I buy a lot of crap and a good portion of it goes down the virtual funnels of the internet. This is how I came upon a jewelry seller by the name of Perishable's, who sells ear bobbles that look like wet worms, necklaces fashioned out of clusters of fruit pits, feathers, and chicken bones, and the models wearing them have that "I sleep with whoever" look to them. I decided to contact Frederick M. Kobrick IV, the maker of these items, and have a conversation about them. And I almost barfed and I'm a legal adult. If you're not, don't click down there.
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Frederick M. Kobrick IV: I started by making items for myself, and people started asking where I got them. Once I told them that I created them, I started getting orders—first from Chicago, and then from all over the world. That's just the surface. The items I make are primarily used in rituals I create and perform in. All the items I sell online have participated in either a performance or photo series.What do you mean when you use the word "ritual?"
The group of artists I work with are known as The Temple Ov Divine Into-Ition, or The Embracists, or New World Dad Order, or The Omegas. We are located coast to coast and share similar interests and opinions about perception, communication, reincarnation, communal living, the economy, ecology, animals, fashion, sound art, sculpture, drugs, sex, and diet. The word "ritual" can be misunderstood and taken out of context quite easily. We all have rituals, and they need not appear Magickal at all. They can be mundane as general hygiene or complex as a banishing ritual. Rituals, ceremonies, and performances carried out by groups are typically more dynamic. It's likely I will edit myself and use the word "performance" in place of the word "ritual" to prevent people from projecting doubts about spirituality. "Performance" is generally more accepted by consensus reality and sounds less flaky. Using neutral adjectives to label something charged is helpful to avoid excluding anyone from enjoying the stimuli because they think cults or spirituality is moronic. Besides, "cult" is a buzzword that got tainted in the sixties. Do cults even call themselves cults these days?
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No, I wouldn't really want to. Sure, they generate income, but I certainly do not have the motivation to only be a jewelry maker. That would be tedious for me. How do you choose the materials for the pieces? Do they have a use in and of themselves?
Yes. The organic materials are found objects from my travels and gifts from friends' travels. Dead animals, driftwood, pods, lots of pits from fruit I eat. My studio at times looks like a produce store's dumpster. I like letting matter decompose around me. I do believe that most of the items I use do absorb a memory, and I mean this in the most cynical, materialistic way.So when you invent these things, with all these many layers of meaning, what's the intended outcome?
The most ostensible reason is to manifest some sort of altered state of consciousness, an escape—which is all entertainment is. This next one I'm creating is evocative of fermentation, spring, and obtaining transcendence through not procreating. Basically I'm proposing that one's "energy/soul/consciousness" can be liberated from returning to earth if one abstains from procreating. This next ritual is to basically say, "You want out, then pull out." I'm going to pretend you're not talking about jewelry made from jizz. Is this a full-time job for you, or do you suffer in an office like the rest of us?
I don't work the office bit. It does seem appealing though … I didn't have heat all this winter. Security has its advantages, like being able to produce more. I am very domestic and would rather work from home.
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Photography and documentation in general, these are of utmost importance. Especially for what I make and what I do. I often think that above all else I am a photographer. I have made a few films as well, documentaries mostly. In one I got this man to masturbate in front of an art gallery. It was great. He was jacking off and people are trying to get in and out of the building, all very disturbed by the ragged looking man jacking off. Classic.But what do you do for money?
First and foremost I make clothing, jewelry, and artwork, which I sell online. Secondly, I work with a playwright/journalist/activist/writer who has Muscular Dystrophy twice a week in the early morning. I wake him up, get him in his electric wheelchair, fix him breakfast, and set him up for the afternoon. We also collaborate on a comic strip. I also do commissions when I can: illustration, fashion, lighting design, or any other design-related duty. I am also an alternative healer, which is a vague thing to say, but that is all I care to divulge.What is home for you? Your own place with a studio where you kill animals for your materials and slather them with bodily fluids?
Yes, bodily fluids—good old blood and cum, nectar of the cults—but no animals are killed. I am a vegan with a fetish for fur and leather. I use so many carcasses…funny how people never sympathize with cellulose slaughter. And I rent and live in a studio …very cold and industrial.So when you use blood and cum, that is part of the performance? Or is it mixed in with the jewelry? If someone chances upon your stuff on the internet, are they walking away with more of you than they bargained for?
Ha ha. Secret secretions. No, nothing underhanded. I know too much about contamination and so forth. Working in the tattooing industry and home health care scared me into an education. If someone is willing to pay for the fluids though, that is fine. I need healthy and organic produce to nibble on.How is the blood and the cum used exactly? I'm trying to get a mental image of the rituals. Like if I were to go to the event in Chicago, what would I see?
I don't want to give my next performance away, but one I did in Philadelphia at a gallery consisted of a transgendered man fisting himself while wearing a clan hood resembling Ganesh. I came into a woman's mouth with a limp penis, then she spit it into a copper cup and I drank it. Then my partner's legs were sliced, blood was collected with the same copper object, and he drank that. I can make myself cum without having an orgasm, and without any prostrate stimuli either, but that's beside the point. I like creating visuals that resemble satanic rituals that have an elementary school play effect. One ritual we do is called "Thankfully Empty," and that revolves around the menstrual cycle. So many are either repulsed or bothered by periods. Why not celebrate?What happens down the road when these things aren't shocking anymore?
I hope they are not shocking anymore. We all come from blood and cum, let's get over it. Stop holding in your farts and pissing behind doors. Or not, it's entirely up to you.KELLY McCLURE
