by Babe Walker
Rhode Island School of Design
After escaping the stifling conformity of Brown, arriving at RISD was like returning to myself. I was at art school, surrounded by like-minded individuals. Finally! It’s hard to explain, but it wasn’t until I was truly immersed that I realized my calling was probably to be an artist. From the moment I stepped foot on campus at the Rhode Island School of Design, I felt artsy-er. There was a shift in how I saw the world and how the world saw me. I felt like I might finally be understood for who I was. I could be me—a bitch. A ponytailed art gay on a bike even flew past me and shouted, “Hey, hooker, nice bag!”
I was home.
Thankfully, RISD’s classes started two weeks after Brown’s, so I had time to find an apartment, rent a studio space, and text my dad the news that I had transferred. He called me to say that he wasn’t pleased, but I’d already used his credit card to pay for fall tuition, so there was nothing he could do about it. Plus he was happy that I seemed to have found a passion for education, and impressed that I’d finagled my way into the most selective art school in the country, so he let me do my thing.
There are so many wonderful elements about art school . . . where do I begin? Art school gives you the opportunity to explore yourself and experiment with your boundaries. It’s all about you doing you 24/7 and saying “fuck off” to anyone who tries to tell you that you can’t. I hadn’t fully dealt with being forced to give up my dreams of being an actress, so I used art school as a form of therapy to come to terms with myself. I majored in glass blowing, which was a really perfect metaphor for who I was as a person at that time: fragile, malleable when heated, beautiful, easily broken . . . you get the picture. My minor was “gender performance in non-Western documentary.” The longer it takes to say your major/minor out loud, the less people will want to talk to you about school.
I never went to class, but I occasionally visited my glass-blowing seminar because the teacher, Kurt, was superhot and hairy in this weirdo hippie way. Normally I would never—but I was really drawn to his bun, beard, and clogs combination.
There are so many freaks at art school, and I loved it. Short freaks, medium-sized freaks, VHS freaks, and completely average freaks. They were everywhere, and I was into the feeling of living on another planet. I was soaking up the energy of being on that campus, around so many “creative” kids. I met a ton of super-amazing artists, and we all got really close. Even though we came from different backgrounds (some upper middle class and some upper class), we managed to bond over our mutual appreciation for carefree drug use, color wheels, and impromptu tattoos. (Mine have since been removed because my dad flipped.) I had my first group sex experience, which was not as weird as I hoped it would be, and I was even friends with a fat girl, which was totally out of character for me, but she was totally sweet and funny and really just GOT IT.
I knew a boy from Palm Beach who came to RISD wearing white linen shorts and a pastel yellow Vineyard Vines polo, with ambitions of being the next Alexander Calder (typical). Two months and an LSD addiction later, he was covered in tattoos and only wore eighties Adidas jumpsuits. He also made a lot of art out of cum. There was this other girl, Melody, who had totally beautiful hair and was totally my friend until one day she was dared to eat a live rat for $20. When her parents got wind that the dare could be seen on YouTube, they pulled her out of school. Poor girl. Maybe next time don’t film it?
My best friend was this tiny creature of a girl named Aubrey, who thought it was appropriate to wear a Mao Zedong–inspired high-collared suit every day of the week. She was a print-making major who grew up somewhere in Northern California, and I don’t mean Acceptable-Neo-Bohemian-San-Francisco Northern California, I mean Nothing-Up-Here-Besides-Meth-Matters-To-Anyone Northern California. We met in the seaweed section of the local grocery co-op when Aubrey asked me if I could reach the Dead Sea salts she was eyeing on the top shelf.
“Hey, skinny girl, can you grab me one of those blue jars off the top shelf?” I heard a raspy voice say. I turned around.
“Oh . . . um, yes. Sure. Sorry, I’m just a little taken aback by your whole look.” I got the salt down and handed it to her. “Here ya go, less skinny girl. Or is it boy?”
“I’m Aubrey. Some people call me Audrey. Some people call me Jeff. I’m a girl, but not really a big fan of gender identification. Thanks for the hand, I’ll see you around.”
