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Queen of Kitsch Presenting Her Pop-Culture Kaleidoscope to Wider Audience Via the Web
Yvonne Villarreal | September 17, 2009

Award-winning songwriter Allee Willis runs an online Museum of Kitsch. A look inside Willis’s home in North Hollywood reveals her camp wonderland, which astonishes visitors, including James Brown and Bob Dylan. (Photo: Lawrence K. Ho, LA Times) Award-winning songwriter Allee Willis runs an online Museum of Kitsch. A look inside Willis’s home in North Hollywood reveals her camp wonderland, which astonishes visitors, including James Brown and Bob Dylan. (Photo: Lawrence K. Ho, LA Times)
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A simple scan of songwriter-artist-video director-designer Allee Willis’ home reveals a visual rhapsody.

A plastic Mr. T piggy bank circa 1983 with painted-on gold bling is perched on a shelf in the rec room. A pink magazine rack of spun spaghetti metal, fashioned to look like a poodle, sits between a pair of shaggy pink couches covered in plastic. On a side table is a squished beer bottle disguised as an ashtray, which renders the colloquialism “Sock it to me” in psychedelic blue. A bottle of Farrah Fawcett cream rinse and conditioner by Faberge is nearby.

This is where kitsch goes for its encore.

“It’s a lot to take in, huh?” said Willis, 59, her geometric hairstyle offsetting her wacky mishmash of micro-patterned pants and a flowery top.

And now the kitsch kaleidoscope is expanding with the opening this week of the Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch. But this is not a traditional museum with a limited exhibition space and “no flash photography” restrictions. This museum lives online. The virtual depository at www.awmok.com aims to give social networking the kitsch effect.

A selection of items from Willis’ colossal private collection will be showcased. Taking the virtual experience a step further, visitors can submit digital images and descriptions of their own kitsch treasures, which Willis will curate and add to the museum’s collection. And over at the aptly titled “Kitschenette” section, aficionados can interact with other like-minded kitsch lovers including Willis.

Buzz has generated on the museum’s Facebook page, where Willis cross-promotes her blog, Kitsch ‘o the Day. The catalog of daily entries showcases an item from Willis’ collection and explains its induction into the kitsch hall of fame. And there’s plenty to chronicle. The Willis fun house in the San Fernando Valley is a wonderland that is so overwhelming it requires double takes. The music luminaries she has collaborated with over the years are no exception. It left James Brown spellbound back in the day. Bob Dylan too.

Willis, whose compositions include Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Boogie Wonderland” and what she calls the “very kitschy” “Friends” theme song, purchased the 1937 MGM “party house” in 1980 after her first hit record, “September,” another Earth, Wind & Fire ditty. Multicolored bowling balls lie in the cactus garden. A desk drawer in her makeshift music studio holds the last marijuana stash owned by Sammy Davis Jr. who is, she says, “kitsch no matter how you cut the cake.”

And that’s just the tip of the kitsch iceberg; an off-site 190-square-meter-storage garage is jam-packed with hundreds more kitschy goodies. So what’s Willis’ definition of “kitsch”?

“It’s different from the broad definition of kitsch,” said the Grammy winner. “I think when most people say kitsch they think of something very gaudy or overwrought, sometimes in bad taste. Mine is a kind of glorification of pop culture.”

Willis was born in Detroit in 1950 and would spend her Saturdays in her father’s scrap yard. But it wasn’t until she graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1969 and moved to New York that she began accumulating quirky collectibles. It started with “teeny little toys; anything from vintage charms to old gum ball machines — mainly because that’s all I had room for.” Then there was the $5 “I Love Lucy” bath set for Little Ricky, fully loaded with a clothespin and a bar of soap. She was hooked.

As a songwriter, Willis shared a Grammy for the Pointer Sisters hit “Neutron Dance,” which was part of the “Beverly Hills Cop” soundtrack. But she has done more than write popular music. She’s an artist whose motorized artworks and paintings have adorned some of the city’s swankier homes and bistros. She designs furniture and clothing. And she also throws outlandish parties that, on their own, are works of art.

“When I first met Allee, I was sort of thinking she was an Andy Warhol type of figure,” said Mark Blackwell, co-founder of Nylon magazine, who is collaborating with Willis on her virtual museum. “The more I’ve gotten to know her, she’s almost like a Martha Stewart type of figure as well. We call her Martha Warhol because there’s so much about her that’s ‘live your life to its fullest.”

“You can see that Allee lives her art.”

Over the years, she has become a guru when it comes to recognizing kitsch. She rummages flea markets and yard sales. She religiously scours eBay, which has become a one-stop shop for all her kitschy needs.

And frugality is key. Many items in her home set her back only a few dollars. But sometimes exceptions are necessary, especially when a painting on velvet is involved. Like a piece in her music studio: It’s of a musician banging on drums, with tiki posts in the backdrop. Light panels with crushed tinfoil over Christmas lights accentuate its kitschy-ness.

Asking price? $90.

It’s worth it, Willis says.

“To me, there’s nothing more deadly than just walking the safe middle ground,” Willis said. “And with kitsch ... there’s nothing middle about it.” LA Times




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