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It's the Artist's Life for me! is a unique memoir of our racy & often hilarious life-long romance with life, art, entertaining & each other, spans the free-wheeling ‘60’s, curious ‘70’s, extravagant ‘80’s, terrified ‘90’s & into the Aughts. It is also an irreverent exposé of the inner workings of NYC’s cloistered high-society of art collectors, museums & benefit committees from the point of view of a kid from the wrong side of the (stock car) tracks. The anecdotes are tied together with the threads of making & selling Actual Art. Since so much of our lives revolve around giving parties, we include tips for easy entertaining on a budget, when there’s no time to spare & great, easy recipes interspersed in the relevant stories, from a consummate hostess, who cooked for company before she was old enough to sit at the grownups’ table; who cooked & served dinner to 30-45 guests every week for more than 20 years, in addition to hosting cocktail parties & wedding receptions for hundreds. For an example of what is described in the book click link: Video by a guest at one of our parties at Fvlcrm Gallery on YouTube. 
Chapter-by-Chapter Synopsis: Chapter 1: What’s an Artist? by Tery: a young boy’s struggle to express artistic urges, in an environment hostile to such notions; father killed in war, abandoned by mother, because I was blue, (blood condition of the Fugates); raised by grandparents, on wrong side of (stockcar) tracks; retrieved by mother but immediately sent to the blue Fugates in Troublesome Creek, KT; then to boarding schools; military grade school in a convent; military high school ala Taps; go AWOL; chase tornadoes; keep making art. Chapter 2: Running Away from Home, by Valerie: born in same year & same hospital as Tery, (only hospital); Father, CEO of Shakespeare Rod & Reel, & of 1st National Bank of Kalamazoo died when I was a baby, left Board of Directors of the bank as my legal, finacial guardians; Mother a successful author, remarried in Arizona; cooked "for company" before I was old enough to sit at the grownups' table; modeled, became Miss Scottsdale, then kicked out of Miss Arizona contest, for being underage; ask a psychiatrist to treat me for nymphomania, treats me as a pathological liar instead; hang out at "Commie den of iniquity" coffee house, 'til Father finds out; run away from home, by jet, to stay alive. Chapter 3: The Meeting, (Tery’s Version): in college at 16; "engaged” to 21-year-old woman, I saved from committing suicide; fiancé crashes customized Plymouth; replaces it with gold Corvette; meet Valerie at mother’s insistence; Valerie rejects me but is persuaded to marry me after knowing each other for 3 days. 
Chapter 4: The Meeting, (Valerie’s Version): I stay with sister in Michigan; she invites nerdy kid in suit, to dinner; he comes back in black sweater, jeans & gold Corvette; split from sister’s dinner; fall in love; give him “the greatest gift a woman can give to a man” but throw up all over him & his ‘vette; begs me to marry him anyway; struggle to get married; see snow for the first time in my life; introduce Terry to my 14 “fathers”, the Board, who give us a honeymoon trip to Europe; cook first meal for Terry… in a coffee pot; Grandmother's secret to happy marriage; confronted by ex-fiancée. Chapter 5: Meet the Parents, by Valerie: go to Scottsdale, AZ. ‘til time for the ship to sail; during “Western Week”, when it was “against the law” to be on the streets without a beard…or a gun; helped stepfather beat the IRS for never filing tax returns; shop in NYC; La Dolce Vita on the Rotterdam; love Milan but dealing with motorcycle accident, without speaking the language, sends us to England; discover High Tea; replace the ‘vette with a custom-colored "peuce" Jaguar, during a strike; take Queen Mary’s last voyage home; party with Marcello Mastroiani; 1st movie premier.
Chapter 6: Home Again, by Tery: barter for land; live in a tent; build our 1st home/studio, with shades of …Blandings…Dreamhouse; Valerie’s first encounter with frost. Chapter 7: Life in Michigan, by Valerie: stalked by ex-fiancée; [insert by Tery] Valerie almost dies; trying to impress the folks, with disastrous results; scandalize local art shows; Tery’s 1st museum show; sink a boat, Tery saves girl from drowning; stopped in Jaguar by a dozen police, training their guns on us; almost bought a farm.
Chapter 8: I will now relate the story of the Seven Plagues or Why We Went to Manhattan: by Tery daddy-long-legs, armadillo bugs, mosquitoes, butterflies, blackbirds, frogs…snakes…time to move... 