“No problem,” I said, smiling. “By the way, chic flattop.”
I knew from the second I saw her that she would be the perfect weird art friend, and she’d make me look super-tall and thin in pictures, so a strong bond was born.
I thought Aubrey was an amazing artist, and I loved all of her friends—or at least I thought I did at the time. I bought into everything they were about. I started using annoying words like “politicize,” “subversion,” and “sex-positive.” My new friends convinced me to sleep with Kurt, but not for a better grade. It was all part of a group project that we were working on called Daddy Tissues.
Unbeknownst to me, art school was bringing out the worst version of myself. I got really into drinking and psychedelics while I was at RISD. I thought that if I constantly wrote down all of my feelings, then I could justify my drinking and write it off as artistic expression. So that’s what I did. I became a raging alcoholic. I drank whiskey for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which many people would have considered unhealthy, but I think I remember my nutritionist once saying something about fermented grain being coconut water before coconut water was coconut water.
I bleached my hair, grew a dreadlock, and never took off this very busy, very Helena Bonham Carter–y, Vivienne Westwood frock with layers and cutouts. I wore it every single day, without dry cleaning it once. Of course, I ripped the tag out in case any of my friends ever doubted that it was a vintage wedding dress dyed black (a lie I told them all). I started telling people shit like “I make all my clothes myself,” and “Oh, I don’t even know where I got this. It was three cents,” and “I just found this in the dumpster yesterday.”
My bullshit reached a fever pitch one night when Aubrey was over at my place. We had ingested enough mushrooms to kill a pug and were talking about nothing/Marxism.
“I’m so sick of feeling like it’s my responsibility as a member of the proletariat to be happy,” I complained to a very high Aubrey.
“Babe, I get it. NO, Babe! I totally get it. It’s like my dad always says: money can’t buy you happiness, only sappiness.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I said.
“I’m just like, talking about how I haven’t trusted my father since he voted for Bush in the second election. It’s like, what my installation at the dining hall was about. You were there, Babe. You lit that plate of pasta on fire, remember? It was totally important.”
“So important. I feel so like, weighed down by my possessions, you know? It’s like, what do these clothes even mean?” I looked at myself in the mirror. “I keep telling people I make my own clothes, but I don’t. I buy them. This kimono is Dior.”
And that’s when we came up with the brilliant idea for a performance art piece: I would make a bonfire, in the middle of the street, out of all the designer clothes in my closet. This is incredibly hard for me to describe, as I still have a realistic fear that I may go to hell after doing what I did with Aubrey that night, but I’ll do my best to recall the events as they unfolded.
We were acting like total maniacs and cackling like Miranda when she thinks Carrie’s made a really good pun about Samantha’s vagina. We began by breaking the heels off of all my shoes. Then I think I squirted an entire tube of red acrylic paint at a hanging rack of Hermès scarves and ripped a fringed Prada skirt to pieces. Aubrey shredded a beautiful neon Christopher Kane raincoat with a pair of sewing scissors. I put my Fendi spy bag on my head like a cap and pulled out every article of clothing from my closet, tossing it to Aubrey, who tossed it out the window.
My entire wardrobe, all the conte
nts of my closet, went out the window of my second-story artist’s loft that my dad had rented for me and into an enormous pile in the middle of the street. We even threw a lamp and a chair out there. They were superexpensive so they had to go.
Aubrey and I ran downstairs like it was Christmas fucking morning and lit the whole pile on fire. This was the finale of our grand performance piece. At the time, we thought this was a transcendental, sacrificial moment. The last thing I remember doing was taking off my Westwood dress and throwing it in the blaze. I was screaming, dancing around, and crying too. Why was I crying? Couldn’t tell you. Anyone who’s ever blacked out while committing arson knows what I’m talking about.
I guess the cops arrived on the scene at some point, because I kind of got arrested that night. According to the police report, I bit an officer who tried to restrain me, then resisted arrest and ran around the block screaming the following things at the cops:
“I’m a monster baby, so don’t YOU fuck with my face!”
