Yesterday would have been the 101th birthday of artist/occultist Marjorie Cameron-Parsons. Last year, the Cameron-Parsons Foundation posted this appreciation:
Cameron (April 23, 1922–July 24, 1995)
Marjorie Elizabeth Cameron Parsons Kimmel, known simply as Cameron, was an artist, poet, veteran, feminist and spiritual seeker whose contributions to visual arts and culture are well documented. Her work currently resides in permanent collections at the Getty Research Institute, Whitney Museum of American Art, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and has been exhibited by galleries and museums worldwide, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris. She has been featured in several catalogs, academic essays, popular articles, and journals such as Abraxas: International Journal of Esoteric Studies. Cameron has also been the subject of a biography as well as a hardback volume from Fulgur Esoterica, Songs for the Witch Woman, and is a featured artist in the book L.A. Rising, SoCal Artists Before 1980.
In addition to her creative work, Cameron is known for her relationship with her first husband, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab cofounder Marvel “John” (“Jack”) Whiteside Parsons (1914-1952), as well as for her associations with influential creatives such as Kenneth Anger (b. 1927), Wallace Berman (1926-1976), George Herms (b. 1935), Diane di Prima (1934-2020), and many others.
Early Years
Cameron was raised in Iowa among the coal-burning cars of the Chicago & North-Western Railway, where she played in the roundhouse, made art, and wrote poetry from an early age. In late 1942, 20-year-old Cameron was among the first women to join the United States Naval Reserve, honing her skills as an artist, drafting combat maps, working as a spray brush painter, and supervising makeup and wardrobe for Navy films. In the WAVES, Cameron further cultivated her self-discovery, independence, individual development, and spiritual exploration — qualities she took with her long after the war ended.
Enter Scarlet Woman
Once discharged from the Navy, Cameron moved to Pasadena, California to join her parents. In 1946, she met Parsons, a dedicated ceremonial magician and creator of solid rocket fuel. An ardent practitioner of Thelema, a religion developed by British writer and occultist Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), Parsons believed that Cameron was the incarnation of the “Scarlet Woman” aka “Babalon” — a Thelemic deity thought to herald a new goddess-centered era of humanity. Still, as society encouraged women to return to domestic roles after World War Two, Cameron — with the encouragement of her husband — continued on her own path towards becoming an artist, moving to San Miguel del Allende, Mexico in the late 1940s, where she met and mingled with creative expatriates, including those studying art on the GI Bill.
Artist, Realized
Following her husband Jack’s violent and sudden death in a mysterious explosion in 1952, Cameron continued to become increasingly involved in the arts; writing, painting, experimenting with psychedelics, and appearing in several films, including as the “Scarlet Woman” in Kenneth Anger’s 1954 film Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome along with writer Anaïs Nin (1903-1977), and as herself in Curtis Harrington’s (1926-2007) short film, The Wormwood Star. In 1957, Wallace Berman included Cameron’s sexually explicit drawing Peyote Vision in a show at the groundbreaking Ferus Gallery. Authorities raided the gallery, shut down the show, deemed the drawing lewd, and arrested Berman on obscenity charges. She later appeared in a role in Harrington’s 1961 feature Night Tide, which starred a young Dennis Hopper (1936-2010) in his first leading role. She also had at least two exhibitions during her lifetime: The Transcendental Art of Cameron on October 3, 1964 at the former Cinema Theatre on 1122 N. Western Avenue; and Works on Paper in 1989 at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, where she performed “The Pearl of Reprisal” alongside screenings of Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome and Wormwood Star on April 8, 1989.
A Century of Cameron
This year, in honor of this remarkable woman’s centenary, the Cameron Parsons Foundation encourages current and future admirers to remember Cameron on her 100th birthday, while enjoying the journey of appreciating her work and learning more about her extraordinary life. The Cameron Parsons Foundation welcomes any inquiries about Cameron and her genre-defying art.
A Gift from the Cameron Parsons Foundation
In celebration of Cameron’s work, the Cameron Parsons Foundation is making the catalog for her solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) free to download through May 31. Download the catalog here.
Here‘s a short film on Cameron.
For more information visit: http://www.cameron-parsons.org/cameron.html
Thanks to our beloved OHO for the tip!