Chapter 9: Getting out of the Woods, by Valerie: sold the Jag; pound the pavements for a gallery; terrified of the Big City; get robbed; get the “hicks-from-out-of-town” treatment; project a 400 ft “Peace symbol” on a building, the night it is bombed; investigated by the FBI; give away all our money. Chapter 10: Early Works in New York City, by Tery: art for Battery Park show, of 20 nuclear missile nosecones; invisible art; discover Canal Street; [insert by Valerie] inadvertent visit to ultra “raunchy” sex club; neighborhood votes for my art; take the “A” Train; 1st art directly purchased by NYC; buck City bureaucrats & the Union; giving an After Party; turn down Faustian offer from Dia Foundation. 
Chapter 11: Falling in Three Elevators (& Why we are Here to Tell About it) by Both: the title speaks for itself. Chapter 12: Terry at Virginia Dwan Gallery on 57th St. NEW YORK CITY by Valerie: Glue art; how to do a theme party; our 1st entry into the exclusive world of high art; entertain major foreign collectors & a crazy collector; try a drug offered by gallery dealer, then reject the drug scene, totally. Chapter 13: Tery’s “Conceptual Art” period or The End of Conceptual Art, by Valerie: Terry donates an “r” to the Irish cause, becoming “Tery”; divorce piece, becoming Valerie Shakespeare, (again); chocolate divorce party; 1st NYC one-man show…of color; the nude passport photo piece; investigated by Internal Affairs; the ultimate Conceptual work of art, that ends Conceptual Art as a genre; ensuing appearances on the Today Show & other national & local TV shows; meet Jolie Gabor. 
Chapter 14: Meeting the Trumps or The Definition of Wealth, by Valerie: Donald & Ivana’s 1st party at Trump Tower; Ivana’s battle with an errant fountain; Tery learns never to talk to a dress. 
Chapter 15: The Village Piece (bucking the system, a g a i n) by Both: City auctions for land no one wants; Canal Street’s famous watch forgeries; a record for profit on a scrap of land; Weathering Triangle on tiny triangle of land; warrant out for Valerie’s arrest for criminal art; $ million lawsuit (& judgment) against Valerie by NYC; Tery’s 1st real gallery one-man show is featured in a porn flick. 
Chapter 16: The Lost Mind (How I re-minded Valerie) by Tery: Major, 3-part one-man show; Valerie slips on ice; total amnesia; dealing with a hospital when your health plan is: “You get sick. You die.” Gallery dealer pulls a gun to prevent me from leaving his gallery. What Valerie remembers. 
Chapter 17: The Right Art in the Wrong Gallery, by Tery: find a new gallery; Actual Art in a Photorealist gallery; the bridge to Bermuda; hydroplane racing; chasing a mugger; “shin splints”; instant dinner party for forgotten guests; cocaine-filled baseball bats for the Little League; meet Salvador Dali; [insert by Valerie] the biological alarm clock; Chapter 18: The San Andreas Fault Sculpture Project, by Tery: propose a 1-acre, 68,000 ton sculpture of concrete, to be ripped in half as it spans the Fault; fault-finding trip to California; Valerie’s little brother murdered; back to Arizona for the funeral; locked out of our loft, upon return; Never fuck with an artist!
Chapter 19: Getting a Home of Our Own, by Valerie: tired of the system of fixing up illegal lofts, only to have the rent doubled, we gather a group of like-minded artists, to buy our own building; save a neighbor from vindictive wife’s assault charges; take helicopter to Vermont, nearly land in prison. 
Chapter 20: Creating a one-room Studio or The Ultimate Loft, by Both: 5000 Ft2 with private entrance; 2500 Ft2 terrace; bed hanging from 18 ft. ceiling; boat for a bathtub & sail for a shower curtain; glass-front deli refrigerator; killer workshop with its own bathroom; private parking garage; unintentional “Grant from Citibank”; coop meeting comes to blows; Italian “godfather” offers “help”; rat finds its way into our toilet on 2nd floor; commercials & episode of Law and Order shot in our loft. 
Chapter 21: Becoming Auxiliary Policemen, by Tery: Valerie’s uncle murdered; wrestle burglar on terrace & take his knife; real life is not the movies; how to get instant police response; Auxiliary Police training; what I can legally do to you with a nightstick; shoot with & shot by NYC detective(s); ban Valerie from entering the turkey shoot; crowd control at concerts; cited for dancing in the aisles; engineer drug busts; ultimate NYC taxi tale; great Halloween costume; what not to do with handcuffs. Chapter 22: Visiting the Family & Hawaii, by Valerie: Mother moves to Hawaii, where she had met my father; spend 2 idyllic weeks there; family brushes with “narcs” over marijuana; back in NYC, “Valerie reveals a new cleavage” captions newspaper article; to Michigan for Tery’s dad’s retirement party; rent a car with no credit card; pay off credit union for the “money tree”; meet former employee of grandfather, William Shakespeare Jr. from when he founded the Shakespeare Rod & Reel Co. 
