DINING AT ZANZIBAR
A shining example of one of the eccentric realities Steven created in the old pretzel factory that he transformed into Zanzibar Studios. This dining room followed a long tradition of elaborate dinner settings, which Steven pulled off with great panache.
Michael Wiese reminisces about a dinner in the early days when the two were making films together in San Fransisco: “I’ll never forget the night he invited me over for dinner. We were both very poor and exhausted from our week’s work together. He said, ‘Come over, dahling, for dinner tonight. I’ll cook for just the two of us.’ I went and the table was set so visually elegant, a’ la Liberace, with beautiful candelabras. Then he proceeded to open up a can of Chef Boyardee spaghetti and served it with cheap Campari.”
“He’s the only person I’ve ever seen eat a donut with a fork and knife,” recalls Joseph Zacarella, star of Messages, Messages. “He did it with total seriousness. He knew I was breaking up inside. Every move was just so beautiful.”
LA GRANDE DAME OF THE UNIVERSAL OPERA
- An original, never-before seen etching from the mid-sixties.
“We are just waking up to the new age and the ancient teachings. We can collect, cross-reference and compute these teachings into one ever-changing structure. Finding the forms to communicate our collections is the key.”
STEVEN ARNOLD
RARE SET OF PHOTOS FROM AFTER DARK MAGAZINE
This rarely seen set of photographs, influenced by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, was created for After Dark magazine April, 1979. After Dark was an entertainment magazine that covered theatre, cinema, stage plays, ballet, performance art, and various artists, including singers, actors, and dancers, among others.
UNTITLED, 1982
“Nowadays, in our cities of steel, we still haven’t lost our need for ancient ritual. Our dances with masks and drum are alive in our bones. We are witch-doctors in designer jeans. The same sexual impulses rule our buying power, claw at our self-illusion. We get high, on whatever, and tune into our instinctual selves. We seek guides, need teachings. As we accumulate, we share, and thus we grow. The more evolved our sharing, the richer our growth.
Oh, beautiful evenings, when we truly share!”
STEVEN ARNOLD
ruth weiss in Messages, Messages
Steven prepares ruth weiss for a scene in "Messages, Messages."
Of Steven’s third film, Messages, Messages, Michael Wiese has said, “It is a journey of the psyche into the world of the unconscious, influenced by Dali, Buñuel, and the German expressionists.” The film was well-received at Cannes Film Festival, being included as a part of the Director’s Fortnight. Pioneering beat poet ruth weiss, a close friend and a favorite subject of Steven’s, appeared in 3 of his 4 films. ruth recently published two masterpiece long-form poems under the title, Can’t Stop the Beat.
Rock Poster for The Matrix, 1967
Throughout the mid-late 1960s and early 1970s, Steven regularly created flyers, posters, and graphic art for local San Fransisco performance venues and boutiques, including The Palace Theater, The Matrix, and In Gear. The above poster was hand-drawn for The Matrix, a famed psychedelic rock venue which was located in San Francisco’s Fillmore District. The Matrix hosted many up-and-coming groups of the time, including: The Doors, The Jefferson Airplane, and The Grateful Dead. The club was also a favorite haunt of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, among others. This particular example, from 1967, headlines the pioneering psychedelic rock band, Quicksilver Messenger Service.
Dragonfly: A Collaboration with Kaisik Wong
A never-before-seen still from the play “Dragonfly,” which Steven and Kaisik Wong wrote, directed, designed, and performed in at Steven’s 17th Street studio in San Francisco in the mid 1960s. Steven is on the far-left, Kaisik is second from the right.
INVITATION TO YIN YANG
FUTURESCAPE
Great, extended use of the brain. Powers we can only sense now, will manifest and bring a magnificent age of clarity. The merging of the sexes becomes a force-field of creativity. Utopian satellite planets Food and energy for everyone. An age of humanism more passionate and conscious than we can fathom, If we wake up and listen to the universe.STEVEN ARNOLD
NEW BIRTH OF VENUS
“I want to keep from violating my sincerity, which would be most destructive. I want total purity in my relationships with all of my friends, without draining my creativity. I want to believe in my friends so much that it teaches them to believe in themselves.’
STEVEN ARNOLD
Steven Drawing Dreams
” My drawings are my own language, voices from my subconscious – autonomic or automatic image writing. I draw directly on the paper with my pen without preconceiving anything – allowing the drawings to make themselves. Often I am surprised and shocked by what appears – sometimes I laugh. These drawings are strictly personal and not intended to entertain anyone. Many of the images come from my dreams. Sometimes when I am drawing, it’s as if forces are working through me, and I am only a medium. I like the results and learn about my other sides… I hang new drawings by my bed and look at them a lot before going to sleep. I find the more I draw, the stranger the drawings become, but also, they get better and better.”
STEVEN ARNOLD
Self Portrait
“Fantasy is a universal human trait, and art is the principal means of expressing it.”
STEVEN ARNOLD
