january2006

I was a Bunny, January 28 2006

From time to time someone asks me if I knew or corresponded with Ray Johnson, since I was involved with mail art. No, but I corresponded with those who did… does that count?

I came in on the tail end of the prime era of mail art, which was really more of a 60s and early 70s phenomena (with Johnson of course working even before that). I was lucky enough to exchange art with a few prime movers like Anna Banana and Yoko Ono, but that was because of a wonderful book produced by Banana called Femail Art, which I was included in. (Anna, along with Bill Gaglione, produced an incredible mag called Vile, so ahead of its time it was scary.)

Same with the fat, informative book called Correspondence Art by Carl Loeffler, which also has my work reproduced in it. They actually had an age/ era of activity standard, a cut off point (something like 1978), and I barely made it in by the skin of my teeth.

In 1984, San Francisco hosted a wonderful almost week-long event called Inter-Dada 84. I met countless mail artists from all over the world and could write more than one post on all the crazy activities of that week. Cavallini, noted for writing his autobiography on shaved heads or naked bodies, wrote it all over mine in one performance (someday I will do a post just on Cavellini – he sent me many wonderful pieces of art after that performance and they should be shared). Wild art shows were all over the city.

There were even historical tributes – for instance, I gave a slide lecture on Dada at the Goethe Institute during that week, and the institute was generous enough to make me slides from any book at their library/ disposal (while was considerable!) I still have all the John Heartfield slides I made from that lecture.

However, the most memorable event from that whole week, for me, was this poetry event I organized and MC’ed at the Hotel Utah. I called it the Spirit of the Tzara, in honor of you know who.

My goal was to start out like a formal poetry reading and end in crazed chaos. I got just what I wanted. Actually, I started it by playing a pretend game of chess on stage with a friend, all conversation in some way referring to Duchamp and Man Ray and then various real participates of the present. Eventually I introduced the scheduled poets, but I kept time available for open mike, something I consider necessary for the edge/unknown variable factor of poetry readings.

But my favorite part of this night was when Luke Berlin and I went around to every single person and gave them a page from a cheap, trashy dime-store novel, hoping they would understand that this was their page of a found poem to read aloud, simultaneously. Did they ever get it: people stood up, sometimes on their chairs, yelling or singing words at the top of their lungs, as we made our way to Utah’s balcony and continued our distribution of the found poem.

By the time I made it back to the stage, everyone was gloriously participating - and then the best thing happened: they all started throwing coins at me. Mostly pennies, but anything they had. From the tables, from the balcony, came this stream of harmless but beautiful bombardment of sound and circular shapes. It was tremendous!

As to (the scanned bit) of the poster above, you see I am a part of a Dada Dinner in honor of Johnson. But I have no recollection of it and like some things, the documentation might be the most important part of it. Maybe the dinner never happened, or I was just too beat to go.

Heroes (I’m not done with this man yet), January 27 2006

Richard Speer told me that his favorite song by Bowie was The Man who Sold the World. And what was mine? When all is said and done, it is Heroes. And that’s because it spoke for my hopes, my separation from the past (while still addressing it via the Cold War) and for my generation.

I told him: “I had no Woodstock” – but that’s being too brief about it, no matter how much you might relate. I came at the late end of the baby boom and while being very aware of Woodstock, Vietnam, LSD and Hendrix - when it came time for me to be a teenager, I was handed You’ve got a Friend. Or Taking it Easy. And you know what – I felt neither.

I also didn’t yearn to be undone, unpainted, natural, fringed, beaded and any of that shit. David Bowie saved me from all that. When Jim Riswold told me how he shaved his eyebrows after seeing Bowie, I completely understood, as I did the same. We Are Ready For Another Planet.

Heroes, for me, was about claiming a time, a place, a person - which happened to be you - and saying that in this time and place, you can mean something, can do something and can get over that wall that the others could not. We can beat them, just for a day. I always loved the Deutsch version best. Any version was thoroughly beyond modern, prophetic historically - but also, just in music and style. Countless bands of the 80s owe everything to Bowie (or Roxy Music, to be fair). Even check out his body above and how he uses it. He is using and subverting the swastika. More on that later.

Winter garden, January 24 2006

There are subtle first signs of spring in the yard. The Juncos, who arrive every autumn to tell us that cold weather is coming, are thinning out a bit. There is a new sparrow, solitary and singular, making a memorable song every morning, staking his territory. The jays arrive earlier and line up to play their games with me. Daffodils are pushing up. The Camellia buds are not open yet, but the coral-pink color buried in them is more apparent every day.

