Jo Harvey Allen is an American writer, actress, and artist.
Education
Allen was born and raised in Lubbock, Texas, to a dress shop manager mother and a carpenter father. In 1961, she married artist and singer Terry Allen and moved to Los Angeles, California where she walked away from a BFA degree from the Woodbury College of Design over a disputed sixty dollar fee. She studied with poets, Philip Levine and Kenneth Rexroth and staged her first poetry performance for an audience of one, mentor, dancer, filmmaker, Yvonne Rainer. In the 1960s, she was a pioneer of women in radio hosting Los Angeles' Rawhide & Roses, music and talk show, on the early underground rock station, KPPC-FM in Pasadena, California, produced by her husband, artist/songwriter, Terry Allen. In the 1970s, she was one of the first performance artists performing throughout the U.S. in alternative spaces, cafes, art galleries and museums.
Film and stage work
She is best known, however, for her work in film and for her one-woman plays which she has toured extensively including off-Broadway productions written and performed by Allen of A Moment's Hesitation,, As It Is in Texas,, and Counter Angel,,,. Counter Angel was first performed in truck stops and cafes and based on Allen’s book of photographs and interviews titled The Beautiful Waitress. Other plays written and performed by Allen include: Hally Lou and Homerun. Allen co-wrote the radio play, Every Three Minutes with her son, Bukka Allen. She collaborated with her husband Terry and their sons, Bukka and Bale, on Do You Know what Your Children are Tonight?. She toured, starred, and co-wrote with Terry Allen and Rinde Eckert the opera, Pioneer, music by Paul Dresher Ensemble, and starred as, Chippy, in Diaries of a West Texas Hooker co-written with Terry Allen, music co-written by the Allens, Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, and Jo Carol Pierce, . Her film credits include True Stories, The ClientSecondhand Lions, The Wendell Baker Story and In the Valley of Elah. She authored a collection of poetry, Cheek to Cheek. Traveling exhibitions of her photographs and drawings include, The Beautiful Waitress, 100 Artists See Satan, and 100 Artists See God. Allen has been a visiting professor at San Diego State University and visiting artist and lecturer at many universities including The San Francisco Art Institute, UCLA, NYU, The Art Institute of Chicago, University of Texas and The Architectural Institute of London. Jo Harvey and her husband Terry have two sons and two grandsons and live with their dogs in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Marfa, Texas. She is the recipient of The National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, grants and has received wide critical acclaim.
