Bio - Mizzpaw@gmail.com
Parmalee Paula Cover is an Interdisciplinary artist, re-emerging, after a sojourn when she ‘’did ‘other things.’’ At 84 a published author, poet, teacher and technician she is recognized for her video productions and involvement in poetry and performance.
At the age of five, Parmalee had her first art show – all over the walls, B29s dropping explosives in crayola to stop WW2. After that, Parmalee majored in illustration at Syracuse University School of Fine Arts, then transferred to San Francisco Art Institute where she became deeply involved in the Bay Area neo-figurative movement and later with Indy film making and art photography.
As a writer/director for Corporation for Public Broadcast she collaborated after hours on the technical aspects of video productions for conceptual artists.
Her current art is large format allegorical collage painting and her own iPhone photo genre- DriveByShots - taken while driving a moving vehicle - which inform her other creative works.
Artist Statement
"There is a difference between a
painting of a beautiful thing and a beautiful
painting." - Ferdinand Leger
I am not an artist. I am a driver. This driver strives to embody the "what ifs" through what turns out for me to be Anything- Kind-of-Creation. A topic simmers first then flares up, catches and then it is Art. I'm thriving and buoyant in the process as it propels me.
I am driven to make what-if’s’’ real.
Central to my drivens are the lives of all our children, past, present and future. My art rides the path of "what-Ifs" why and what for humankinds progeny - each of us when we navigated our new beginnings. Then there's the porn of World Wars and some personal ones stored in my craw space that I won't bother art with except in obnoxious whispers; beauty in scapes yenning for En plein-airtists who ain't never me. I only paint "what ifs."
Art drives to a place of power and wonder with each of its mandates. Each piece embodies these narratives. I'm there with the Leonardo tools of my gratitude. I believe in eloquence while driving. The destination speaks for itself
‘’ ..... what the viewer sees and feels is important, not what the viewer thinks I am saying.’’
- Gladys Barker Grauer
CV
CURRENT
Art and Photography Exhibits
- LOVE exhibit, Highland Park Art Museum, Highland Park IL
- GROUND ON WHICH WE STAND exhibit, Claghorn Gallery, Albany CA
2019
-OPEN SHOW Santa Cruz Presenter DRIVEbyShots
DNA (Riverview)Theater April 24, 2019
OPEN STUDIOS 2019 Portland OR
-STILL LIFE/Our Women Before Us, The Theater at Gibney, NYC
2018
-Gray Loft Gallery ("Something Blue" curated group show) Oakland, CA
-Feminism Revisited, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago (juried group show)
Recent
-Vancouver School of Art (Guest Artists Show, Politics), Vancouver, WA
-Cave Gallery ("Politiks" Group Show) Vancouver, WA
-Finalist Fourth Annual Faces and Figures Photography Awards
Past
-Focus Gallery ("Alienation" Solo Show), San Francisco
-Hofstra College (group show), Hempstead, NY
-Syracuse Museum of Art (group traveling show) N.Y
-Stemphli (Duo show with Joan Brown), New York City
-Diego Rivera, (group drawing show with Joan Brown, Manuel Neri, Jay deFeyo), San Francisco
-East West Gallery (Solo Show) San Francisco
-6 Gallery (Funk Art group show with Wally Hedricks, Roy deForest, William Brown, Joan Brown etc. ) San Francisco
-Delexi Gallery (Dada Show with Jose Ramon Lerma and Wally Hedricks), San Francisco
-Stanford University Alumni Center Gallery (Art
Video and Film Productions (highlights):
-FRONTLINE- "Here but for Fortune/Joan Baez, South American Tour" produced for Corporation for Public Broadcasting, production assist
-"Born Never Asked" short three screen video piece for Laurie Anderson Tour, Warner Special Products
-"Born Never Asked," art film broadcast Indy Film Series WTTW Chicago
-The Who ‘’Farewell’’ World Tour Video, Pacific Bell Productions, San Francisco
-Black History in America, Pacific Bell, Productions, San Francisco, Screen writer, publicity
-Freman Dyson "Colonies in Space" interview for Canadian Public Broadcast, Audio
-El Teatro Theater Interview for PBS, Audio
-Bay Area Young Filmmakers Festivals, Writer, Director, Interviewer, camera, KTEH, PBS Writer, Director, Technician 1980 - 1985
-Lorne Greene PSA for Canadian Public Broadcast, Audio, Still photography
-Home Box Office Production Service, Los Angeles, The Hitchhiker TV Series, Post production continuity
-Charles Chess Film Productions, San Jose CA, Assistant Director, Continuity
-Yuma Desert, Pacific Film Works, Camera operator Arriflex 35mm film
-PhotoTech Labs Los Angeles, film editor, quality control
-Turtle Geometry an Athena Language Project documentary, Consultant and actor, Palo Alto CA
Photography illustration Graphic Arts
-MATH LION, illustrations for 4th grade textbook produced and published by Wiley and Sons, New York 1967
-Stanford Research Institute documentation of nuclear shelter project;
-Performance posters for various poets who performed at Ms Cover's poetry performance venues.
