Tell me this ain't scifi enough.
I can't remember the first time I got turned on to Grace Jones, but I do remember that it wasn't the music that got me, although the music was cool. But, my God, the way she looked...
I've always dug the extreme, even if I was never quite able to pattern myself after so many of my heroes. Any number of reasons for that which I'm not gonna bother with here, but I can say without a doubt that I have always admired those who simply did not give a damn and stepped out of whoever they were once upon a time into a brand new self-created existence as a brand new self-created individual. When Grace was young, according to her bio on Wikipedia, she was a very shy Jamaican kid who was good at sports. But somewhere between then and now she became a dark fantasy vision of science fiction. From Clash, 10 Things You Never Knew About Grace Jones:
3.This rebelliousness included her constant love of nightclubbing in New York, as well as going out road-tripping and taking acid with Hell’s Angels. She wore afros before they came into fashion and she was exposing herself in clubs way before nude establishments were officially commissioned.
6.She is a character well-known for her controversial moments - as well as her television appearance on the Russell Harty show she is renowned for, she has a lifetime ban from Walt Disney World in Florida due to indecently exposing her breasts on a live set whilst she was performing.
8.A time she recalls (unfazed) was living in Paris with fellow models Jerry Hall and Jessica Lange in the late-’70s. They once attended a party full of French politicians, Jones turned up with just a string of bones around her neck and nothing else. Another typical Grace Jones stunt that’s sure to go down in French history.
Grace Jones is a walking, talking, breathing piece of modernist art. And me imagining what does it take to come to the realization that, if I only follow my imagination and my art I can evolve into this instead of that. There are all sorts of butterflies, some of them by choice.
Originally published on www.keithaowens.com
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