Chapter 23: Trips We Have Taken or How to Spend Your NEA Grant, by Valerie: Paris via Iceland & Luxembourg; dinner with Penthouse publisher, Guccione; Thanksgiving in Tortola; nearly bring home a baby goat ; political “discussion” attracts police; Tery’s uncanny conversational skills discredited; passionate lover masks robbery of host’s Tribeca loft; $50,000 gold sculpture, by Tery, left untouched. Chapter 24: The Dented Ferrari, by Tery: motorcycle racing; black funeral spread out on highway, as police search it; save the life of a man who, in turn, kills a man for denting his Ferrari.
Chapter 25: Taking Over Tery’s Career, by Valerie: owner’s coma forces Tery’s decision to leave Photorealist gallery; I sell sculpture too large to take home; discover the ability to & thrill of selling art; learn how to network at museums, (the hard way); entertaining as a way to sell art; using gold as a tax-deductible savings account; enter the mad world of avant garde art collectors; meet the best people at the worst parties; make the Vanderbilt connection; discover the Hamptons, playground of the rich. 
Chapter 26: City Walls & Public ART, by Valerie: The art of getting donations; beat out Bally Casino for a huge billboard; friend gets the ultimate job…buying art; Tery creates huge sculpture by “drawing” it in the air; confounding the Union; serendipitous connection with major collectors in Newport; the dubious founder of graffiti art; artists who “just love ripping off youse rich bitches!” 
The Holland Tunnel Wall, as it is being painted. The Holland Tunnel Wall after Weathering.
Bars of metal color the "Weathering Wall" on Lafayette St. & Houston, NYC Chapter 27: Designing the Tunnel & other Design Projects, by Valerie: Tery lends his creativity to designing the last great disco club; results of using “prison labor” to build it; Moisha Dayan’s grandson; Renata Dayan, his wife & the truck driver; bizarre seed pack mystery; the snake at El Morocco; the $20,000 cat; bad-luck building project; giving opposite depositions; the atypical New Yorker. "Self-Watering Tetrahedrons" at the Prudential, in Newark, NJ. 
Chapter 28: Cats & a Dog or 2, by Valerie: I “witness breedings”; defiant poodle; Humane Society kitten; import tiny rat-like rex kitten; cat explores inside the tin ceiling of a 5000 Ft2 loft; go camping by motorcycle, with two cats in a backpack; learn why basements turn Tery on; find out why God invented puppies & kittens; my favorite computer correction from “SpellCheck”. Chapter 29: Life in New York City...in the Fast Track, by Both: Death of Valerie’s Mother & true Hawaiian send-off; Tery is a rock; Tery designs Guggenheim’s 50th anniversary; Valerie’s heart palpitations, (“Come baaaaaack into your body.”); the Count d’no account at the Whitney & the Carlisle; tales of the famous Mortimer’s restaurant; most memorable “International Set” weddings. Chapter 30: The Benefit Committee Circle, by Both: getting unique donations; museum committees, the best singles’ club in town; Mothers for More Halfway Houses; star-studded Kaufman Astoria Studios; turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse; South Street Seaport; Night of 100 Trees; Night of 1000 gowns, the great transvestite ball for AIDS; Surrealist Ball at the Gugg; giant fried egg; Gloria. Chapter 31: Being a Shakespeare, by Valerie: the tribulations, advantages & absurdities of having a name like Shakespeare; meeting another Shakespeare; the ultimate “small world” story.
Chapter 32: Entertainin’ Royalty or Something? by Both: delivering the egg; Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis; touring the art studios; dinner with Liz Taylor; why we weren’t invited to Princess Caroline’s wedding; Malcolm Forbes flies the art to Regensburg & cut a hole in his yacht for Tery’s piece; telling 5 ½ billion dollars to take his hand off your knee; benefits in our loft with Joan Rivers & Ron Howard. 