“I want to be free like your daughters! My friends are prisoners!”
“Adopt me!”
“All hail Coco Chanel! The clown queen!”
They took me, kicking and squealing, to the station. I told the officer who took me in to “take me home, my maid is making dinner!” I had given up dinner for lent that year, so that was a complete and total lie. They made me blow into one thing and pee into a different thing and then they threw me in a group cell with three other jailed ladies, who probably thought I was a celebrity. I passed out when they took my mug shot, like fell right to the floor. I’d had my fun and was done with my night.
Twenty-four hours later, I woke up in a cab sitting next to Mabinty. If there is anyone in my life I can always count on besides my dad, it’s her. She is my angel, if angels were more like maid/bff/potheads who fly in from LA to bail you out of jail in Rhode Island.
“Mabinty, I’m so glad you got my message.”
I hadn’t called her. I’d used my one phone call to call my psychic, who was not surprised. Clearly, I was still a fucking mess from the night before.
“I got arrested!” I laughed. “It was so dumb, ohmigod, Mabinty, NO, it was SO DUMB. What is this adorable beret you’re wearing? It’s giving your whole face a new shape. I miss you!”
“Babe Walker, yuh takin’ mushrooms, yuh lightin’ yuh clothes on fiyah, yuh ago get yuself killed one of dese days. Mi don’ wan be around fi dat. Mi dun wid yuh wild ways.” She was not amused.
“Mabs, I’m fiiiiiiiine. You don’t need to worry about me. The mushrooms I took must’ve been laced. It’s no biggie. Genevieve has been arrested like fifty times, and her record is still sparkly clean. I love you and I appreciate that you bailed me out, now please go back to LA and tell my dad that everything here is great. Everything will be fine,” I said with a wink.
“Yuh say yuh fine, but dis be di last time I cum fi yuh. Next time mi no cum to yuh rescue. Trust what mi tell yuh.” And with that she dropped me off at my apartment, and I went on with my heinous art school lifestyle . . . for a few more months.
I can laugh about that night now, but inside I’m still crying a little bit. The whole jail thing was a blip in the grand scheme of my artist moment, and I’ll never get those clothes back no matter how many hours I spend on eBay. I was such a different girl then, and honestly, 2012 Babe needs to slap 2007 Babe across her smelly face because 2007 Babe was a fool.
A year after my installation/arrest, Art Forum ran an article about my couture-burning incident. They said I was some kind of rebellious “Hollywood Wunderkind” that was subverting her own privilege and lack of awareness through her art. Whatever the fuck that means. I was a little embarrassed by the attention, but it didn’t piss me off too much because I had moved on by then. I’m not even sure what subversion is exactly.
I hate my horse.
After spring semester at RISD, I invited four of my closest friends to come back to California with me for the summer and live at my dad’s Montecito ranch. I imagined it as being a very free-spirited, bonfire-y, Ryan McGinley-y, three-month festival of hallucinogens. I figured that the ranch would be the perfect venue for Aubrey, Ishi, Sasha, Harrison, and I to explore the subconscious, pseudo-political beasts within us all. We flew to California just days after our spring semester ended, and dove into a dope fest/art fest. The fun was fueled by a lot of whiskey from my dad’s private collection and some peyote Ishi’s parents sent over from Nevada.
The first few days were outrageous. Picture five naked hipsters laughing in a bathtub, five naked hipsters in a waterfall screaming, five naked hipsters on a sand dune jumping in the air, five naked hipsters killing a man in the woods, five naked hipsters climbing a tree in the middle of the night, high on salvia. All the typical shit. Gen and Roman came out to visit, but only stayed for a total of fifteen minutes because they said everyone seemed too homeless and too naked. Whatever. We were all so fucking hot, tan, and skandy (skinny/sandy)—it was heaven. We planned to document everything and turn it into a video installation, but our fun was cut short when I broke my back riding a horse over Memorial Day weekend.