And there is a sun this morning, after so many days of rain and grey! Still, our backyard is no beauty bin in the winter. It’s a mess, especially as I convinced my mate to let it all go to seed, as opposed to a nice clean-up. But for this, we are rewarded with so many birds, like gold finches in abundance, feasting on our dried-up Black Eyed Susans and Cone Flowers.

The above succulents, while not flowering, held their own. They are an interesting plant for their changes. They grow, they peak, they recoil but they do not give up. Everything is coming back.

an army, January 23 2006

Every now and then someone would ask me if I had interviewed Brad Adkins. While I had had him on the radio twice, the fact is I had never really captured the essence of that artist. I couldn’t tell people: “Yes, I’ve got him on tape.” And so I felt it was time to try for it.

As is often the case, l learned as much off the air as on, and one thing we canvassed between ourselves was the difference between what we did for others (like curating – or as in his work, ‘creating situations’) and what we made for ourselves (like the art object). While it took me longer to get there, we both acknowledged that some of the most important things we might do were for the Other.

I’ve addressed this subject more than once here, and as someone who has made art way under the radar for years at a time, that truth can hurt. Do I want my art to matter the most? Well, yes, but if you look at the big picture regarding the major heavyweights, many of them had plenty of the Other in their life.

The biggest example I used before was Andy, who made films, a great magazine, had a Factory, produced a band and did plenty more than make art, all of which engaged an army. All of this contributed to the major change he made in the landscape. His images, while being genius, tell only part of the story.

I then thought of a more local example: painter extraordinaire James Lavadour. He doesn’t just make the best paintings around here. He started a non-profit, worked there for years, helping all kinds of people connect, while building his painting practice. In his interview, he fully acknowledged that it was the role of the artist to do that very thing: to connect, to bring along, to communicate and to be out there. He had no notions at all that the studio was the only place he should be.

Yet plenty of artists do. I hear it all of the time: “All I want to do is make art,” – and acting like they had that right, like the world should be waiting for the product to sail out of the studio.

I can relate… I know I felt the same way, especially in my early 30s. You are so hungry by then. You think your chops are down and dues are paid. And for some, maybe they are. But maybe what the world needs is not just more product, but also, communication in more than one kind of layer.

Brad and I talked a bit about what got attention and what did not. I finally figured out that for me, to contribute to a change in the landscape was the important thing. And if I can do that with my images alone, great, shit I would love it. But if it takes having five different jobs instead and engaging with an army, then I guess that’s how it has to be.

The made-up man, January 22 2006

Mark Kostabi has a new advice column up on Artnet. I always like to check out what the sage is up to. Of course it’s all about careering, but that is a reality I am in constant reconciliation with.

And I carry a certain fondness, for as I once recounted here, I met him in his studio. This was when he was still downtown and had very few, if any, assistants. He asked me what color a painting should be: should it be blue or red? He made me feel special - but since then I’ve realized that he takes constant polls and even the UPS guy is consulted on such matters.

After that he moved his operations (which he called Kostabiworld) to west side midtown and as that was my neighborhood, I saw him around. The thing that always struck me as a bit odd was how much makeup he wore. Sure, this was the 80s, but still it was mostly only entertainers who would wear that much makeup.

From the time I started out as a makeup artist, I did a lot of men, even holding a makeup-for-male-models class at the biggest modeling rep in SF. Maybe this was why when Duran Duran called my boss, in need of a makeover after a hangover, I was the one for the job. The word must have traveled like wildfire, because as soon as I hung up the phone, various young and crazed girls called me up just in case I needed an assistant. Of course I didn’t, and made my way alone to the gorgeous Clift Hotel, known for its Redwood Room filled with fake (but nonetheless lovely) Klimts.

I won’t tell you the one I painted, but I will tell you that he had a suite larger than some homes and grand on the French scale: immense, fantastic tables and chandeliers, the feel of old money. All he wanted was to ‘look good,’ he told me, and not like someone who hadn’t slept in ages. But as I worked on him and asked what he thought here and there, I found that what he really wanted was the works - all of the eye shadows and lip glosses and whatever else I might lay on an 80s Goddess, he wanted.

A friend of his arrived and they chatted as I worked. The conversation was about one thing: blow, how much they did last night, how much they were going to do tonight and how nice it was that they had meet a politician (I won’t name), as she might come in handy.

Years later in NYC, I landed a gig for PBS television and the Children’s Television Network, working on Mathnet. Some who were kids in the early 90s might recall the show. I did most of the men on the show, including the lead, George Frankly (Joe Howard). This job was horrendous in several ways. The head makeup artist, while liking me, was not all that inventive and I felt hemmed in – but what was most grueling were the hours. The cast was all union, but the crew was not and we were worked as they saw fit.

