Website interview

 

for Narrative Paths Journal

A Rhythmic Context: Interview with Ann, a Versatile Artist 

 


Born in 1955 Ann grew up in the San Francisco area. She was a flutist and an art composer and graduated with a Double Major in flute performance and music composition from both University of Redlands (B.M.) and Mill’s College (M. A.) Ann moved to Los Angeles in 1979 and was a member of the Independent Composer’s Association.  She’s a mother of two (a boy and girl), a grandmother of four (2 boys and 2 girls).  Ann owned a small business, Merrymaking Children’s parties from Possibility to Reality, doing upgrade custom children’s parties in Los Angeles while she raised her children. Since November 2005, at the age 50 she developed a career as an Adult Film actress under the name of “Robin Pachino”.   She has an educational BDSM site, www.asksubmissann.com

 

She offers her submissive service professionally by appointment and utilizes online access.  She has and continues to do erotic art, BDSM and fetish modeling for some of the world’s best photographer’s.  She considers herself to be truly blessed to have excellent health; to be able to hike with her dog, Oliver Queen, to take in the beauty of this earth; to have positive supportive friends/family she enjoys being with and is inspired by; to be free to create – a deviant worthy of discipline every day.

US Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan’s observed, “One man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.” 

NP: What we do to earn enough money survive is but one aspect of who we are, it’s never the entire picture. Neither can our existence be encapsulated in a moment in time.  Your interests are extensive. What drew you to becoming a flutist and the types of music your preferred? Had you considered in practicing to the point of playing in a symphony orchestra? What was the impetus and passion in you?  

Ann:  I was in 3rd grade when my class was taken to a multi-purpose room to hear the school orchestra play.  What I considered to be a beautiful girl was playing the flute.  I wanted to be that girl.  So, the flute it was.  I was very lucky and in the 4th grade the student teacher said her sister gave flute lessons, and I studied with Carol Minor.  When Carol got married and moved away, I studied with Yaada Weber from the San Francisco Conservatory.  Grandma took me to the SF Orchestra Concerts, The SF Opera and The SF Ballet from the time I was a little girl, and I just loved it.  I was the type of girl that when I read in the newspaper that Nureyev was performing, I asked to see him.  We had an active music program in San Leandro, the best students were in the Jazz Band from Jr. High and up. That was the happening thing in my world.  I think all of us went on to be musicians or at least play in college.  At the University of Redland’s I met a group of composers, who expanded my knowledge of Jazz, Improvisation and New Music.  We formed the Improviser’s Orchestra and there is a LP on Advance Recordings of live recordings. https://www.discogs.com/artist/1436812-Improvisers-Orchestra

One of my pieces is published by Peter Garland in Soundings Volume 10 (1976), curiously available on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001NSVL8I
 
 
 
 
 

   I then got my Masters’ degree and moved to Los Angeles because I wanted to be part of the New Music composer’s group (Independent Composer’s Association) that did new music concerts in Los Angeles.  I never wanted to play in an orchestra once I was introduced to new music and started writing my own music. I wanted to promote people listening to what was happening NOW and that almost never happens in an orchestra.  In all aspects this influenced me so I sought out new music for flute by live composers.  I would say that whatever I have been passionate about, I have wrapped my life around.  I dive deep into what has my interest.  Making money never seemed to matter, I made enough, I had a place and I ate, I had friends who were into what I was into and we did that thing.  I was happy.

NP:  How would you describe your artistic and philosophical approach to your life? What type of art do you enjoy creating with your hands? What types of literature, art, music and science piques your interest?

Ann:  I do what I love, what holds my intellectual, emotional and spiritual interest the most.  When I was a little girl, I remember being at a BIG table in a room with my relatives, everyone was there, and they ranged in age 18 to 88. They were there to discuss something morbid, someone had died and decisions had to be made about stuff.  It had nothing to do with me, so I deeply looked at each one, and evaluating each one: what they did, what their relationship was like and their degree of happiness regarding their life and state of health.  The women in bad relationships had all had something awful called cancer. I don’t know if I really knew what that was, but I knew it was bad. 

And the people doing jobs they did not like were terribly unhappy, and their faces were not smooth and welcoming, it really did not matter how much money they made, their demeanor, how they held their body, and attitudes were undesirable.  I did not want to be like that.  I wanted to be happy and healthy which didn’t seem to have anything to do with how much money you had.  I decided right then that I would pursue what made me happy, give me joy, and that it was better to be single and a person you liked than be with someone who you felt unhappy with.  I have kept that promise to myself.  

I know that seems simple on the surface yet it had a Zen quality – self acceptance.  Later, after being divorced, I had the epiphany that the rationale in life was to make conscious self-care choices for yourself daily, and these would add up over time to a good healthy life.  I didn’t want to let my life read like  Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities filled with drama on every other page. But I knew there’s no such thing as a drama free life. I wanted to reduce the drama and find the pleasant and pleasurable.

Part of the seeking was/is painting. No formal training – I simply enjoy it.  It makes me smile.  I enjoy cooking.  I love food.  Food can be orgasmic in your mouth.

I like fantasy books, adventure, heroes and villains.  I enjoy a good story.  I love Beethoven’s 9th, Opera, Ballet (Swan Lake), chamber music, orchestral music, dark musicals, Beebop Jazz.  Art is very personal – it speaks to you or it doesn’t.  I like finding out what science they are discovery next, what are they exploring next.  That is an adventure, an exciting journey, they are fascinating.  I cheer them in the universe.

