Frances Farmer Defends Herself, graphite on paper, 52 x 360 inches. First exhibited in NW Art Now at Tacoma Art Museum.

“Listen, I get liquor in my milk, I get liquor in my coffee and in my orange juice, what do you expect me to do, starve to death?”

This is the infamous quote uttered by Seattle’s iconic Hollywood starlet Frances Farmer. The words were part of Farmer’s defense before a judge following an arrest in 1943: her answer to accusations of unruly behavior. In the years leading up to a string of such arrests, Farmer had become addicted to booze and benzedrine while working in Hollywood; the latter prescribed as an appetite suppressant when her studio insisted she lose weight. 

Soon after this court appearance, Farmer was involuntarily committed by her mother to an asylum. She would spend the next decade in and out of mental institutions, subjected to electroshock and myriad forms of abuse. Farmer was arguably Seattle’s “star” hysteric—not unlike the Salpetriere Hospital’s heavily-documented hysteric, Augustine. Both women played the dual roles of celebrity and patient, specimens on display for a voyeuristic public hungry to consume and condemn the spectacle of a woman acting out.

This drawing was made over the course of 44 days, using a 0.5 mm mechanical pencil.

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Frances Farmer’s Revenge (below), graphite on paper mounted to linen, 52 x 156 inches. Installed at Forest For The Trees for Howl, July 2022.