State and completed the award winning (Grand Festival Award for short feature at BV&FF2003) Smoke the Pipe Dream, Honey and Eggs, and Treehouse. She has lived for extended periods in Mexico, Nepal, India, and Israel studying poetry, film, music, and religion. She has worked with the mentally-ill homeless in the Tenderloin on and off since 1995. She has collaborated as a lyricicist and flutist with the composer Ernesto Diaz-Infante, and more recently Sturm has created the visual component for the duo project Neshama Alma Band. Through Pax Recordings, Sturm edited and co-produced a compilation CD of twenty-six artists titled "Voices in the Wilderness: Dissentingn Soundscapes and Songs of G.W.'s America." She is presently working on a documentary about "JT Leroy," the literary, entertainment, and celebrity hoax of our time.
Websites:
www.myspace.com/marjoriesturm
www.paxrecordings.com/marjoriesturm
Email: purplemaze@earthlink.net

Pax Recordings, P.O. Box 591138, San Francisco, CA 941159-1138 USA
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