NP: As a carry-over from artistic endeavors you enjoy gardening. Do you find a philosophical and psychological blending between art, music, literature and gardening where one dips ones hands into the soil to feel its textures and to plant and cultivate?   

Ann:  I’m not complicated.  For example, I like hiking and got into it to manage my anger regarding being divorced and the mess that was and the frustration of cleaning up that mess.  I got into gardening when the love of my life simply left one day.  There is nothing like pulling a flower bed of weeds and planting or pitching a hillside with good soil and planting a garden to work that sorrow and anger out.  You can scream at weeds, they’re resilient. You don’t do stupid things or bad behaviors or say things you have to apologize for or maybe can’t ever say enough “I am sorry” for, if you hike far enough or work the soil long enough.  

Eventually all that stuff drains out, and there you are with nothing, and out of nothing you can create whatever you want to happen next, while finally taking in the beauty of the earth around you or planting your flower bed and gardening to feed yourself.  These are positive things I can do, instead of spinning my wheels doing negative things I don’t want to waste my time doing.  What I have control over is my diet, my exercise, my working a garden, my efforts in having my work be successful.  I think it is useful to determine what you can control and what you can’t.  Be pro-active with what you can control.  The right person to love and be loved by will show up and will be there during the proper time.  If you look back over your life, you may find it all worked out exactly as it needed to for you to grow and learn what you needed to at that time.  It’s really hard to keep a grip on that when things are not working and you want to slap someone for being an idiot.  Much better to go hiking or garden during that “not working” time. It’s more productive.

Gardening has many life lessons to offer if you pay attention.  Your garden grows when you share your energy with it, it is a two-way street of giving.  You must be mindful, plants need water, the correct minerals and nutrition, the proper sunlight.  Lady Bugs are cute and vicious predators to kill unwanted bugs.  Everyone loves them though, because of packaging, how they present themselves.  What you may consider weeds are Mother nature’s wildflowers, context is everything.  One can eat dandelions, every part of it is edible and delicious.

While I was raising my children, there were many things of interest to me that I could not share with them, because it wasn’t proper.  Being a good parent, you can have adult interests that are not proper to share with children.  That doesn’t make them bad, simply improper to share.  And there are some interests that not all of society is thrilled about, so it isn’t proper to be in everyone’s face all the time about certain interests.  You need to find like-minded individuals and have consent to share some interests.  Safe (no one is being harmed in any way that risks their life), Sane,  Consensual (adults can agree to do things).  

I created a series of photos that Craig Morey did the photography and Ken Marcus did the photoshop work in which you see a woman of style, an upper-class person, and in the mirror she reflects fetish, kink, BDSM.  That is what people don’t see when she goes to The Opera or a fancy restaurant, it is private, unknown except to those like-minded individuals.  You never know about people, what their secrets are, what their hidden passions are.  One should never assume.

NP: In the French Film titled To Paint or to Make Love a happily married couple purchase a house in the country where they find themselves experimenting both in art and love. Do you find a rhythmic relationship in the human capacity to create art in all its forms including love making, cultivating a garden, painting a picture or listening and playing music? 

Ann:  You make my head hurt.  What we enjoy in the arts requires finding something we enjoy listening to, love looking at, that we don’t tire of something that speaks to you and moves you inside.  Something you don’t rush through, but you stop, and look at it, really focus on what is happening right there at that moment.  Ecstasy is one moment of overwhelming joy shoved next to another moment of overwhelming joy for a period of time long enough that your brain knows it truly is happening.  You have to slow down, you have to revel in each moment, truly see, clearly listen, feel, take in what is actually there before you in order to create that happening.  You have to Be, when you are being time stops, there is harmony and happiness. In that moment of being, that is magical.  You can create something out of the nothingness.  Creating happens in the quiet, when all the voices stop, on a blank canvas in the universe of nothing.  
 

 Art, what is spiritual and what is sensual for each person is very individual.  We all have our own vibe, our own individual part that fits perfectly into the cosmos and when you are in tune with that – magic happens.  What that vibe is may look/be very different to each person, that is the beauty of it.  We all have a frequency vibe we cum to, we climax with, one has to patient and find that individual vibe that is our treasure.

Currently, I create Performance Art using Pony Play.  That medium speaks to me.  I am sharing my energy with another and the audience, dancing with a Pony, creating designs in a make- believe world to music, creating order out of chaos due to our consensual agreement that I command and the Pony obeys.  For me, it is powerful Art.

NP:  In some respects the lack of knowledge in a society can be viewed like a self-imposed chastity device on the human mind. To unlock the device is unsettling as not everyone possesses the same mental or physical ability or resources or empathy? Do you still consider yourself a seeker, adapting your own inner rhythms amid the zeitgeist of a pandemic? 

Ann:  I can only be the best me, making healthy choices for me continuously.  That is the best I can offer the world.  That is what I have control over. The best neighbor, the best person walking my dog, the best driver in my car, the best whatever at every moment, present and accounted for.  If everyone focused on being the most positive, honest, warm, entity they can be at each moment, what would our world look like?  I don’t need to be the smartest person, the most creative person, I just need to use what I have available to me in the most efficient and kind way with manners.  I think life is very simple.  

Perhaps I am very comfortable being me, all of me , comfortable in my skin, offering all of me because I truly believe that is all I have to offer and all I have that truly counts.  I don’t give a teaspoon I give the whole ocean.  I hold nothing back, nothing to spare or save.  Life regenerates me, I love my life, the gift of being alive.  Thank you for asking me to share.