All Dolled Up and Nowhere to Show--Almost

Cameron Jamie expected to spend Saturday celebrating the opening of his art show at BeBop Records and Fine Art in Reseda.

Unfortunately for Jamie--and BeBop--the record store-gallery-performance stage closed down on short notice last week. Invitations--with the title “A Tribute to My Friend Frankenstein”--had already been printed. Now the exhibit has nowhere to show.

Jamie, 21, is as odd-looking as his paintings and dioramas. He is tall and extraordinarily thin, his dark hair cut in a beatnik’s mop and Vandyke beard.

The Northridge artist lives with his parents and has only recently sought exposure for his work. Zero One Gallery on Melrose Avenue shows his paintings and constructions. BeBop’s owner Richard Bruland was his first and strongest supporter.

“His style is like unschooled folk art. He does these wonderful, strange, bizarre constructions,” Bruland said. “Once they see it, people really like the stuff.”

BeBop hosted Jamie’s first official show--constructions based on famous rock musicians--earlier this year. His first unofficial show came in July, 1988. The story of that exhibit is as unusual as his art:

For several years, Jamie has frequented the 99-Cents Only Store on Sherman Way in Reseda, a large market cluttered with inexpensive items ranging from kitchen supplies to toys to vitamins.

“I like to walk up and down the aisles and see all the weird stuff they have there,” Jamie said.

Two summers ago, Jamie was walking to the store when he found, and took, some books that were in a trash bin. Once inside the store, the young man realized he didn’t want the books and left them on a display shelf. Several minutes later, an elderly gentleman took one to the checkout stand and bought it.

“I thought ‘Wow! I can start selling all my garbage here.’ “Jamie said.

Instead, he bought 25 plastic dolls for 99 cents apiece from the store and spent several months modifying them. He dressed some in the colorful uniforms of professional wrestlers. He gave some two heads or facial hair.

Each doll was signed by the artist. The dolls were numbered from 1 to 26, skipping number 13.

“I’m the 13th doll,” Jamie said.

Jamie then shrink-wrapped the dolls and sent out invitations for a show to be held at . . . the 99-Cents Only Store.

The day of the show, he put the dolls in a large bag and took them back to the store. Several clerks noticed him replacing them on the shelves, he recalled, but nobody said or did anything.

For the rest of the day, Jamie walked the aisles with a shopping cart, pretending to browse as friends and guests arrived.

“The funniest thing was, my friends would buy dolls with professional wrestler clothes or two heads, and the checker never said anything,” Jamie recalled. “People I didn’t know or invite were buying my dolls. Kids were holding them. It was an honor.”

Within three days, all the dolls were sold, again for 99 cents.

Since then, Jamie has worked on other projects. He paints folk-art portraits of people he admires--musicians such as the Del Rubio Triplets and Sun Ra--and has them autograph the works.

Some days, he peruses the trash bins behind public schools and looks for children’s paintings that have been thrown out. He adds his own touch to the discarded works, painting words or an Evel Knievel face, and plans to exhibit these “collaborative” works.

“I like things that look really dorky,” he said. “It’s sort of cheap junior high school style.”

For now, the only place you can see Jamie’s dorky art is at the Zero One gallery. He is working on a collection of “my heroes that aren’t even people.” He writes childlike letters to such figures as Ronald McDonald and Mr. Peanut. The letters request an autographed photograph.

“I like the ideas that are involved in his work,” said Jordan Halsey, director of the Zero One gallery. “His ideas are pretty humorous.”