By Caleb Morrow

She’d reject the status quo with every given opportunity, creating from a rulebook entirely her own.


It’s 1996 and the East Village’s creative scene is artistically parched. No longer a neighbor to the raunchy club kid scene residing in downtown New York, Greer Lankton finds herself in a claustrophobic and cluttered space in Chicago — her own apartment. Her home doubles as her workspace, and its state of disarray would worry many, but she has no time for dreary concerns. She has a deadline to commit to.

A decade prior, Greer cemented herself rather quickly as one of the esoteric wonders of the offbeat and daring New York world through her innovative doll creations. Constructed through the most unconventional of materials, such as clothing hangers, pipe cleaners, and flowers, Lankton crafted life-size dolls that seemed to break every rule. Her masterpieces contorted where they shouldn’t, bending out of shape and creating haunting silhouettes that subtly intrigued those who weren’t afraid to keep looking. Where her contemporaries played it safe, she pushed the needle. Greer’s dolls were complex characters with wisdom and intricacies that’d make the average observer question their inanimacy. The hyper-realism, the somber expressions, the eccentric yet clearly considered fashion choices, and the bizarre body distortions all blended together to set a mood, to tell a story, to make you uncomfortable then guide you into the ultimate deeper understanding: there’s a humanity present in these dolls because each body of work is a glimpse into Greer’s soul.

The outside viewer might consider her soul wretched and riddled with melancholy upon viewing said creations, but Greer’s outlook wasn’t nearly as unpleasant — she thought of every one of her creations as beautiful, regardless of if the masses weren’t as quick to agree. She offered an alternative definition of beauty that wasn’t as cookie-cutter as the status quo wanted it to be. To Greer, beauty was raw and vulnerable, the body was an ever-evolving canvas, and the horrifying and extreme didn’t dismiss her dolls’ allure; rather, these elements were a necessary contribution.

Two decades prior, before her existence as a revolutionary and muse in New York’s underground, Greer’s initial showcasing of genius was timed alongside her sex-change operation halfway through her college education at Pratt Institute’s art school. Her fascination with the body’s often-overlooked complexity began here, in her first archived journal, Sketchbook, September 1977. Each page is rich with etchings and dwellings regarding her gender-affirming surgery and its implications for her future. She demonstrated a wise yet simultaneously whimsical outlook into both her own life and the overarching societal truths that both constricted her and made her who she was.

On one page, her wisdom despite her youth was expressed through a tree diagram demonstrating the two ends of self-image. On one end, self-image is presented in a binary fashion that excludes the opportunity for ambiguity. When thinking about her gender-affirming surgery, Lankton noted this strict idea of self-image as eliminating the man to become the woman — to become Greer. On the other side of the page lies the side that Greer prefers, an alternative that isn’t so one-note. Greer jotted down the antithesis of gender strictness as a “combination of resources”, embracing fluidity, a philosophy she’d bound herself to for years to come.

From an early age, Greer laid down the blueprints for what her dolls would look like, whether she was aware of these manifestations or not. Her dolls were a vessel to express what her own body wasn’t at liberty to. Greer’s dolls were often contorted and androgynous, actualizing the anti-rigidness she sought to devote her life to. Body standards the status quo wouldn’t dare consider glamorous made up nearly every piece of her work. Morbidity and beauty were free to converge in pieces like Aunt Ruth, where the tragic and bloody backstory of her own aunt blended with a dainty and polished ballerina get-up. Greer’s finished products were only attainable if she created from a rulebook entirely her own.

Back in 1996, inside Greer’s tiny yet painstakingly adorned living space in Chicago, she continued work on her most daring and personal exhibit yet — a replica of her apartment. In a sense, it's a grandiose thesis, a critical examination of her own life, warts and all, equally tender and unashamed. Greer navigates her own history, tracing moments throughout her lifetime with every look around the room. She wishes to work with her eyes closed, her surroundings much too intimate and raw, her history too intertwined with tragedy to face.

As she recreates and renovates, she can’t help but wonder if her work possesses much more horror than she’d originally thought. Upon further inspection, was the “freakish” title she’d been dealt the past two decades something to wince at and reject rather than embrace? The exhibit’s narrative would illustrate her ongoing issue with anorexia and her drug addiction, the reason she’d fled from New York in the first place.

Greer herself would be going on display. And with her past staring back at her, unflinchingly, a sudden uncertainty pierces through her bones. Unfiltered was the word she’d designed her whole career around, but she felt coated with a nakedness even she was uncomfortable with. A diary entry for a thousand eyes to bear witness to — she questioned if it was too late to take it all back.

But beauty transcends horror. Glances around the apartment ground Greer, reminding her of the achievements that define her existence, not the gloom or regrets. Her apartment is doused with life’s highlights, both personally and in her career. It somehow spilled out words of encouragement without speaking. It had a funny way of reassuring Greer without knowing she was uncertain. The opulence and high fashion she encompassed her dolls in, reflecting her very own expensive taste, remind her of the unique exquisiteness that only she could provide to an exhibit. Her photos as a muse for her contemporaries and friends illustrate that her very own beauty has been celebrated, and thus the beauty she passes down to her creations aren’t morbid or frightening: they’re simply her.

Greer thinks back to the tree diagram she mindlessly sketched at age nineteen, where she denounced rigidity and urged herself to be composed of multitudes and juxtaposition. Her project, equal parts tragic and celebratory, reflects this same dichotomy, she decides. She would never have to explain herself again, for the exhibit spoke for her. Prescription pills and crosses, naked bodies in front of rich decor. Artificial nature, total indulgence. A smile slyly finds its way across her lips as she thinks about how impressive it is for a space with no mirrors or windows to be so reflective. She’s lived her life fluidly and authentically, and she declares out loud that her work should do the same. Unapologetically.

In 1996, the exhibit “It’s All About ME, Not You” was finally finished and displayed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Passing away only a few months after, Greer left behind her most intricate and structured work, but an unshakable liveliness persists in every corner of the room. Intertwined within all of Greer’s exhibitions is a ferocious East Village spirit marked with a glamorous grime. Her whole livelihood was coated in a fearless queer culture stretching far beyond herself. Her exhibits spoke for the entire underground, representing those who always understood Greer’s point of view, no matter how abstract or unconventional her crafts became.

“It’s All About ME, Not You” was a vulnerable and defiant act of authoring one’s own story without being painted over or rewritten. Through every doll, every portrait, every color, and every piece of memorabilia, Greer’s legacy lives on — fashionably. ■