Mary Joan 'Jay' DeFeo was a perfect example of a unique and creative artist dedicated to art to the point of letting life itself be consumed by it. She spent much of her life in and around the San Francisco Bay Area, and was closely tied in with the flourishing art and hipster scene growing and evolving there primarily in the 50's, and ultimately she was connected in ways to the Beat Generation. Jay has made many paintings, drawings, photos, jewelry, and so forth. That being said, the painting featured above has become her most recognized and spectacular work.
Originally called 'Deathrose,' it then became known by other names such as 'White Rose', and eventually becoming simply 'The Rose'. To quote music journalist Greil Marcus- "DeFeo is Dr. Frankenstein, The Rose is her monster". You see, what started out as an innocent enough painting in her Fillmore Street flat in 1958 became quite larger than life, and a one ton testimony to a consummate relationship between an artist and her art. When I say 'one ton' I mean it quite literally as well, since the painting weighed at least that much all was said and done, not to mention it was 11 feet tall, 8 feet wide and more than 8 inches thick in most places.
In earlier stages she had the thing mounted up in front of a large bay window, and began putting layers and layers of paint on. Then she extended the surface of the canvas itself to a much larger size, and added (and at times took away) more layers of paint and other material (allegedly including glittering mica flakes, parts of old Christmas trees, hair barrettes and so on.) Jay didn't believe in limiting herself to only certain types of materials for her media. It is safe to say though The Rose was a painting, it could equally be called a sculpture, or installment art.
It took up 8 years of her life to finish the thing, and it has been said the piece would have continued endlessly if not for the fact of an impending eviction from the apartment. Even well before the eviction, commercial offers from galleries did not sway her, as she felt the work was still unfinished. The irony being that once the painting was taken out it was hard to find any museum to take the damn thing since they didn't want to spend a fortune trying to restore it (as parts were already falling off).
Jay had devoted herself so much to this work she had become reclusive and survived on a steady diet of almost nothing but brandy and cigarettes, so it is said. The painting process had covered the whole nearby area with glitter and paint and the like, so entering the apartment was like entering 'a temple' according to artist Bruce Conner, who made a film about the task of taking the painting out of the premises it called home ('The White Rose', 1967). Part of the wall had to be knocked out around the window, and the movers used a forklift and a big crane to haul the painting out! Conner described the connection he noticed between Jay and her painting, and he said she looked as if she were ready to go out the window herself! During the lunch break that day, Jay was lying right on top of the painting as if it were a bed.
The painting was then put in a storage room in the Pasadena Art Museum, where Jay would show up each day to dabble in some finishing touches, Christian Brothers brandy and Gauloise cigarettes in hand. DeFeo was quite burnt out by this point, finding a permanent home for the painting was hard, yet Jay refused to throw the thing away. Her marriage dissolved a few years afterward, though how much of it was strained by her devotion to The Rose is not known.
Some time after The San Francisco Art Institute agreed to put the painting up in a conference room. People were careless and spilled coffee on it, and it was used to put out cigarettes. After a bit of this nonsense it was 'mummified' and placed behind a wall for 20 years. Jay spent the rest of her days doing many things, including teaching art, and of course, trying to resurrect The Rose like Lazarus from the dead. She was diagnosed with lung cancer in her late 50's and died when she was 60, on Remembrance Day in 1989. Many people thought the cancer came from using tons of white lead paint on The Rose, and Jay licking the tip of her brush frequently to get a tip. Of course all those cigarettes couldn't have helped either. Yet all said and done, it seemed like Jay really lived and died for all her work, especially The Rose. If Jay had lived only a few years longer, she would have witnessed The Whitney Museum of American Art raising money to restore The Rose and put it on display for all to see, which is where it is now.