-Xerox Corporation art menu, photographic documentation, Research Department, Palo Palo Alto, CA
Education
-BS and MA, Interdisciplinary Arts, San Francisco State University, Film/Script Writing/Broadcast Art
-PhD Curriculum Design and Instruction, North Central University, uncompleted
-Syracuse University School of Fine Arts, Illustration Major
-San Francisco Art Institute, Painting major, Independent Film
-University of CA, Berkekey extension credits: Ecological Structures, College Algebra
-Iowa Writers Workshop, three sessions University of Iowa
-Autism Spectrum Workshop credits for teachers Santa Cruz County Department of Education
Certificates
CMX Corp, on-line broadcast editing for Edge
FCC Radio Operators License 3rd Class
Awards
-Harriet Levenworth Painting Award, Syracuse University School of Fine Arts
-First Prize Art Award National Organization for Women Against Domestic Violence
Published Work
-VERSA Literary Magazine, Amsterdam, "Vilho and the Birth of Pale Orchids" intro Book One., SEVENTEEN/Child of War, University Press NY, 2015
-PLAZM ARCHIVES ANTHOLOGY published MOMA, New York City
-Seattle Poetry Fest Anthology BUMPERSHOOT
-Featured Writer The Bacon Review, Interview, -PLAZM Magazine writer. several pieces
-ANAGOGIE SCAMS LA, novel optioned Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1998
-BLUESTOCKING Magazine interview of author and short pieces.
-VILHO and the BIRTH of PALE ORCHIDS - book one of two pub University Press, 2015
-S E V E N T E E N/ Child of War, book two of two, pending University Press, NY
Interviewer
-Freman Dyson Canadian Public Broadcast
-Lynn Hershman-Leeson
-Workers interview series www.LetUsPraiseWorkers.com
-Bay Area Young Filmmakers winners, PBS
-Real Lives of Real Kids,/Young artists speak traveling exhibit
-Marc Smith, Bluestocking Magazine
Poetry Performance (highlights)
-Headliner with Exene Cervenka and others,Seattle Bumpershoot Poetry Fest
-Venue Director Performance Poetry, Santa Cruz, Salinas
-Slam Poetry International Championships, team leader and performer, Middletown Ct, Chicago, Austin TX, Dallas
-Featured guest performer at numerousPoetry venues including: Cass King, Vancouver BC; Marc Smith, Green Mill, Chicago; Vadim Litvik, San Jose CA; Clebo Rainey, Dallas, TX; Crystal Ballroom, Portland OR
Memberships and Affiliations
Current:
-Women’s Caucus for Art, Oregon and North Coast California
-Women in the Arts
Inactive:
-National Collage Board
-Writer Guild of America West (inactive)
-National Writers Union
-National Geological Society
-San Francisco Video Coalition
Internet Sites
-www.mizzpaw.com Devoted to Parmalee's recent art and photography includes her blog with a link to YourLyin'Art intermittent blog postings on art and politics.
-www.LetUsPraiseWorkers.com Photos and Words by Taxi Drivers, Servers and other people who don't get paid all that much.
-www.pCover.Studio Ms. Cover's Writer Site which includes exerpts from her books and back essays.
-www.EtherCafe.com featuring “Slam Granny Goin' Places She Don't Belong" web site postings of her Slam Poetry writing, photographs and drawings. No longer up.
Parmalee codes her own websites.
Teaching
- Writing, Science, Test prep instructor/curriculum writer, Best Friends Learning Centers, Freemont CA
-Lecturer Basic Art Notre Dame University de Nameur, Belmont CA
--Assistant Lecturer Art Practice Introduction, Stanford University, Stanford CA
-Los Angeles School of Music and Art, Painting teacher for talented children, mostly undocumented.
- Peninsula School, Arts and media teacher, Menlo Park CA