by Sandra Beckmeier

One of the best things about being a journalist has been the opportunities I get by virtue of what I do. I meet some cool, talented, and interesting people. Everyone has affected me in a unique way because of who they are. Sometimes it's profound. I'm plunging off the diving board into art. I've come to the realization that, although I really like it, I'm too dramatic for journalism. You can learn a great deal from people if you're willing to listen, to really listen and understand what they have to say. Because people are almost always there to help out other people. We all want a connection.

There are many cool artists in Austin. I admire many of those I've met these past two years regardless of whether or not their work appeals to me personally. Every once in a while, however, someone really sticks out in my mind.

I met Kerthy Fix in January, and interviewed her for a story I got sidetracked from completing. Luckily, I got to interview her again as she was someone I wanted to profile in this our "Estrogen" issue. She has been letting many of her outlets of expression sit on the palette of her mouth for a while, valuing each experience while deciding which are most fulfilling for her as an artist. Definitively female, a free-spirited renaissance artist, Fix is aware of the value of release and is actively involved in three outlets, which include the Performance Art Church, the punk band "Olive," and the production company known as "The Administration" who have shot music videos for the likes of Ed Hall, Sincola, and Sons of Hercules.

Kerthy is a graduate of UT with a degree in film, and, more importantly, a student of life, and this interview with Kerthy speaks for itself. I just wish we could all be so frank and intimate in our daily conversations.

ADA: Since this is the "Estrogen" issue, I'll start with a question I'm exploring for myself. What does it mean to you to be a woman?

FIX: Well, I love women and female energy, and I hate how women have been ignored. A lot of what I was doing with the "G-Spot" (a radio program formerly on KO-OP), even though I wasn't rhetorical on the air, had a lot of politics behind it. I wanted to play music, really great music that I love made by women or bands that women are in. So it just came out of my basic interest. I pay more attention. I'm curious, and I wanted to create an atmosphere on the air of a party. Like this is our club and we don't want to exclude you -- you're welcome to eavesdrop but this is about us and we're cool and hip and we don't care what you think. A lot of discrimination has gone underground but it still exists and it's kind of nastier because people aren't as direct. It's like there are five bands playing at a club because the club's overbooked and four of those bands are made up of all men and one band is made up of women - who is asked to drop out? It's well meaning. It's like people who aren't even intentionally...

ADA: Aware.

FIX: Yeah. Because it's like, oh wow, who are we gonna ask? Well, women will be nice about it, but a guy would be like, well, I'm probably not going to be nice about it. It's also how you're treated in equipment stores. The guitar player in "Olive", Laura (Creedle) talks about going into music stores with her husband and the salespeople are like "can I help you sir?" And it's like he doesn't even play a fucking instrument. She's a guitar goddess. So I think that I personally am more interested in art and music made by women. I feel that being a woman -- just like being a gay person or someone in a minority -- it gives you a special insight. You've been fucked with a little more in your life because people have judged you based on something you can't help and not what you are. You tend to analyze the value system that is judging you more than someone who is perfectly comfortable within those value systems. And that is why white boys get so much shit. The world is made for white boys. Which isn't to say that white boys don't have a hard time too, I mean everybody is having a hard time these days. In Corporate America it's getting harder and harder to live. All creative people or artists or people who just want to live in a way that's not work driven, wage-slavery driven. So I think a lot of what I do as a creative person has to do with the feeling that you're more effective getting through to people if you don't knock them over the head. Just by being forceful you can change people's opinions in that you offer an exception. It's not as obvious in our little progressive community of Austin maybe, but you know, every time you look at a newspaper some guy has kidnapped and raped a woman. There's so much violence.

ADA: I read not long ago a story in the paper about a woman who had been raped while she was in a coma in a nursing home. The woman was impregnated, and her family decided that the decent thing was for her to carry the baby to term. As a woman I'm well acquainted with the feeling of fear. Sometimes I really resent the fact that I can't sleep with all of my windows open because I don't want to risk someone breaking into my apartment while I'm sleeping. It's easily my biggest fear, and I have no control. I can't imagine how a person would cope if you woke up from a coma to find out that not only had you been raped, but you gave birth without your consent to the child of the man who raped you. Obviously not in this case, because the guy walked -- but when you got to court it's how the woman was dressed, her behavior, these kinds of things would be presented maybe not in direct terminology, but theoretically.

