Blog Posts

JAY CRITCHLEY’S APOCALYPTIC VISION OF MAYFLOWER 400

7/29/2019

By Howard Karren | Provincetown Banner

When Jay Critchley, Provincetown’s resident performance-installationartist- writer-satirist-activist- impresario, sat down to discuss his upcoming talk, “Democracy of the Land,” which he’ll be giving on Tuesday at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, a messianic mission quickly emerged. Ever since he was “born again” as an artist some 38 years ago, at the age of 33, Critchley has been creating projects and series and films, on his own and collaborating with others, on subjects that he feels need addressing. “It’s just being engaged in the politics of the world and the country,” he says.

Before re-imagining his life as an artist, Critchley’s “former self ” was devoted to “human services” — and he still is, by running the Provincetown Compact, which he founded 26 years ago and has raised millions to support charitable causes, mostly by holding the annual Swim for Life & Paddle Flotilla in September. “I worked for youth in Connecticut,” Critchley says. “I was a VISTA volunteer in Oregon. I worked at a drop-in center in Provincetown — that’s what got me here. I was married at the time. I have a son and three grandchildren. I came out as a gay man first. The ‘born again as an artist’ came four years later. My sister sent me a subscription to Art in America. I said, ‘Why are you sending this to me?’ She said, ‘Because you’re an artist.’ How could I get away with being an artist? It just wasn’t part of my thinking. We’re talking about Irish Catholic in the ’50s.”

Jay Critchley’s self-portrait, his face hidden by tie-string surgical masks, is from his “Maskuerade Ball” project. The photo is by Bobby Miller.

36TH RE-ROOTERS DAY CEREMONY, PROVINCETOWN HARBOR, 1-7-19

1/7/2019

After the Twelve Days of Stockpiling (Christmas), people gather to purge 2018 and pay homage to community. Song, chanting and ranting preceed the burning of the Christmas tree boat in the harbor.

Transactional Storm Surges
lanoitcasnarT mrotS segruS

The Lord appeared to Moses in the form of a burning bush and gave him…
The Ten Commandments of Natural Security
1. Brain-pruned prerolled brinkmanship is the Lord Thy God and thou shalt not militarize queer coal-dusted terrestrial protein CHANT after each: lanoitcasnarT mrotS segruS
2. Thou shalt not monetize conspiratorial hardcoded intimacy flooding near-Arctic merchantiled microbial heat islands
3. Thou shalt not unbank throttling multi-planetary flocking behavior interoperably lame-streaming self-salted, two-legged nuclear optioned threequals
4. Thou shalt keep holy virgin thought-leadered chocolate conscious abusers vaping supply chained filterbubbled self-driving strongmen
5. Honor the father and the mother: Fire + Fury
6. Thou shalt not kill hush-moneyed Club Medicared idolaters bombing energy dominant fear-gassed Marshmallow Tester dwebs
7. Thou shalt not commit hungry Deep State immigrant swine waste pestilence shooting dismembered tipping point monopolies
8. Thou shalt not commit nuclear-optioned racially illiterate cakeism genderizing friction-free climate refugee mergers
9 Thou shalt not border cross tear-gassing market driven extinctions Mobil Warming
minimum raged free-range parents
10. Thou shalt not covet fake-pewed taking a knee cold warring ice sheet endowment effects white listing tax uncut value-added native land baby fixers
Let it be known that the devils and sinners who deceive us shall be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beasts and false profits are and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. Amen.

Provincetown Aids memorial dedication

6/24/2018

At the recent dedication of the Lauren Ewing’s elegant and transcendent AIDS Memorial on Provincetown Town Hall lawn, the community told the story of the town’s valiant response to HIV/AIDS. Jay Critchley was honored to speak as director of the Provincetown Community Compact and the Swim for Life, citing the town’s continuing role and responsibility to share Provincetown's narrative to a fractured and discordant world. TheCompact.org

SHROUDED RAINBOW - THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE NATURAL AND CIVIC ENVIRONMENT

3/15/2018

HERRING COVE BEACH, CAPE COD NATIONAL SEASHORE, PROVINCETOWN, MASSACHUSETTS

A project by Jay Critchley

A planetary dream deferred.

Herring Cove Beach in Cape Cod National Seashore was dramatically transformed by four nor'easter storms in the winter of 2018. Although not unprecedented, the break in the narrow sand spit created an enormous breach that threatens the protected salt marsh behind it. Exposed after the barrier dune was washed away were three pilings that formed the base of a measured nautical mile target.

TEDx Provincetown 2018

3/15/2018

A portrait of the artist as a corporation

35th Annual Re-Rooters Day Ceremony, January 7, 2018

1/8/2018

Thirty hearty folks joined me on a very cold and breezy winter day to purge 2017 in grand style...Gracias. Photo by Adam Berry.

Sponsored by the International Re-Rooters Society, Jay Critchley, CEO.

35th Re-Rooters Day Ceremony – 1-7-2018 – Provincetown Harbor
Preemptive Cheats
evitpmeerP staehC

The Lord appeared to Moses in the form of a burning bush and gave him…
The Ten Commandments of Loopholed Bullies

1. Complicit corporate creep is the Lord Thy God and Thou shalt not eclipse
      unsheltered growth-stocked storm surges before me
                             CHANT AFTER EACH:  evitpmeerP staehC
2. Thou shalt not robocall border wall-mart-inis whoring as profiled pass through
        weaponized broflakes
3. Thou shalt not fat check countryless donor maintenance bullying race-blind
       retroambulative franchised hair extensions
4. Thou shalt keep holy post-combustion gender fluid kleptocrats jomo-ing
       deregulated preemptive creation stories
5. Honor thy father and thy mother: Duck + Cover
6. Thou shalt not kill paper-toweled smallism predation clawbacking off-shoring
       fact indifferent spirit guides
7. Thou shalt not commit indigenous ecocidal copays migrating as supply
        chained whitewashing face palm earnings calls
8. Thou shalt not commit unclapped lecturous savage gorpcore auto-polluting
       prosthetic drugged troll armies
9. Thou shalt not gut flora provenance assaulting fake pews loopholing arsenal
       kneeing nativists
10. Thou shalt not covet white herbicidal shootings diddling petty Amazonian
       sea level silence of the lands.

THE WHITENESS HOUSE - SANTA FE ART INSTITUTE, NOVEMBER, 2017

11/19/2017

The Whiteness House – Tarred and Feathered | An Interactive Installation, Performances, and Discussion About “Whiteness” | A New Project by Artist and SFAI Equal Justice resident Jay Critchley | Sunday, November 19, 3:00-5:00 pm. | Santa Fe Art Institute | Free & Open to the Public