Oh, Yoko! The famed widow chats up a Lennon art show

Last week CL got a call that Yoko Ono was granting interviews to promote Gimme Some Truth, the touring art show that will make a three-day stop in Hyde Park Village this weekend.

I snapped at the chance — not just compelled by the obvious motivation of being a lifetime Beatles fan and getting the opportunity to talk to John Lennon's widow — but because I've learned over time to respect Ono for her idiosyncratic charms and artistic achievements in helping pioneer the interactive experience of contemporary art installations. From her famous telephone exhibits to the wish trees that allow patrons to attach tags containing wishes to tree branches, she has showed the masses that art can be an intimate experience, not just a cerebral one.

But Ono didn't want to talk too much about her artwork, her music or her family life. She was calling to promote the Lennon show, drifting often from past to present tense.

Cordial but a little prickly at times, she skirted some topics and left me with a bevy of misheard and unanswered questions to sift through.

Fortunately, I was able to transcribe somewhat of a coherent dialogue between us.

CL: First, let me say that we're pleased and honored that you're bringing the Gimme Some Truth show to Tampa.

Ono: I'm so excited about the fact that the show will be in Tampa, Florida, for the whole weekend. The weather is good, too, right? (Laughs.) … One day I would love to come to Tampa. There's something about Florida that's incredible. Nowadays you have lots of art shows. It's very exciting.

Any chance you will be visiting the show?

Just in my spirit!

The organization benefiting from the show, the Jason Ackerman Foundation, helps improve the lives of children who have faced and survived tragic circumstances. Did you have a hand in choosing the charity?

The local curator chooses, and I give it final approval.

It must be difficult to decide on which works get chosen.

First of all, I'm the one who selects all the drawings, hands-on, and when they make them into a serigraph, I check if the ink is okay and the color is right, and I'll do it that, and when the show goes to a city, I ask the local curator to make the decision about which ones show.

We have another art show locally, at the Tampa Museum of Art, paying tribute to John Cage. You were involved with the interactive music installation, 33 1/3. Can you tell us a bit about your experiences with Cage when he was alive?

You see, I have so much nice memory about John Cage, so you know. They met, the two Johns met, and they liked each other. It was great.

Which records did you select to be played in the installation?

I'm not going to tell what you because you have to see it! Okay? Okay.

Can you tell us more about what you're up to with the new Plastic Ono Band?

I'm going to make the next album with Sean (Lennon, her son). We'll be doing it this year. … Sean and I both live in New York City and we have a great time playing together because these days he's really getting into music.

Can you tell us a bit about your next project together?

I don't know know how it's going to be. I don't know the outcome. We will have great musicians and do a concert. … But I'd rather talk about John.

Okay. John's artwork has been used in accessories and clothing for children, and there are babies all over the world who spent the first few years of their lives, looking at his work.

I'm very pleased about that. Isn't it great. If we didn't do that, then no one would remember John Lennon as an artist.

His style of his drawings is so simple yet expressive. What was it like to watch him draw?

He just does it. It's not an elitist kind of program. He just does it puts his pencil on paper and goes boom-boom and that's it, and he's very good at it too. … It looks simple, but I can't do what he did. First of all, there's an incredible sense of humor there. How am I going to put that sense of humor! You know?

Like the way he wrote songs. He could be very spontaneous.

It's very, very similar. When John was thinking about songs or something, he'd go boom-boom and that's it. He doesn't labor it. But then we'd have to go the studio, to record it, that's where the labor is involved, but to think about the songs — very quick.

The show celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Imagine album, and its title inspired by a song that called attention to the ills of society. John's messages of peace and love in his works are as relevant today as ever. What do you hope people will take with them when they see the illustrations?

People look at the work and they go home and they start thinking about the world, you know?

This article appears in Feb 2-8, 2012.