I mention this job anyway because our makeup team won the Daytime Emmy for Best Makeup that year. And to think, we got this over all those made-up divas of the soap opera world! So you see, I got something good out of it. And some of those actors who became my friends were NYC based, so I still see them from time to time on Law and Order.

More on the Night Ride, January 21 2006

I wrote here about an idea for a painting based on a night boat ride: the darkness, the kinetic soar of the lights, which created an experience as opposed to a landscape. It stayed as one painting in my mind for three years, but now as I paint, I know it will be several. There is a lifetime to be spent on the night sky alone, however it comes.

The original image was of black and yellow: the black of the water and the sky, the lights in jarring, angular yellow, like a flight of the bumble bee. As I paint, I’m working my way to that, but there are discoveries to made along the way.

Earlier this month (see below on the 2^nd) I posted my progress towards this idea, my elongation of light:

Encouraging comments came my way and I was/ am grateful. I work alone in a basement for weeks at a time with no one to see what I am doing, no input. Sometimes you can feel like you are staring endlessly at so much and yet you don’t know what it is anymore. Such is the studio practice for many artists.

Jeff Jahn said there was something about the combination of gold and lapis which suggested Egyptian art to him. It’s interesting how so much stays with you from your formative years - for our house had books on this very subject and it is some of the first art I ever looked at. I guess it never left me.

The piece I have posted at the top (obviously unfinished) reminds me a bit of Native American art. My Granddad had Indian blankets all over his house and I think that in some ways, they are coming back to me.

What I show, January 20, 2006

Last night someone said rather arrogantly (as though I need their approval – and I don’t): “I’m glad you’re showing photography.” I said yeah and walked away as I would spend no time at this reception explaining to them what I’m really showing. Which is art.

Not that I can’t hail the photograph, and God knows I do, but I did not see this new exhibition as some breakthrough to it, or as some new alliance or statement coming from us as a gallery. We showed TJ Norris just a couple of months ago and that was a photo-based show. But first and foremost, it was great art.

A friend was inviting someone new to the space, a photographer, explaining to them: “She doesn’t usually show photographs…” –Hold it right there, I said. And this is the crux of the matter: I don’t usually show anything, save the good and (often) underexposed.

Some spaces or curators are known for a specific style or era or medium. I could list them off here locally but won’t. But Chambers started with a collage show from the younger and the older, moved to two abstract painters, then straight-on portraits and TJ and then, the unusual approaches of Wid and Abi. I'm interested in going to many places and if there’s any other uniting factor beyond the quality, it’s the surprise factor. Let’s not get bored or pinned down. And one thing I've never done is show an artist even remotely similar to my own work. (Not that there is anyone like that here.)

Strife, January 16 2006

I just got back, revved, from my interview with Jim Riswold. I had no idea that his favorite artist was Andy, and from way back when. Then I found out that he is a major Bowie freak and has been to even earlier concerts than me. Something we addressed (beyond Warhol and Bowie and Hitler and Napoleon) was the notion of strife. It is something I have been thinking about a lot lately, as I am constantly surrounded by people, artists, who have found a more relaxed and “Zen” approach to life and art. It’s not the first time I’ve felt a bit guilty, as it is not my approach (no disrespect meant either - maybe more like envy).

I was about to say ‘from way down to my genes’ but I was most certainly encouraged by a (pseudo) New Age thinking, to accept what came, to go with the flow, by the genes who came before me. After I clawed my way out of that quandary, I faced the philosophy again – in sickness. Jim is not well himself, but this is something I did not share with him right on the radio:

Early 90s - I got so sick, I went through about 25 doctors. I could hold no job really. Some divine force intervened, got me into a head-on collision in a car accident which made me look like Frankenstein (not a great look for a makeup artist) and so I left New York for a while, since it wasn’t making me well anyway.

In Ashland I met interesting people, creatives and spirituals, who told me to let go. I wanted so much to be well and they told me that I should not even want that. I should not strive. This I could never really cop to (without articulating why), as it just brought me back to so many situations that I as a woman and an artist was supposed to cop to. Shrinks may tell you: “Try Radical Acceptance.” This advice is for those who did not grow up with it.

Short version: I got well. Dance and work healed me (and a genius doctor). But while people told me to do things ‘the easiest way’, it was something that never really interested me. To this day, I make art in a hard way and I just don’t flow. Even in curating, I like decisiveness and few gray areas.

