Photo by Rink.

That is not a typo in the headline. Jack Davis is the latest artist to have his works on the walls of Magnet, the gay/bi men’s health and well being center in the Castro. In 1975, he received his Masters degree in Art, focusing on fibers, from Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. His graduate show included wall hangings, coiled baskets, and crocheted penises. After he moved to California, his first show was in 1983 at Good Vibrations, where he exhibited his penises. Since then he has shown his work in several non-mainstream venues in San Francisco including 848 Community Space, A Different Light Bookstore and the old Josie’s Cabaret. Along the way he stopped doing large wall pieces that required a loom and for which he had to charge a lot of money. He has focused on penises that can be produced with a single hook and are more affordable. For a few years starting in 1990, he co-facilitated workshops with Keith Hennessy in which they brought together queer men to get naked and explore the relationship between sex and spirituality. They called the workshops Phallic/Image. In the first ones, he led the participants through the experience of making a penis by wrapping and winding strips of fabric while they were naked. Eventually the indoor workshops moved outdoors. They did a workshop at Baker Beach. They did sex ritual in the middle of Castro and 18th Street on several Halloweens and Pink Saturdays. The Castro rituals were called HomoHex, and the intention was to reclaim the holidays and the neighborhood as queer. Twenty years later people are still talking about them. “My focus has been queer men, sex, and ritual, and I have been crocheting penises all of this time,” he tells Bay Times. “It’s always great to see my work up on a wall,” which is in its full glory all through the month. 

Why did he start making penises? He was in college in the ‘60s and graduate school in the ‘70s and was influenced by the aesthetics of the period. “A lot of the women in my weaving and textile classes were making wall hangings that looked like vulvas,” he says. “I wanted to make things that would help men feel good about themselves, and at the same time I was coming out as a big fag.”

It takes him three hours to make a simple penis, and up to several months for a complicated one. He points out they are crocheted, not knitted; because knitting is done with two needles, whereas crochet is done with a single hook. He uses yarns that are cotton, silk, wool, and synthetic. Sometimes he recycles yarn by taking apart thrift-store sweaters. A few yarns are hand dyed. Some penises are crocheted from found string. In the past he has crocheted with sewing thread and colored telephone wire. He sometimes uses beads and other found objects for embellishment. Most of the penises in this show are made with recycled silk. He hand dyed some of the yarn. 

“Are they cut or uncut?” I hear you asking. All of the penises have foreskins. He informs, “They aren’t penis warmers. They do open, however. There is a drawstring in each foreskin. So while they are not designed to be worn on a penis, you can put other things in them. A crocheted penis with a foreskin easily functions as a container. The second question you ask, “Did anyone model for them?” No. They are all fantasies. He stuffs them with plastic Easter eggs for display. They’re the right size and weight. How are his penises hung? All jokes aside, he uses sturdy push pins in the back. “It’s easier than using nails,” he says. “For this show, they are hung in a grid with a pink triangle in the middle, surrounded by neutral colors with green on the edges. 

How seriously does he take his work? “Of course there is an element of humor in my art - how could there not be? But I do take my work seriously,” he says. Davis uses the word “penis” instead of “dick” or “cock” specifically because he thinks it’s a more serious term. “Back in the old days when I entered art shows using slides, there were several times when I was accepted into a show, but my work was rejected when it arrived after they realized they weren’t crocheted abstract forms; they really were penises,” he says. “I once accidentally stabbed my finger with a very fine gauge crochet hook. Joe, my boyfriend at the time and my roommate, Sue, took me to the hospital to have it removed. The emergency room staff could not take in the fact that I had been crocheting; they really wanted to believe that my female roommate had stabbed me with what they assumed was her crochet hook.”  

Since 1975, Davis has made and sold hundreds, if not thousands. “Sometimes I get raised eyebrows when I talk about numbers,” he confesses. “I don’t think I would get the same response if I were making ceramic coffee cups.” 

He says, “I enjoy both the challenge of repeatedly creating the same shape, making each one unique, and the experience of seeing them together in a large installation,” he says. He is fascinated by what people say and how they respond to his art. “In this culture a penis is an icon that is surrounded with layers of approach/ avoidance. Although the penises are clearly not constructed to be worn, the first comment is frequently about penis warmers or cock socks. People want to know who has modeled for them and there are regular comments about size and foreskins. It is not just about what I bring to my work, but it’s also about what an audience brings to my work,” says Davis.  

Lastly I ask, “Are you obsessed with penises?” He answers, “Well, I am a fag!”