Joanne was such a help for me -- livilng in manhattan beach and working for an airline and hateing make up and the bev hills lifestyle she showed me how to do a very simple make up that would only take me minutes -- if i was not in my uniform i was werning shorts and sandles. So sorry just a great lady is gone

good buy Joanne

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I looked everywhere for photos of Joanne who I first met in San Francisco in the late 60's. But I seem to have misplaced or lost much memorabalia given frequent geographical moves in the past years. At that time in San Francisco in the late 60's she wore only black and lived in a covenant of "witches" in Haight Ashbury. She identified as a "white witch" Her hair was wild and dishsheveled. She was a frequent visitor to Steven Arnold's 17th Street Studio in The Mission District and on the set often when we filmed Luminous Procuress,  even appearing in a scene tucked inside an Egyptian Coffin dressed as an Ancient Egyptian (she loved Egyptian Mythology and Culture). This experience and Steven Arnold's magic inspired Joanne to  return to her Los Angeles birthplace and study cosmetics and become a make-up artist. 

Later, both Steven Arnold and I also moved to LA eventually founding another warehouse studio together. Joanne was always "in the mix". Joanne was my "Eskimo" - meaning the person who introduced me to the  AA 12-Step Program. Today I have almost 28 years of continuous sobriety. 

I worked as an actor periodically during those years in LA and Joanne did the make up on me for the vampire character Lestat from "Interview With The Vampire" when I learned a film was to be made and wanted photos to submit for casting. Needless to say I did not get the part. Hard to compete with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt! She had the most delicate healing touch. I beleive she was a healer and make-up was her vehicle. 

I will always cherish my memories of Joanne. I posted this photo of a pair of decorative Egyptian Screens I created to capitalize on the mania surrounding the Los Angeles County Art Museum's King Tut Exhibiton many years ago. Joanne LOVED these screens and so I post a photo of them in her memory.   

 Joanne's interview for "Heavenly Bodies" book and documentary

Joanne was interviewed by Stephanie Farago in the late 90's for the soon to be published book and documentary entitled "Heavenly Bodies," an auto-biographical art book and documentary about the surreal life of Steven Arnold.  Pandora and Nikki Nichols were there assisting with the filming and styling of Joanne telling of her meeting and adventures with Steven.  The interview for the documentary was later transcribed to be included in the book and here it is:

JOANNE FRADKIN

At the time she called herself “Nile Cartouche.” With the guidance and exposure to Steven Arnold during the filming of Luminous Procuress she was inspired to become the renowned and talented makeup artist of Pigments Cosmetics. She describes her first contact with Steven Arnold as an initiation.

Joanne: I walked into the studio where Luminous Procuress was going to be filmed. On an oriental rug—spread out in the middle of the studio floor— was an assemblage of objects…of magic, of Tibet, of the circus, of the scary clowns, of the harlequins, of The Commedia Del Arte, of all the old carnival imagery. I said “Oh my Lord. This is just incredible.” Because all my life, those archetypes were in me, but they were so strongly, at that moment, just realized. And in walks this creature, this being, carrying a box. He looked like the Maxfield Parrish or the pre-Raphaelite Angels with the halo of hair. Tall and thin and just the most beautiful face I ever saw. It just knocked me over. I mean it just literally knocked me over. It was a moment in my life that I knew it was the kind of meeting, that kind of energy hit, that just practically knocks you over and enlightens you, but you don’t know it yet. And he was so gentle and so graceful and so beautiful. And we talked a little bit and he said, “Well, after I get set up, come visit me.” And I was just in love—more in love than I ever had been in my life. And thus, I met Steven Arnold and became a part of this magical troupe of beings that changed the very course of my life. I probably wouldn’t be alive today if it hadn’t been for that.

