Jerri Allyn
| Jerri Allyn | |
|---|---|
| Born | New York, New York |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Performance art, installation, and video |
Jerri Allyn (born 1954) is an American feminist performance and installation artist and educator based in Los Angeles, California.
Allyn earned an MA in Art and Community from Goddard College and also attended The Feminist Studio Workshop at the Los Angeles Woman's Building.
Allyn was active in the feminist art movement, co-founding multiple feminist performance groups in the 1970s and 1980s. The first of these was "The Waitresses," co-founded with Anne Gauldin in 1977. All of the members of the group were waitresses, and through their often comedic performances, they explored the cultural perception of women as nurturers as well as what labor conditions were like for women in the service industry. The group performed in restaurants and other public spaces and on one occasion formed The All-City Waitress Marching Band to perform in a parade. Along with Nancy Angelo, Anne Gauldin, Cheri Gaulke and Sue Maberry, Allyn was a founding member of Sisters of Survival (SOS), an anti-nuclear weapons group that sought to bring artists, activists, and citizens together. SOS carried out a project in 1983 called "End of the Rainbow, involving performance events in both the United States and Europe and culminating in an exhibition at Franklin Furnace in New York City from November 20-December 24, 1983.
In her 1977 performance piece "Cancer Madness," Allyn grappled with her mother's cancer, her grandmother's madness, and her own health fears prompted by this family history. She performed in bed in her studio, which she had transformed to look like a hospital. The work was interactive in that viewers came to the space to support Allyn and help her heal. In 1979, Allyn was part of the cast for the performance "An Oral Herstory of Lesbianism," created under the direction of the Lesbian Art Project and described by fellow artist and participant Cheri Gaulke as a work "collaboratively created out of the life stories of 13 lesbians."
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