Artist in Residence

Pygmy Dyke legally changed her name from Sheneeka Brown the day she turned 21. She had been using it as a stage name since she was 15. She was a sophomore at Stuyvesant High then, focused on literature and the theatre, self-emancipated from a dysfunctional family, fronting a punk trio on the weekends it had gigs. The band was better than New York Dolls, who were beginning to make it, so why not them?

Her apartment was the sort that appear in parents nightmares where their teenagers run off to, a studio illegally carved out of a storefront on Avenue D. She kept nothing of value there, rarely spent the night. She had a succession of boyfriends, whose apartments were no better but at least there was company, someone to swat the roaches.

Sheneeka auditioned for an off off Broadway production of “Raisin In The Sun.” She didn’t get the part but the director, a well-known woman artist and playwright, took an interest in her welfare. When the director saw the Avenue D place she virtually insisted that Sheneeka move in with her, take the guest bedroom in her loft. Naturally there was gossip.

“That’s fucked up” was Sheneeka’s first reaction when her friends told her what people were saying. Then she thought “Go with it. Use it. If they think I’m a dyke so much the better.” The Dolls played on that and won. For that night’s gig she became Pygmy Dyke. Her family nickname had always been Pygmy. She was born at 7 months and just under 5 pounds, not good odds for Harlem Hospital in 1957. She was not much more than 5 pounds 4 months later when she finally went home. At age 13 she had reached her adult height of 5’8”.

She borrowed the drummer’s trousers while he was napping and cut out stencils of D,Y,K,E, which she sewed on the back of her denim jacket. There was a guy who sometimes came by Hilly’s wearing a bomber jacket with “SUICIDE” spelled out in metal studs on the back. She didn’t have the jacket or the studs so she worked with what she had.

It was at that gig that she met David Prendergast. He was sweet to her, took her to Max’s for dinner and listened to what she had to say. She knew David was kind of a famous artist, had one man shows and all. She had seen him hanging out, had noticed him (cute), was flattered enough by his attention to claim to be 19. David momentarily wondered what the point of that was. She went home with him and stayed four months, rather long for a relationship in 1972.

The breakup was amicable, also typical for the time. David helped her find a cheap loft off of Canal . They saw each other every week or two, occasionally wound up sleeping together. After a while the casual sex became something of a bore for both of them. Their friendship remained strong. While they were together David casually taught Pygmy how to sketch and paint. After they split he continued to encourage her development as an artist, helped her get a portfolio together and used his influence to get her admitted to Cooper Union. She had dropped out of Stuyvesant but her grades had been good. At age 16 she retired from the stage and rock and roll and moved on to study art at college.

The first year at Cooper was wonderful. She painted all the time and lived on adrenalin. There was no need to work. Cooper was tuition free. A city program gave her a stipend that covered the rent. Everything else got taken care of one way or another. People would invite her to join them at Max’s or Phoebe’s. Theatres like LaMama or Truck and Warehouse let her in for free. If the city got too stressful she went to Cooper’s country estate in New Jersey and painted landscapes.

It all unraveled the following year, when David moved Upstate. It wasn’t just David who was leaving town. Many other people were getting out, moved Upstate, or to Long Island, or to places like Venice (CA), Boulder, Vancouver, New Mexico. Some left the country. Hilly’s became CBGB’s and was filled with affected kids from the suburbs. St Adrian’s closed. Max’s and Phoebe’s were not the same. Gallery openings were boring. So was Cooper. She dropped out and got a waitress job at Fanelli’s. Most of the people she cared about, who were still in New York, hung out there. She continued to paint, and got into more than her fair share of shows, but her work went unnoticed and unsold. After nearly two years of failure she resumed her degree program at Cooper, more mature and more focused. She explored sculpture and ceramics, concentrated on the latter in her senior year and graduated with honors in 1979. More important to her ego, her work was favorably reviewed, and sold. How sweet that was, having failed to move the world to notice her as an actress, singer, or painter.

