K A T H E R I N E    D O L G Y    L U D W I G          BA  BARCH  AOCAD  MFA (Chelsea, London Institute)

There was an enormous press response, both in television and print, to the Playboy Bunny Reunion show in April 2004 at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas. 

Here are three articles, and links to other press on their own websites.   (I was unable to reproduce the photographer's work, but all the paintings mentioned

can be found through the links.)  It was a great pleasure to be interviewed by all the reporters, in Toronto, over the phone on the road (hurry!  I'm in the switch-

backs in the Arizona mountains and it's getting dark!), in the Vegas hotel (I know I said "day or night" ... sorry, what did you say?  I drifted off .... zzzzzzzz), and

at the mayhem of the show ("Katherine, the Stranglers pulled you into the Roundhouse window and taught you how to slam dance there and then?  And where

was Roxy Music?"), I am thankful to the ones who got the story over the telephone exactly right, and some in person who got it a little wrong (no harm done, I may

not have ever been a Bunny myself as one reporter thought, but I was given, by the organizers of this event who ought to know how to judge, the honorary title of

"Bunny Enough") ....  I just LOVE doing shows like this!

THE GLOBE AND MAIL, April 8, 2004

What kind of an artist                                             

paints Playboy bunnies?

Nudes by Canadian Katherine Dolgy Ludwig have been chosen

for display at the first bunny convention, GAYLE MacDONALD reports

Intrigued by her vivacious nudes, a cotillion of past and present Playboy bunnies has asked a 

Toronto artist to cover the walls of their reunion hall in Las Vegas with 20 life-size naked portraits.

          Katherine Dolgy Ludwig, a Toronto native who paints and teaches creative writing at the Ontario College of Art and Design,

has worked for a year on these watercolours, which she is trucking down to Las Vegas herself for the first International Playboy

Bunny Convention, to be held April 18 to 19, at Vegas's storied Stardust Hotel.

         Ludwig is driving a U-Haul to the United States, accompanied by her 13-year-old daughter, Claudia.  The artist says she's

thrilled to be part of this inaugural event, which is drawing several hundred bunnies, present and past, who worked at the magazine

and the grand Playboy clubs of yesteryear.

         ABC, NBC, 20/20, and CBS have all been booked to cover the two-day event; Playboy founder Hugh Hefner has been invited,

but organizers aren't sure if he'll attend. Ludwig, who has degrees from OCAD, the University of Toronto and the Chelsea College of

Art and Design of the London Institute, says she approached the bunnies about doing these portraits because she loves painting

"iconic figures."

____________________________________________________________________________

'I like to get behind the stereotypes to touch on the essential humanity of the subject.' 

 ____________________________________________________________________________

         The Vegas exhibit, entitled Some Girls Next Door, fills what she sees as her creative mandate to find the "real people" behind

mythical characters, such as the Playboy bunny, who for decades has been the focus of every red-blooded male fantasy.

          "If you look at all of these paintings, even the completely nude women are still very wholesome," Ludwig says.  "They're girls you

might know, which is the image Playboy wanted.  If you look at the old photo spreads, all the way back to the fifties, they were all the girls

next door.  They never had a crass image.

          "And the bunnies I've met are fantastic, dynamic people.  It's not like they were doing it for Hustler. Playboy icons like Marilyn Monroe

were beautiful.  They were sexy.  And they could be your sister."

          Once a performance artist for the notorious Toronto DNA art theatre troupe, Ludwig adds that "any of the images the women chose for

me to exhibit for Playboy are far less lewd than some photos that now appear in teen magazines.

          "I've found them to be a rather wholesome lot.  And they're now writers, lawyers, or successful business people.  What differentiates

these women, though, is their sense of fun and adventure.

          "I think it's appropriate that their first reunion is in Vegas, because they are all gamblers, all chance takers whey they worked with the

clubs and did the centrefolds.  They are all very nervy in all the best ways in their subsequent adventures in life.  I like that sort of person."

          There's a long tradition of artists contributing to Playboy, and over the years an incredible collection of watercolours, oils on canvas and

pen on paper have been produced by the likes of Patrick Nagel, Andy Warhol, Leroy Neiman, Alberto Vargas, as well as photography by Herb

Ritts and Helmut Newton.

          Chere Rae, the reunion organizer based in California and a former bunny and stunt performer who just retired at 59, says she chose

Ludwig's work to grace the walls of the convention "gallery" because the women she paints are empowered and real.

          "I liked the women she did," Rae says of the paintings, which are priced at $4,600 each.  "Especially the vibrant colour, the life in them.

They're not women who are pencil thin -- not that there's anything wrong with that -- but that is not the majority of women.  Especially not

mature women."

           Last year, Ludwig caused some waves in London when she staged a controversial show based on portraits of the Southwark police force,

the crime busters in one of that city's toughest districts.

           The reason she chose cops and, later, bunnies?  "Uniforms force certain perceptions.  I like to get behind the stereotypes to touch on the

essential humanity of the subject," says the mother of four children, who lives with her artist/teacher husband, their king poodle Einstein, 25-year-old

cat Maria, and a new big rat, Theo.

           On the week-long trip to Vegas, Ludwig adds she's sure she'll be inspired to paint another, very different collection.

          "I've never driven across America.  It's an opportunity to see the Rockies, to see Nashville.  I don't know what will come of it, but I will get a

good set of paintings out of this because I'll paint whatever happens to me along the way.

           "Sure there's a mythical American to paint, just like there's a mythical teenager, or bunny, or cop, or mother, but I try to look through the

symbol to paint the person waiting to be seen inside."