I remember that night like it was yesterday: my hair was back to its natural color, I was wearing a pair of Emmanuelle Khanh sunglasses (it was midnight) and knee-high Hermès riding boots, and my nails were au naturel with one coat of clear on them. I had orchestrated a photo shoot featuring me on my favorite horse. I was in the barn with Aubrey and Ishi, and was posing naked while they took photos for their respective blogs. P.S. We were all on a ton of mushrooms, so everything we were doing seemed like a great idea at the time.
This particular horse was a Friesian, whom I’d named Mischa Barton as a fun joke. Mischa was a gift I’d received from Elton and David for my Sweet 16 and had been my confidant and spiritual guide since the day I laid eyes on his strong body. Side note: Mischa was named “Body of the Year” at the Santa Barbara National Amateur Horse Show in 2003.
I was on Mischa’s back, trying to convey with my body that I was artsy and broken, when somebody snapped a photo of his eyeball. The flash must have terrified the horse, because he reared up and threw me off. The details are a bit fuzzy, but I remember landing on the ground and hearing a sickening crunch. I was flat on my back. Mischa cantered in circles around my limp body, as if to say, “I’m kind of sorry,” to which I replied, “You’re a cunt.” I was in the worst pain of my life and tripping pretty hard from the mushrooms. So, naturally, I started screaming like a banshee. Not cute.
The next thing I knew, I was being strapped down to a stretcher by three EMTs who I thought were trying to kidnap me. I was scared and furious, so I started flailing my arms wildly as I floated in and out of consciousness. I found out later that I broke one of the EMT’s noses. Trust me when I tell you that he looks so much better now than he did then. He actually wrote me a thank-you note when his new nose healed. What a sweetheart.
Long story short, I woke up in the hospital faced with the cruel reality that I’d sustained a compression fracture of one of my lumbar vertabrae (L1). The doctors explained that I’d undergone major surgery and that, while I would definitely make a full recovery, I’d have to spend the rest of the summer in bed. I had Aubrey, Ishi, Sasha, and Harrison sent back to their respective towns of origin so I could heal in a pure, lonely, depressed, dark environment. (The only silver lining was that I lost six pounds during my hospital stay.)
I was released a week later. Mabinty came to get me, and we went straight back to the Montecito house so I could spend the rest of my recovery in peace and quiet. I would’ve rather gone back home to Bel Air, but Mabinty informed me that my dad had dropped the psycho gold-digger and acquired some new side-piece girlfriend thing, and I just couldn’t deal. The Montecito house would have to do. When I was wheeled into my bedroom, I was assaulted by hundreds of hideous bouquets. They were everywhere. Sunflowers, daisies, carnations, and BALLOONS?! Who the fuck were these well-wishers and had they even met me?
T
he shock of the accident snapped me out of the weird, artsy mind frame I had been brainwashed into at RISD. Getting severely injured during a bullshit photo shoot for someone’s bullshit blog made me realize how silly and fake I’d been acting all this time. That just wasn’t me. It would never be me. I’m not the girl who spray paints her teal snakeskin Fendi leather jacket black because she wants to impress some smelly sickos. I’m not the girl who doesn’t wash her hair for five days. I’m not the girl who wears Chuck Taylors. I was grateful for the opportunity to be purged of the dirty, tattooey thing that had become my life, but I was pissed that I had to break my back to get there.
Mabinty gave me a little pep talk one night. She could see I wasn’t going to get through this experience without some extra love.
“Yuh down on yuh self deary. Mabinty cyan see dat in yuh eyes. But dis, dis yuh time to pull it together. Nobody on dis god damned eart cyan save yuh besides yuhself, yuh know dat. Mi wan yuh do sumting fi Mabinty. Mi wan yuh to repeat afta Mabinty.” She placed her hand on my forehead. “Mi dun. Mi dun. Just sey dat ova and ova to yuhself, Babe. Mi promise yuh go feel betta by sunrise, yuh hear mi now. ”