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SPEAKER_10: All month long, Womanika is sharing stories of muses, a subject close to Mercedes-Benz history. Named Mercedes after the daughter of an early patron of the company, the Mercedes moniker forever carries the spirit and legacy of this young muse. In honor of this series, we're bringing you a special episode tomorrow featuring a young rising star named Mercedes, a high school senior from Utah who's chasing her dreams in the field of STEM. Hear her inspiring story on tomorrow's bonus episode brought to you by Mercedes-Benz. Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan and this is Womanika. This month we're talking about muses, women who were drivers of creativity and inspiration. Today we're talking about a polarizing figure in the world of music and contemporary art. Her work was influential on many artists and musicians, but it was often overshadowed by her public relationship. Let's talk about Yoko Ono. Yoko Ono was born in Tokyo on February 18th, 1933 into a wealthy family. As a child, Yoko went to music school where she learned composition. Then in 1945, during World War II, the US firebombed the city of Tokyo. Yoko's family fled to the Japanese countryside. They went from having 30 servants to foraging for food in a farming village. To cheer her brother up, Yoko would tell him to imagine a dinner in his head. She later said that this act was maybe her first piece of art. After the war ended, Yoko went to prep school and then became the first female student in philosophy at Gakushuen University. But Yoko didn't like college, so she dropped out and in 1953 moved to Scarsdale, New York with the rest of her family. There, she began attending Sarah Lawrence College, but her aversion to higher education remained. By 1956, she dropped out and moved to Manhattan. There, Yoko befriended avant-garde composers like John Cage and began writing her own musical compositions. In 1960, Yoko rented a loft in Tribeca for $50 a month. With help from composer and musician Lamont Young, Yoko began hosting performances featuring artists and musicians in the city. She also staged her own avant-garde shows. In one, she mounted paper on the wall, threw food from her fridge against it, and then set the paper on fire. These events, called happenings, were the precursor to contemporary performance art. Though Yoko was intimately involved in creating these happenings, she was rarely credited. Still, she kept making art, experimenting with form and performance. In 1964, she published her first book of performance poetry called Grapefruit. It was a book of drawings and instruction. Many pages contained short poems of pointed instructions, like Snoring Peace, which gave the instruction, put your shadows together until they become one. Yoko's instructions were usually impossible to follow in the real world. This was intentional. She was interested in the imaginary and how what we imagine can still be, in a sense, real. Her work in this space laid the foundations for the conceptual art movement. In 1965, Yoko performed Cut Piece in New York. In the performance, she wore her best suit, then invited members of the audience to use a pair of scissors to cut pieces of clothing off her. The performance was an early foray into participatory art and was later hailed as a feminist piece. In 1966, while showing her art in a gallery in London, Yoko Ono met John Lennon. He stopped in front of one of her pieces called Painting to Hammer a Nail, a blank canvas with a bucket of nails and a hammer next to it. John asked if he could hammer a nail in, and Yoko replied that he could if he paid her five shillings. He told her he would give her an imaginary five shillings, and he would give her a five shillings. He would take the five shillings and then hammer an imaginary nail in. Three years later, Yoko and John were married. For their honeymoon, they staged a week-long bed-in to protest the Vietnam War and advocate for world peace. They laid in bed and invited the press to come and interview them. Marrying John Lennon was arguably the worst thing Yoko could have done for her career. She was vilified for her relationship with John. When the Beatles broke up in 1970, many fans blamed her. But Yoko didn't let that stop her from continuing to make art and music. In 1970, she helped start the Plastic Ono Band, which included John Lennon. In 1971, Yoko helped John write the lyrics to the song Imagine, which would go on to become one of his most successful songs. It was directly inspired by Yoko's artwork. Just like in her instructional pieces, Imagine was asking the audience to imagine something not yet real. Though Yoko inspired the song and helped write it, she wasn't listed anywhere in the credits. Yoko and John continued to be frequent collaborators. In 1980, their joint album Double Fantasy earned the Grammy for Album of the Year. That same year, John was shot to death by a fan. After John's death, Yoko continued to record music. Just like in the art world, her music, a blend of pop and avant-garde, served as inspiration for many younger musicians. She also worked to keep her late husband's legacy alive. In 2002, she created the Lennon Ono Grant for Peace. And in 2007, she helped build the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland. While much of her legacy was overshadowed by her high-profile marriage, Ono was an artist and a trendsetter in her own right. Today, her influence is starting to be recognized. In 2017, the National Music Publishers Association began the process of listing Yoko as a co-writer on Imagine. All month, we're highlighting muses. For more information, check us out on Facebook and Instagram at Womanica Podcast. Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator. Talk to you tomorrow.
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