THE TORONTO SUN, April 8, 2004

Playboy paints reunion pose

Some Girls Next Door showcases women taking charge,

ALISHA HIYATE reports

   WHAT KIND of art do Playboy Bunnies like?  Nudes, of course. 

         That's why they invited Toronto painter Katherine Dolgy Ludwig to show 20 of her lifesized watercolour nudes at a reunion of Playboy Bunnies --

the first event of its kind -- later this month.   

          About 1,000 former Playboy Bunnies and other Playboy Club employees will gather at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas April 18 to 19, where

Ludwig's work will be displayed.

          Ludwig doesn't paint portraits of the Bunnies, but uses regular artists' models in classic Playboy poses.  "I called the show Some Girls Next

Door because I think that's what Playboy always imagined for itself," she said.  "As opposed to let's say Hustler or Penthouse, which had a much

more raunchy feel, I think that Playboy was always sort of wholesome."

_______________

E-mail friendship  

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          She started working on the collection a year ago, after she struck up an e-mail friendship with a former Bunny in California organizing the event.

Ludwig, who teaches critical writing at the Ontario College of Art and Design, interviewed numerous ex-Bunnies to get a feel for the qualities they

share.

           "It's a very adventurous girl who makes that decision in her early 20's to pose for Playboy.  It's not someone who's held back or shy," she said. 

"They take chances on trying things and that's why many of them are quite accomplished now."

           A lot of former Bunnies have gone into law, or work in media, Ludwig said, professions that "attract women with guts."

          While the Playboy Bunny is an icon that elicits strong emotions -- whether positive or negative -- Ludwig sees it as an empowered image.

          "The women are always looking directly into the camera and they're always really in charge," she said.

THE STAR  (weekend edition), April 17, 2004

Nudity is 'just a subject,' darling

Art By Numbers, PETER GODDARD

A Girl's Adjustment (2003) by Katherine Dolgy Ludwig

        You know who's behind this painting

after even a quick glance -- Marilyn Monroe

from her Playboy days.  Actually, there's

another woman behind the painting.  She's

Katherine Dolgy Ludwig, one-time performance

artist with the Toronto DNA troupe, now a painter

who teaches critical writing at the Ontario College

of Art & Design and who, by her own description,

is "a mid-aged married woman with four children."

        "I don't imagine any sexual relationship with

the subjects I'm painting, no more than I imagine

combining with the land when I'm painting a

landscape," she says. "I am an artist.  And artists

are like doctors.  We don't care about nudity.  It's

just a subject.  Once the girl leaves the room, then

it's a painting.  But then there are certain women

you don't forget."

        That's also the hope for the some 1,000 one-time

Playboy Bunnies at the first International Playboy Bunny

Reunion in Las Vegas tomorrow and Monday at the

Stardust Hotel where Ludwig is showing 20 of her

five-foot-high Playboy-inspired paintings in the hotel gallery.

        In fact, the collection began a year ago when the Toronto artist was living in London, studying in the Master of Fine Arts program

at the Chelsea College of Art and Design of the London Institute.  After getting entirely into the iconic Playboy Bunny vibe -- the show

has the Playboyish title "Some Girls Next Door" -- she was invited to show her work this weekend in Vegas after striking up an email

relationship with the reunion organizers.

        "I've been painting since I was six.  I've been seeing the best art since then.  There was no censorship in my family.  They really

did read Playboy, as well as Esquire and The New Yorker.  So I was raised looking at great nude artists."

         Combining painting with show business, Ludwig trucked the entire collection from Toronto to Vegas with her 13-year-old

daughter Claudia, planning to paint the American landscape along the way.

          But Las Vegas itself may have provided Ludwig with her next collection.

          "Looking around, I've realized that cabana boys are a great subject to paint," she says.  "They conjure up youth and opportunity

and promise.  Cabana boys beside the pool.  It conjures up (David) Hockney and Truman Capote.  Cabana boys are such iconic

images in our memories.  My mind is excited by iconic images.  I've always wanted to paint something that makes me go, 'wow!'"

         1.  Marilyn-like qualities:       "My interest is not so much in the original image's photographic qualities -- I always use

a model -- but in the way (the image) is humanized when I do the painting.  The model usually speaks to me when I do my work, or

we'll dine together afterwards.

          "But this painting was different.  The model didn't speak to me.  And I was really thinking about Marilyn. I'd been doing

a lot of research on her.  This is one of Marilyn's last poses, taken on a beach."

         2.  Colour:       "This is a pop-art palette.  I've recently changed from using oils to watercolour.  And I only mix red, yellow

and blue.  They're the only colours I use.

         "My paintings are very bright.  I've also increased the size of my painting, because people respond to the intense colour

and the big scale.  This entire series is watercolour and it is extremely bright."

           3.  Painterly qualities:       "Yes, there's a lot of Cezanne here.  There's a lot of history of painting in these shapes.  And

obviously, there's a lot of Matisse in the composition.  But there's also a lot of Helmut Newton and a lot of Andy Warhol because these

shapes often have a contemporary cartoon quality to them.

           "I never use any intermediary when I paint.  I don't use projections.  I don't make little drawings.  I don't make a sketch first. 

And I only use one brush, a Chinese brush.  And I'm not tied to any particular studio or light system.  So either the painting happens or it

doesn't.  With watercolour, there's a moment of trust between me, the subject and the piece of paper.  "It's a crash-and-burn method.  A

painting like this one is a brand new moment." 

La Repubblica, The Florida Sun Times, The Los Angeles Times

Copyright © 2000-2008  Katherine Dolgy Ludwig   All Rights Reserved

Last modified: 03/04/08