photos of Jenna Putnam by Kealan Shilling
Los Angeles is a city built upon the cult of celebrity. A desert oasis at the end of the world where the wildest dreams can become reality, a glittering metropolis defined by the characters it has given rise to on the ever shifting whims of fame and popularity and inhabited with the aspirations of so many yearning for immortality. The latest single from multidisciplinary artist Jenna Putnam explores the relationship between the city and herself by comparing both to one of LA’s most visible denizens, the mysterious and magnetic billboard queen of the 1980s, Angelyne.
The tune is a melancholy one, a fragile piano ballad in the vein of Ben Folds’ most intimate compositions that effectively draws the listener into the innermost sanctum of Putnam’s psyche with hushed lyrics and a gentle sense of loneliness. Los Angeles is a big city, notoriously vast in scale, which makes it especially easy to get lost in, to be completely isolated while surrounded by millions of people. Now more than ever that sensation of untethered remoteness can be completely overwhelming, as late nights and long days spent without physical companionship blend together with the eerily silent streets just outside the window. Set adrift from the shores of reality it is increasingly easy to fall prey to the siren song of the digital universe glowing from our palms, an overpopulated facsimile of civilization screaming into the void in unison.
Breaking free from the multitude of voices and rising above the cognitive congestion to earn the recognition that brings so many to Los Angeles is especially difficult in today’s age of nonstop, always-on exposure. The changing appetites of fickle fans ebb and flow with the latest trends requiring constant adaptation on the part of artists to stay relevant. Many create a persona, a permanent costume that shimmers and shifts like a desert mirage attracting the thirsty attention of digital drifters and cool-prospectors, worn like armor over the true self as protection against the lashes and bruises of the anonymously vocal multitude. Spend too long in the confines of the gilded carapace and the true self will shrivel and atrophy leaving only the outer projection remaining, a hollow mannequin forever posed to entertain and bemuse, a character relevant only on the stage.
Angelyne is a character, but unlike so many of her imitators that exist only as an outer shell, she has poured the entirety of her being into her carefully engineered self. Crafted and curated to shield the woman underneath from the slings and arrows of criticism, Angelyne the character is a platform to espouse Angelyne the person’s artistic expression through physical existence and unparalleled visibility. Musician, performer, visual artist; Angelyne’s enduring versatility and bold uniqueness has inspired countless admirers. A bubblegum and cheesecake muse who has maintained her meticulous cult of celebrity for decades by remaining absolutely true to her central thesis, a brilliant and gaudy reflection of the town that gave birth to her.
Underneath her wigs and makeup is a tangible sense of humanity, hinted at but never exposed and safely locked away from the public eye. Putnam catches glimpses of Angelyne’s hidden persona in her own passing reflections, relating to the necessity of erecting barriers in the interest of personal preservation when pursuing artistic expression. But the secret to preventing losing yourself to the overwhelming influence of celebrity is to maintain an ironclad sense of individual fortitude, a kind of wisdom that comes from full immersion in the deepest end of the swimming pool and leaning to break through to the surface and tread water on your own. “It’s easy to get sucked into the bullshit and to be seduced by fake people that are trying to drain you of everything you have. But once you learn to filter that out, you make it your own” says Putnam about her relationship to the scene and what it takes to survive, “I think as I get older I’m really starting to appreciate the beauty of it.”
Originally conceived as a much larger production, Putnam channeled that empowering definition of self into an intimate video captured solo around the nearly vacant streets of Los Angeles. Diving deep into her own vision, Putnam invites the viewer into her private space as a love letter to LA itself and the personal resilience earned she has earned by crafting her own identity much in the same way Angelyne gave herself over to the city and her vision to create a lasting and original impact that is uniquely LA and recognized far beyond. “It was the first time I’d felt creative in a while,” Putnam says, “I was really reminiscing about how much I love Los Angeles when I filmed this.”
Putnam, Angelyne, Los Angeles itself meld together like a multiple exposure photograph, images stacked upon images until it’s difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. An unending cycle of birth and rebirth borne from the pursuit of something larger than the self until the origin has been lost to time, obscured by countless costume changes as Putnam asks Angelyne, asks herself, asks all the pilgrims that came before her and all that will come after, “what did you come here for?”