The studio, when it was really finally ready, was a huge space with bigger than life-size Egyptian statues surrounding it…with a barge with leopard skins and pillows on it. Everywhere you looked there were symbols that were archetypal, that anybody could relate to on their level and it would affect everybody differently. But that’s the kind of teacher he was. He was almost like a Sufi teacher or a Western hermetic magus, because not much is spoken and the main imagery that I saw, that came alive within me from Steven, was the pure face, the God of Silence, the trickster. That’s what all that symbolizes—that mask. I know that he was very influenced by George Mellies and it was that face on the moon’s and the Trip To The Moon, that kind of scary, fabulous, beautiful, leering moon face, clown face, that was so prominent for me. It was like Halloween but better, everyday. We would be there for hours and hours. Time would disappear, literally. People would be there all day and all night. It would be like 12, 15 hours in hair and makeup. I would just be observing all of this.

The dressing room area was where all the madness and magic took place and it really looked like the backstage of an old vaudeville house—with all the other elements of the carnival, of magic and the imagery of almost every great religion of the world. I would be downstairs painting props and I’d go upstairs and I’d watch Nikki and Pandora and Koelle do these incredible fantasy makeups and hair and costumes that were just out to here and up to here. I never saw anything like it. It rivaled anything in any Fellini movie that you could ever think of. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was leading me—planting the seed within me of what my will in this life was to be. It was to realize that I was an artist too.

I will never forget the night that he shot the banquet scene with all of The Cockettes. He did have a very mischievous side. For the banquet he had invited the grand madame and her daughter—the most elegant prostitute—who had a beautiful daughter who I think was going to be working with her if she wasn’t already, but they were very elegant blondes and he wanted them in that film and they were in that shot. He could be so perverse and so wicked and he knew it, you know, sometimes he would laugh with that funny laugh.

Finally we’re ready, and Steven, who we haven’t seen all day, slowly comes downstairs. The music, the beautiful, strange music that he always played comes up as he comes down the stairs. He looked liked the captain of a spaceship. He was wearing this high neck black jumpsuit with this huge triangular, silver buckle. He really was the captain of the ship and the minute he came down it was like, silence would fall. His energy and his presence just changed everything. It always changed and elevated the energy a lot. He was so still within himself always, and there’s all this madness going around and he’s like this still guardian guide, master, magus and he would begin to shoot. After Luminous was over, the very course of my life changed, as did everybody’s who met Steven.

Steven was my teacher—my great teacher. The way he taught was never with words. The power of his presence was the teaching. It was an honor—such a privilege. I had lost myself, or I had been born lost. Being involved in the process of Luminous—to have a gift of a mentor and to know or to realize that you better take advantage of it and you better accept the teaching because it is a gift. And the more I think back about Steven, in retrospect and the way he was, the more I’m convinced more than ever that he is, was and is, a true Bodhisattva being and a magician and not necessarily from this dimension. That’s more real to me now than it even was then. I remember people—usually straight people that had business dealings with him. They would come into the studio and it was like the door would disappear. When they went to leave, they’d have to be shown the way out because immediately the energy vibration was just shot up and out and into other dimensions, and it affected everybody—those that could absorb that energy and play with it like all of us mad, crazy, gypsy beings, angels and devils and clowns and all of us. People don’t realize—they think of hippies, but we weren’t hippies.

We were magical beings like the manifesto says and it was the most uninterrupted, undiluted, creativity on one of the highest levels I’ve ever experienced. In the intervening years, I would just get such a kick out of watching people, when he moved down to L.A. —how his presence would affect the next generation coming up. The younger kids that were coming over to the studio attending the salons—I was watching the ones that were going to be his students. He still taught by creating a situation. He didn’t teach with words. He would create a situation like the puppet master that he was. It was like the cosmic puppet master that he was on the higher plane, you know, as above, so below. I would just watch it happen all over again. Those that got it—people I’ve spoken to that got it, feel the way that most of us do that he affected us so deeply and each in our own way. The force of his being was very, very strong and very high.

I’m really honored that my path went to his path. I know I’ll see him again and I know our group will be together again and I now that we’ve been together in many lives. We miss him, but he’s so here.