Interviews From Yale Radio / Artists, Curators And More

In 1932, Paulina Peavy (1901 – 1999) attended a séance at the home of Ida L. Ewing in Santa Ana, California, where she claims to have met a UFO named Lacamo, a spirit from another world. From that moment forward Peavy, a university-trained artist, painted with a brush that “moved on its own.” In order to better channel Lacamo’s energies, Peavy also constructed and wore masks when she painted, occasionally signing her works with Lacamo’s name alongside her own. Peavy’s entire life was dedicated to promoting her worldview and various philosophies through drawing, painting, sculpture, text, and film. Her works on paper depict the artist’s individualized visual cosmos using shapes that resemble energy beams, solar systems, and procreative organic shapes signifying genitalia, ova, fallopian tubes, sperm, and fetuses. Peavy’s life and work were constantly evolving to reflect her belief in mankind’s evolution to an androgynous one-sex through contact with aliens. Laura Whitcomb is a surrealist scholar and the direct