Cynthia von Buhler has lead many lives: in Boston she fronted the S&M-themed musical review Women of Sodom; ran a gallery out of the Allston home she dubbed Castle von Buhler; and created such unforgettable works as the Cynth-O-Matic, a vending machine that dispensed, among other things, vials of her own pubic hair. An award-winning illustrator for her paintings, which were often done in the style of old masters, she also sent out publicity stills in which her shirt read, “Fuck You, You Fucking Fuck.” But her latest incarnation might be the strangest twist yet: now an established children’s author, she’s released a sweet book called The Cat Who Wouldn’t Come Inside. Still, that didn’t stop her from recording an accompanying song that milks one particular double-entendre for all its worth. In advance of her reading and signing tomorrow at 3 pm at Diskovery in Brighton, we talked with von Buhler as she was installing one of her 3-D sets from the book in the Museum of American Illustration in New York City.
How did you go from the sort of cutting edge art and performance stuff you do to kids’ books? What was the transition like?
People don’t actually realize that I’ve been doing this the whole time. Before I was doing any performance or music, my major was children’s books. So I have been doing illustrations for magazines, and painting, and sculpture, all at the same time that I was going off on this other tangent doing music and performance art. And I still do performance art as well. Even meeting with children serves as performance art in itself.
Is there one method or mode of art and/or performance art that you feel more comfortable with? Or is it good to go back and forth?
To me, it’s all visual art. I would get bored if I was doing one or the other. I’m very comfortable doing children’s books and doing illustrations and working with my hands and creating things. I’m very comfortable with that. I’m not as comfortable with singing.
Is having an audience made up of kids more difficult than having grown-ups watching you?
Or like fetish people? (Laughs). Is it different? I guess so. It’s different, but it is an audience.
Different how?
I think that these are kids you are forming. You meet with these kids in school and you have a big impression on them. I think older people are kind of set in their ways in terms of what they like and what they do.
Someone around here mentioned that you’d been a cat-book convention recently. I’ve gotta be honest and say I picture a lot of old ladies in cat sweatshirts. I’d love to hear how that was, how you fit in.
It was actually very fun. I went out to California to do some book signings and workshops, and there’s something called the Cat Writer’s association, and it’s sort of like . . . have you ever been to a Star Trek convention? Well it’s kind of like the female counterpart to the Star Trek convention. The women, they’re a little bit older — in their 40s, 50s, 60s — and it was really great to hang out with older women and just talk about our love of cats and people who rescue cats. There were a lot of people wearing cat T-shirts and cat paraphernalia and clothing which was a tacky, but yeah, very nice people, just like at the Star Trek conventions, ‘cause I used to like to go to those. You know, it’s people who are really into something in that obsessive kind of way.
Cynthia von Buhler signs The Cat Who Wouldn’t Come Inside with Phoenix contributor and author Clea Simon, Saturday, December 9, from 3 to 6 pm at Diskovery, 569 Washington Street, Brighton, 617.787.2640
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