Chapter 33: Entertaining in Style, by Both: ultimate WASP party at Colony Club; playing, "What does your Daddy do?”; broccoli in Tery’s soup, (It’s a man thing); engagement party culture shock; wedding with baby race horses; beating Andrew Wyeth, for art commission in Mainline Philadelphia; impossible “Surprise!” birthday party for Valerie. Chapter 34: Making Art a Business, While Still Having Fun , by Valerie: dialing for dollars; guest nearly gets himself hauled off in handcuffs; “I am NOT going to die on the Hudson River!” ; Sculpture to Wear at the Plaza Hotel; dust drawings; “FISH? FISH? You can’t make a fur coat out of FISH!” Chapter 35: The Ausable Club or How we knew we would Win the Gulf War, by Tery: camping out in style; black tie dinners in the ‘daks, (Adirondacks); hiking with moose & deer that come right up to you… unless you try to be quiet, then skitter away; ubiquitous “guides” provide for our every need; facing a black bear…naked; buzzed, (& saluted) by the amazing Wart Hogs. 
Chapter 36: The Partying Lifestyle, by Both: Halloween in NYC, the ultimate partying holiday; party with the U.N. crowd; benefit committees & parties, (especially for AIDS); the inside story of much-publicized celebrity marriage, (& divorce); attend movie premiers & party with the principals, (never talk to the artist); storm out of a backers’ audition for anti-Semitic opera, (take nearly everyone with us); meet a great white hunter, ask him about Bambi, (never tell me not to say something) & see his dik dik; party at (& with the owners of) the fabulous Four Seasons restaurant & at Lutece. Chapter 37: Parties, Parties & More Parties, by Tery: party in our loft with the stars of The Sopranos & movie producers, “they’re all over 18 - it’s perfectly legit!”; one guest exposes the psychiatric hospital scandal; getting to know the Kennedy’s; ultimate surprise birthday party & ensuing wedding reception; “tailgate” parties at Far Hills Steeplechase; house catches fire in middle of party, so we invite all the firemen; polo matches & why Connecticut is sooo not New York. All set for the Easter Parade 
Chapter 38: Floating Socially, by Tery: rubbing elbows with laborers, construction crews, office workers, politicians, celebrities & the filthy rich; party at Visage with the cast of CATS! (advantage of a “pornographic” memory); make the Whitney Museum more “user friendly”; a “lunatic” in robes & sandals, who almost destroys Picasso’s Guernica at the Museum of Modern Art becomes a prominent art dealer; $10,000 “gift” from MoMA; Eric Douglas thrown out of MoMA, screaming “I’m Valerie Shakespeare’s guest!”; partying with David Koch, one of the richest men in the country; Valerie’s fashion fan club. 
Chapter 39: Curating Actual Art Exhibitions, by Both: discover like-minded artists & decide to curate shows; lack the “corporate mentality” & vow never to get one; lesbian-phobia in Princeton, NJ; how to have fun in a “super stretch limousine” (bus); ultimate “Chauvinist” collector; never give your wife & mistress the same gift; destroy his marriage of 27 years with my BIG mouth; design the sets, (entire Laundromat that must be assembled & disassembled in 15 min) for a play by Cornelia Ravenal, starring Kirk Douglas’ youngest son, Eric, the most self-destructive human being we ever met. Chapter 40: Making Art, by Valerie: despite the constant giving & going to parties, Tery’s unwavering ability to make art, putting his art before everything else, “I have half of van Gogh’s life. I make art all day & party all night! (van Gogh didn’t have the party half.)”  Chapter 41: Tatiana, by Valerie: design a stunning restaurant for famous “Opium” perfume model, Francine, “I don’t vant PR! I just want to get written about!”; our friends gang up on us, “We love you but we are NOT going back to that restaurant!”; the ultimate “I don’t remember a thing about last night.” story; Tery’s advice: “If you’re going to throw a brick through a window, let go of the brick!” 
Chapter 42: More Gloria von Turin und Taxis, by Both: give an elaborate cocktail party for all the titled “Eurotrash” in NYC that ends up being dinner for 300 guests; Timothy Leary reveals his brains turned to mashed potatoes; Christian Lacroix fashion show where Gloria terrorizes Donald Trump; party at MK, where everyone mistakes an emerald in Mick Jagger’s tooth for spinach; curate an exhibition at the schloss, (castle to us) in Regensburg; Prince Johannes dies; Gloria “gagged” by courts at $30,000 a word; loses her appetite for fun, without Johannes to disapprove of her antics. Chapter 43: Starting a New Gallery, by Tery: encouraged by art sales at Tatiana, we create a business plan; go out on a limb for space under the Guggenheim, based on response from the Vanderbilt connection; stall Peter Brandt, (prospective landlord) so long, he agrees to every demand; Eric Douglas brings his entire improvisational cast with him to perform at the gallery; Loulette Samuels, (Howard Samuel’s widow) gives us a de Kooning to raise money with, which we hand over on a promise, “Either we have the money, or we’ve just done a very stupid thing.” Miraculously, the money does appear & we’re off to the races. 
