Vanessa Briscoe Hay

Vanessa Briscoe Hay has been making art since she was very young. Her upbringing in a small Southern community taught her self-sufficiency but also heightened a sense of otherness.  She was the first in her family to attend a university to study art, although she was surrounded by female kinswomen who quilted, crocheted, and painted in their spare time for pleasure and to beautify their homes.

While attending the University of Georgia, she was exposed by teachers and her fellow students to new ideas, and thinking outside the box was encouraged. She graduated with a BFA in 1978. In 1979, some of her fellow students invited her to join the band Pylon - basically an artist’s collective- with the goal of playing New York City and then disbanding. They playfully approached the creation of music like they approached their art. Written up in Interview Magazine after their first performance, they decided to keep going as long as it was fun. 1979-83 were heady years for both the music and art scene. Briscoe Hay met many interesting artists during her band's travels —like Warhol, Haring, Basquiat —and her band performed alongside bands like Gang of Four, Talking Heads, B-52s, R.E.M., U2. When it wasn’t fun any longer, Pylon disbanded in 1983—but, then reformed, disbanded, and reformed once again. In the interim, she managed a copy center, worked odd jobs, and became an R.N. As the mother of two daughters, she parceled her time, finding inspiration in both small things and the wonder of nature, as well as the interconnection between the universe and everyday events, finding creative outlets by making small paintings and scribbling on envelopes. Currently she is retired from nursing and is performing occasionally with Pylon Reenactment Society and her paintings are getting bigger.

Tonight

Tonight sleep would be punishment – name your crime:

The moon high at the end of every street,

A map turned inside out around our feet.

The language where your name and my name rhyme

Translates these streets as streams;

The green light, spotted silver light

Calls the streets up like moths; tonight

You’ll waste all that you spent on dreams.

           John Ryan Seawright