Today we’d like to introduce you to Sky Palkowitz.
Hi Sky, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I named myself after the sky. I’m an Avant-Garde Multimedia Performance Artist known widely as “The Delusional Diva.”
I’ve worked professionally in comedy, music, theatre, television, and film nationwide for over 35 years and can be seen all over the internet…
I’m an Actor, Director, Producer, Educator, Speaker, Musician, Activist, Healer, Artist, Alien… I spent the first half of my life in New York.
I studied classical theatre and Shakespeare with the renowned graduate conservatory, The Professional Theatre Training Program, at the University of Delaware. I have Master’s Degree in Acting from the University of Iowa, where I taught Acting to undergraduates and wrote and directed experimental plays. My first solo multimedia extravaganza was called “Alien Rhoda”.
Upon moving to Los Angeles in 2000, I became Executive Director of a Women’s Theatre Company (WTCLA) in Hollywood, where I curated, taught workshops, directed plays and festivals, and developed solo work with Lily Tomlin’s old director, Irene Pinn.
I then moved on to work closely with renowned performance artist legend, my dear mentor, Rachel Rosenthal, for nearly a decade. Under Rachel’s guidance, I produced “Alien Love” in Los Angeles in 2006, a 7- hour multimedia performance art “happening” that took place in 3 venues along Robertson Blvd. in Los Angeles, with an unexpected “alien abduction” of the audience by bus and a massive musical group healing massage session. The evening culminated with an art opening of my then already-growing body of visual work: 44 vibrant paintings of Aliens on wood.
More often than not, the idea of Aliens, or a higher spiritual power, dominates my material. In my stage-work and writings, I use the theme of Aliens as a tool for exploration into identity and connection; the theme of feeling alien is universal, alienation, being other or different… it’s something we can all relate to.
My work is poised to push the envelope in order to unite us and create a sense of connection by examining our likenesses; showing that though we may be different from each other in some ways, inherently we are the same. So if we celebrate our commonalities, rather than dispute over our differences, the World would be a much better place.
Since Covid hit, I have vamped up my businesses.
With my production company, DELUSIONAL DIVA PRODUCTIONS, I consult with clients worldwide and direct, dramaturge, design, and produce multimedia works and short films for actors, poets, musicians, artists, and performers of all sorts. All via Zoom. My focus is working with under-represented communities; BIPOC, minorities, women, people with disabilities, LGBTQ artists… I empower students to write and create and share their stories through stage and video.
I also coach actors of all levels in auditioning techniques and self-tapes. I have directed and produced dozens of experimental short films for clients that are currently running in global film festivals. I have helped numerous actors moved forward in their careers. Got an idea for a short and need help? Need to spice up your Electronic Press Kit for your agents and casting reps? (Contact me for pricing and a great, custom-tailored package deal!)
My other business is COSMIC ALIEN ART.
A culmination of the last 21 years in Los Angeles, COSMIC ALIEN ART is my collection of wood and canvas paintings, mixed media, oils, and acrylic works that typically depict Aliens, Outer Space, UFO’s, Pyramids, Elephants, Dolphins, Nature…
Original works of art are for sale, as well as prints and products. I’ve been commissioned a few times for public installations and look forward to doing more grand scale outdoor works. I sell online, and my images and photography are available for licensing. My goal is to spread color throughout the world with Alien imagery that represents Love, Community, Compassion, Connection, and Fun!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It’s always been a challenge making a living purely as an artist. Our country, unlike others elsewhere, parts of Europe for instance, does not support The Arts as heartily as they should. This is a shame, given that The Arts are the one vehicle to progress the Planet forward, to create change and stimulate consciousness. Imagine a world without music, without paintings, without television, without film, dance, song, concerts, without entertainment… Could you get by without coming home and watching tv, your favorite shows, and tuning out for even a week?
Artists are truly the essential workers of our era. Our responsibility to the Planet is great, but we as a people pay more attention to athletes and celebrity gossip abound than we do to nurturing The Arts, to paving a better path for the future, to guiding our children’s legacies.
Focusing on just one area of The Arts at a time has also been a challenge over my lifetime. As a multimedia artist and a Gemini, I want to do it all! As my mentor, Rachel once said, “Make Art, Make Art, Make Art. It is the only way to ride this wave we call Life.” She always stressed the importance of following one’s calling as an Artist and working towards a higher evolutionary consciousness. Our obligation to Humanity. My art is expressed in many ways, so I am always pulled in many directions at once. When I get just one project completed, it is an accomplishment! And on to the next!! I keep quite busy jumping from editing a film to coaching a client, to composing music, to painting and marketing, to prepping for a last-minute audition… Life is a roller-coaster!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
COSMIC ALIEN ART! In August of 2020, during the craziness of being quarantined, COSMIC ALIEN ART was founded. An online space where you have permission to DROP BY, TUNE IN, and SPACE OUT. Visit www.CosmicAlienArt.com
I have been painting professionally for over 20 years and have a gigantic body of mixed-media work that is constantly evolving.