Chapter 44: The Unconventional Collector, by Tery: collectors who mount animal asses; “buy a Burger King”; donate 100,000 Renaissance prints & drawings; take us to visit Osama bin Laden’s nephew; buy Aston Martin, (the company) & ask Tery to design one; bring braces of pheasant; sponsor Tery’s works shot by shotgun or struck by lightning; take us to a piano bar where Vicki Lamata hits on Tery; lift Tery’s art into his apartment by crane, blocking 59th St. bridge at rush hour; sue Donald Trump & win; enlist our help to get rid of a stalker; offended by John Delorean’s presence at Valerie’s dinner party; ultimate “What do you do?” story. Chapter 45: Fvlcrvm & Life under the Guggenheim, by Valerie: dealing with a “promise her anything” landlord; beating Landmarks Commission at their own game; butting heads with a “nose”; learning the value of entertaining in the gallery; our first opening, “This is Tery... one of my husbands.”; trying to evict us for putting up Christmas lights; a very discerning thief; gallery motto & tee shirts, “Without Art we’re but Monkeys with Car Keys”; filming “Great Expectations” & “Good Day New York” at our gallery; NY1 on grass paintings; CNN on glass beehive; CBS on Hermit crabs & all the press on our Chinese New Year celebration, banned by Giulliani, when Tery blows up his art, (with a dragon too). 
Chapter 46: The Art of Running a Gallery, by Tery: the painful experience of hiring your friends; the even more painful experience of getting rid of them; interviewing new staff; one takes her blouse off to show Tery her muscles; twin bartenders, one with a boob job & one without; one who’s never used a dishwasher; one who gives out free blowjobs when she gets drunk; one who goes out with Eric Douglas & comes back with the ultimate Eric Douglas story & naming a show of rust paintings by a Japanese artist, “Immortal Rust,” not realizing he'd pronuonce it “Immoral Lust”! Chapter 47: Turning the Artworld on its Ear, by Tery: donate space for (rather scruffy) Artists Talk on Art panels; bring them kicking & screaming into the 20th century; ultra proper staffer sees a woman stuff a whole brie down her blouse, “Put that back!” & (as she reaches into her blouse,) squeals, “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare!”; memorable panels with memorable participants; a very revealing panel by Jean Claude & Christo, from a marijuana-filled projector smuggled in from Vietnam.  Chapter 48: The Road Less Traveled, by Tery: Mr. Promise-her-anything signs a lease with the Guggenheim promising them access to the main elevator, (through our space); after long process of making & refusing offers, we finally find a better & larger space, accepting $168,000 to move. Chapter 49: Shakespeare’s Fvlcrvm, by Valerie: new space, new start, new firepole; more clients & more interesting clients; Mary Mc Fadden tries out new beaus there; we're a “safe house” for the Kennedy’s & stars Chris Reeve, Mary McFadden, Joan Rivers, Ron Howard, Betsy Johnson, Catherine Oxenburg, Cecilia Peck, Kelsey Grammar, Peter Gabriel, Kevin Kline, Bruce Springsteen, Donna Karen & multi-billionaires Malcolm Forbes, Warren Buffet, David Koch, John (JP) Paulson... come by to buy art, help out or just hang out Chapter 50: What’s with the TITS? by Valerie: Tery designs all my gowns; try a new look, found the room didn’t catch on fire, no one fainted dead away & I wasn’t thrown out; as I became braver, continued mild reactions became a challenge; my breasts the subject of constant speculation, (are they real?); newspaper & magazine articles; inspiration for Seinfeld episode; major exhibition at Robert Miller Gallery of Tery’s photos of me, nude from the waist up, used for our ads; one is reduced to a circle... in a Nazi flag on the cover of NY Arts Magazine; ensuing appearance on Peoples’ Court, with Judge Jerry Sheindlin, (“Judge Judy’s wife”) screeching, “You cover those up!” 
Chapter 51: The Attacks of 9/11: It’s Effect on the Art World (& us) by Valerie: Imminent success, then utter destruction as the country copes with the enormity of the attacks; the quintessential 9/11 story; why it’s not true that “only rich people were aided”; struggling to hold everything together; suddenly all bets are off; grapple with bankruptcy, without a lawyer; starting over, homeless & penniless, after 40 years of marriage; the unbelievable kindness & generosity of our friends; former backer asks us to create an art center in CT; 
Shocking abuse of power, in the name of Internal Security lands him in a psych ward; his wife sees her chance to gain control; his partner cuts our brake lines to prevent us from getting him out; we get him out anyway but… It’s time to come back to NYC...where they play nice. | |
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