FIX: You know the whole issue of woman as vessel -- it's like, I'm not a fucking cow in your farm. I know why, in a Darwinian sense, we think like that family did as human beings. But I mean it's such an outdated way of thinking. We're overpopulated. We don't need every child. It's a strange thing to bear a child for the "great gift." That's probably one of the most profound human experiences, and yet some of us just don't want to do it.

ADA: Especially when you think about how society treats children. There are the essentials that are neglected and nobody gives a shit. Children aren't getting educated. Especially children who are considered minorities. They're not being fed. They aren't taught their cultural history so they have no pride.

FIX: Just walking down the street is dangerous. I mean, we used to live in the days where a child knew almost everyone around it, and that's not the case anymore. It's a sickness. Yeah, it's like I really want to be close to my nieces. They're here, they exist. But I myself don't want to bring children into the world. I'm glad for my friends who have and do because I want to be around children. Children are just so wonderful, but I don't know how they have the faith to do it, ya know? I just don't know how you do it right and not lose yourself, especially for women in particular.

ADA: There are so many people who have babies and then resent their children, and they don't even realize it. The idea of having children because you have a uterus and not because you simply have the desire to do it is a heavy thing to question. I've really embraced the fact that I live in the generation that I do where there are so many choices. Because it hasn't been that way for very long in this society, and if people don't vote it could easily change.

FIX: Sometimes it just breaks my heart to think of all of the women in the world whose talents and brilliance are submerged. I just read "The Hite Report on Women and Love" and it's so fascinating that you can't put it down. It's just story after story about all of these women who after 25 years of marriage finally leave. According to the statistics in the book, which are from the late 80s, women initiate most divorces because they just can't live in these separate-bedroom-living-death marriages anymore. All of these brilliant women who stayed in these marriages forever who were unhappy, and they got out of it and they were like, "oh my God I'm so happy I'm finally free!" And a lot of them stay in it because of economics. I mean you look at the sex industry, women are so...

ADA: Well, look at how long prostitution has been around. That's the only way some women find that they can be totally independent.

FIX: There would be a lot less women who would choose it if all things were equal. I mean we know that. Women still don't get paid equally for the same work [as a man]. I mean it just makes me laugh sometimes when you hear women say, "I'm not a feminist. I've never experienced discrimination." It's just like you don't even know it. You just need to open your eyes because you can't even walk down the street and not experience it without being categorized because of what you're in. That was like a really shocking thing to me in my early 20s. It was like here I am this woman. And what I'm dealing with is this combination of sexual violence, and I'm the object of this through no fault of my own. I have a pair of tits. I wasn't doing anything to display them at the time. I was in a relationship with a woman, and I had all my hair cut off. I wasn't advertising myself as available to men which I think we do when we're available, display ourselves in a certain way. And knowing this I just thought "this is not fair, I'm just this dork walking around in this body." What the fuck, it's like I've got a camera and you want to steal it but it's not a camera that I can hide or put down -- it's me in my body being a woman. There's so much violence and you read about all the women, and all the fucked up stuff that men do to women. I went on a trip. I travelled by myself biking and hitch-hiking in Europe.

ADA: Did you go to Poland? You made a film in Poland right?

FIX: This was the first time I went. I went from Germany to Prague. It was still Czechoslovakia then. Then I hitch-hiked into Poland and it was such a realization, it was like, yes, I am a target but I also have a lot of power. Now I think in America the images we receive are much more effective at scaring little girls out of their power. Terrifying us into not wanting to use our power. "Don't be abrasive or display yourself sexually for men's pleasure." These images we get contain it, but we've got the power. That's why there is all of this violence against women. It's because men are powerless. I mean everyone is on a spectrum right? It's not like no man possesses psychological or sexual power.

ADA: Look at Elvis, James Brown.

FIX: Exactly. But if you're gonna generalize and say that female energy is about sexual and psychological power, then we have to be brave and own up to our power. It frightens me so much sometimes when I'm just going about my day, and I realize that without really thinking about it I'm sending out intense signals and someone can be sending me these really intense psychic waves and I don't have to be afraid of that. I can use that, and that's a good thing. It's a healing thing.

Kerthy Fix and the Performance Art Church will be performing November 7th, at the Electric Lounge. Yours truly is hopping on the train. Come, check it out, it'll be fun.