ALIEN ART MUSEUM! For 17 years, my home gallery was my home and gallery, known as “The Harvard Hive Alien Art Museum, Animal Queendom, and Crystal Earth Creation Station, Gallery/Studio/Workspace/Performance Place” (the name says it all), based in the heart of Melrose Hill in East Los Angeles.
When I moved to a new space in the beginning of 2019, the works came down and a new phase began.
All the world is a studio: Flash forward to my current East Hollywood pad… my studio and creation-space, wall to wall once again filled with vibrant, passionate, colorful wood and canvas, bursting with energy and ready to be SOLD.
Over the last few years, I have been painting with fluorescent paints. This gives the work an alternate effect when you turn on the blacklight, reminiscent of those days of yore back in the 70’s when blacklight posters were the thing. I have an entire line of GLOW-IN-THE-DARK, FLOURESCENT paintings that CHANGE form and POP when you turn on the blacklight.
ART is meant to be SHARED. Because a piece of ART can put a smile on a face in the matter of an instant. And so I release my art to the world and hope that something good comes about.
ALIENS! I am known for my obsession with extraterrestrial life, outer space, and being very avant-garde. Mixed media consisting mostly of wood and canvas. The works are a combination of pastels, cardboard, stained wood, watercolor, acrylic and oils.
In the realm of performance, I am known as a highly trained, versatile, professional actor, director, producer, filmmaker, and educator. I’m known for being daring, being meticulous with my direction, breaking boundaries, and being spontaneous.
ART as a means of ENLIGHTENMENT & JOY.
My art comes from my imagination; an inspiration of happiness, of color, of the unknown…Art is a means of expression, sketches reveal messages, books emerge poetry, paint becomes power, passion, fury, freedom, ENLIGHTENMENT…
On the brink of the year 2000, my art started to explode on canvas and wood, and all of the imagery that danced in my head, which had been haunting me since childhood, poured themselves out in sketch pads, and then onto found objects, wood and eventually canvas.
CANVAS – Colorful, vibrant depictions of cartoon-like Aliens doing everyday things, like cooking, photography, playing ball, flying in a UFO, hiding in flowers…
WOOD – There are patterns and life inherent in the wood. My technique is to bring out what is already hidden in the wood, often tracing the grains with streams of color and using the knots of the wood as the eyes of the Alien I see or the dome of a spaceship.
All of the work is meant to be representative of the themes of inclusion, diversity, multimedia, multiculturalism, connection…
ART as a means of HEALING. ART as a tool for IMAGINATION. ART to brighten your room with JOY. ART that reminds us, WE ARE NOT ALONE. ART is CONNECTION. ART IS ESSENTIAL. ART IS ENLIGHTENMENT.
I’m excited and proud of the body of work that I have assembled over the years: from my work as a stage actor, educator, performance artist, and director touring the country and hundreds of schools to the multitude of short films and experimental multimedia that I’ve inspired and directed others to create. My work is my passion. I love making a difference for people and passing on the legacy. I’m proud of my experiences and my sense of adventure and exploration in works of varying methods and mediums. I’m elated to share my artwork with the world.
I live life in the moment and purely as an artist. Wherever I am, all the world’s a stage and all the world’s a place to make art. Whether it’s photography of the architecture of European cities I’ve visited, pulling out a sketchpad and pastels on the beach in Israel, self-videoing naked on the top of a mountain in Madrid, doing spontaneous crazy performances in the heart of Mexico City…
I create and document, improvise and perform, paint and capture, write and express. Thus, my world is always interesting, I never know who I am going to meet or where I will wind up by the end of the day, who I will share company with, what kind of characters I will encounter, who I will inspire or be inspired by, or both. And those stories and adventures translate into my multimedia work. I love people, and I’ve lived a very Bohemian extraverted lifestyle. The constant study of the Human Condition and the exploration into the Humanities is what drives me to create as a means of education and inspiration. I also have the uncanny ability to entertain and make people laugh.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
I see the visual art industry moving to a mostly virtual platform. Going into galleries or traveling the world is now possible through the eyes of our computers, and the online marketing of the art industry has exploded through the pandemic. The same is true for the entertainment industry. Most auditions are done from home, and the solo artists whom I work with have shifted from live theatre presentations to multimedia and film. The internet has brought us together as a species, and to market one’s art and network and connect with collectors and viewers and audience and fans, has become an online adventure.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.CosmicAlienArt.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/CosmicAlienArt
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/CosmicAlienArt
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/
DelusionalDiva - Youtube: www.youtube.com/DelusionalDiva
- SoundCloud: www.soundcloud.com/DelusionalDiva
- Other: www.DelusionalDiva.com
Image Credits:
SKY Palkowitz, Jason Jenn, Orit Harpaz