By 1979 there was no one left in New York City so she left too, selecting Alfred University from the six schools who offered fellowships for an MFA in ceramics. Pygmy was the same age as most of the other incoming students, whom she correctly assumed were far less worldly, and incorrectly assumed were far less accomplished. Everyone in her class was talented and worked hard. Most of them were whitebread, even the minority students, from small towns and suburbs, happy to watch it on TV rather than live, as Pygmy had, at the center of it.

Pygmy assimilated, started to read People Magazine and talk about what all the other kids talked about. She never talked about her freewheeling years in the city. She became a regular kid, attended all her classes, went to the Friday night beer blasts and got drunk like everyone else. Her work was still selling, if modestly, but she kept quiet about that, got just as excited as the others about their student shows in Corning, Buffalo, and Rochester. Indeed, when she looked objectively at what the others were doing she their work was more skillful and daring.

Corning Glass offered her a senior design position, $24000 a year. “You’re making your age!” her classmates marveled. In 1981 that was the standard for success. Along with that success came residence in Corning, New York. She plunged herself into her job to compensate for the isolation and loneliness. Within two years she was named as assistant vice president, reporting directly to the vice president of design. She had her own admin aide, a company car, and no shortage of jealous peers willing and able to sabotage her career. There was the inevitable buzz about affirmative action, started by one of her very few friends. She bought a house in the countryside, the better to be alone in, and adopted two puppies from the animal shelter.

By March of 1987 Pygmy was seeing her therapist twice a week and getting nothing out of it. She had put on weight but had stopped drinking and taking pills. She was still an assistant vice president but now she was starting to think it was affirmative action. Her work didn’t matter and it didn’t sell, and she didn’t much care. Then the flyer for the SUNY Chenango Arts Festival came in the mail, with some scrawl on the side – “Hope you can make it. David”

She called in sick, packed a bag and the dogs, and drove west of 17, thinking the flyer said SUNY Chautaqua. People in Jamestown didn’t know where Chenango was either. What should have been a two hour trip wound up taking eight, with several more false directions. “Why didn’t you just get a map?” David asked. “Why?” Pygymy responded.

David saw right off that Pygmy needed support, and that made him a bit nervous. He was in a relationship, not living with the woman, he didn’t do that anymore, nor casually, but it was serious. His own life was more or less coming together after some emotionally bleak years. He had sent the flyer without knowing what Pygmy was up to. They had been out of touch for years. He was reaching out, wanting to reconnect with people he care about now that things were stable for him.

Pygmy thought that David owed her. Back when they were together it was she who supported him, emotionally. His career was stagnant then. On the surface he had everything – looks, charm, smarts, money, talent, fame, one-man shows, invited to A-list art world dinner parties. Behind his back people were saying he was derivative, that he had not lived up to the extraordinary promise he had shown fresh out of school. He heard. He saw where things were heading and didn’t know what to do. Pygmy was the only good thing in his life in 1972.

OK, she owed him too. He introduced her to the art world, taught her, gotten her started on the long road to Cooper, Alfred, Corning, and now his doorstep. Where was she now? On the verge of getting fired unless she quit first, 30 years old, just like David in 1972.

OK, they owed each other and neither of them owed the other.

All that transpired on David’s doorstep, in the matter of a few seconds.

“Come in” said David. Pygmy obeyed. Her dogs were already inside, going through the canine protocol with David’s.

Pygmy resigned from Corning the next day, put her house on the market. There were no faculty openings at the time. It would be a year before anything suitable opened up. Pygmy had more than ample savings to live on in the meantime. She bought a gorgeous beat up Victorian with a widow’s walk, built c1880, on the edge of the village, right on the river, on over an acre of land. David knew a mason, helped her build a kiln in the backyard. She spent the year fixing up the house, doing ceramics, painting in the widow’s walk. It wasn’t the first time in her life she felt free.

The following year David managed to get her on the SUNY payroll as an artist in residence and codirector of the SUNY Chenango Arts Festival. The pay was less than a third of her salary at Corning but it was more than enough to live on. She stopped selling her work.

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