(#63) QUEEN OF HEARTS BALL:

Edition of 1513 of which 300 copies are signed 1-300, 26 are signed A-Z as artist's proofs, and four sets are signed as progressives.

March 7, 1977 Five colors 14-3/4" x 24"

Client: Margot St. James, COYOTE, Angela Coppola, Coppola Creative Concepts, 54 Mint Street, San Francisco CA 94105. Telephone (415) 989-0222 A-Z: Artist's own use

(Communication Arts' CA77 Exhibition; The Art of Rock, Abbeville Press, New York, 1987) (facsimile)

Influence: Playing card

At one point it was briefly fashionable to be a hooker. Or maybe it was fashionable to pretend to be a hooker and dress like one but not actually be one. My recollection is a bit murky. Being a hooker, especially a street-corner hooker, is hard and dangerous work, and I can't imagine anyone actually doing it for fun. But, tastes differ, I guess. The dance thrown by coyote (Cast Off Your Old Tired Ethics) was originally to be called "The Hooker's Ball," and so I thought this concept of a playing card to be just oblique enough to pique the viewer. But when the coyote people saw the design, they decided to change the name of the dance to "The Queen of Hearts Ball," and that took a bit of the obliqueness out of it. The best laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft a-glay.* Really, they do.

* Robert Burns (1759-1796) To a Mouse (1785)