There might have been one reason for that awful illness: going to Ashland meant staying with my Grandfather, who I have written about before (the 28th). I stayed two months with him then, with his beautiful ancient age and ways, and he died only a few months later. Being the busy career girl of the 30s in NYC and all, I guess it took that to get me back to him.

Homework, January 15 2006

A few years ago, in an idle moment, I made a search on Drum bunny. This was the name of a makeshift band who recorded one time with Trap Records. Trap was the enterprise of Greg Sage of the Wipers, and this particular record (1981) was an EP which had the Wipers, the Neo Boys, Pell Mell and then, Drum bunny: a temporary trio made up of me, Bill Mscichowski and Randy Moe.

I had a feeling the search would lead me to Greg’s site, if he had one, but had no idea that the music found its way to one of those compilations. This one was put out by Hyped2death, in a series called Homework.

Homework No.3 (maybe no longer available) was about: ‘US “DIY”/experimental LPs R-to-Z.’ Wow, I was pleasantly surprised. They actually got the ‘experimental’ part, for we certainly did not see ourselves as rock or punk rock, etc. – Not that we really ‘saw’ ourselves at all, for we were a fictitious band, taking the time to record something, anything, since we had this opportunity, but had not performed together otherwise. If I have any regrets there, it is that I (we) did not take it all more seriously. We just went in there and did it; they were not songs we had practiced a lot or performed and all of that really matters of course. It was thrown together and yet it is there now forever.

But who knew that anyone would care? As I have observed here before, people now make the observation that Greg was this renegade who created his own label – but he might have been happy to let someone take on that responsibility. It’s just that no one wanted to. Those Powers That Be were too busy paying attention to bands like Quarterflash (who sounded smooth like Fleetwood Mac).

So it was nice to see that so many years later, Drum Bunny was placed where it should be: with the arty weirdoes – bands like Snatch (I am honored to be on the same CD with Snatch, total innovators, perhaps the first New York No/Wave band) and Y Pants (you can see their single right next to me below when I worked at Singles Going Steady).

Before Artstar I play an hour of music, which is broadcast online only, archived later at the 4pm slot. Tomorrow I will play a bunch of tunes off this collection. As to my own effort, I don’t think it’s great, though Bill’s music was always way beyond whatever I contributed, and Randy was a great drummer. The tune, Rhapsody in Purple, is based The Take of Genji, which engrossed me completely at that time. And the fact that I needed to get out of Dodge, bad.

One more thing: there’s a big yellow and pink book out, the size of a record, called The Album Cover Art of Punk. It has a forward by Malcolm McLaren, which I think is a big deal. It’s a very selective book. More than one Portland, Oregon record sleeve is in this book and one of them is this Trap Sampler, designed by Bill.

Health matters, January 14 2006

Anna L. Conti has an interesting post up regarding the health of artists. If you are in this game for the long haul, it is a serious matter for consideration.

Around 1980 or so, I made a lot of t-shirts designs and also, strangely enough, paintings on lampshades (I collaged on them too. Lamps and lampshades were very available at thrift-stores back then and were a ready canvas). I used stencils and airbrushes and spray paint (inspired by the Constructivists of course), along with other methods. I am sure that all that free-form, air-born pigment contributed to a series of lung ailments I had during that era.

Nowadays I’m much more careful and run a tight ship. That’s why I loved Gamsol by Gamblin, a replacement for turpentine and various thinners that is as clean as you can get.

Still, the fact is I’ve been using chemicals on an almost daily basis for almost thirty years and it catches up with you. Around forty, many oil painters start to get kind of sick, liver damage the principle culprit. You get an upset stomach after only an hour or two of working. My method probably contributes: I don’t hold back and flick/pour paint. I’m crawling all over the surface way very closely, getting a nice breath of the stuff.

The statistics Anna gives relate the sad fact that most artists don’t have health insurance and if they do, it’s of course through the day job that keeps them away from their real work. Richard Polsky even observed in his I Bought Andy Warhol that the 30s, as an age group, was a deciding and dividing factor as regards who would stay an artist and who would not: you rarely go through them without health issues (or family/breeding issues) and unless you’ve got big pay-offs in the art game coming your way, you tend to drop out.

I can’t help but think about all of this as the New Year begins and the requests to artists to contribute art for auction pours in from various non-profit groups. They are all from good causes. I do wonder though, how much attention they pay to these artists the rest of the year? The artists gladly give the one thing they have: art. Meanwhile, they could use help with their health and other issues as well.

On the radio, January 13 2006

I used to try to interview only artists who currently had an exhibition up, but as you can see from this line-up, I’m not out for that in particular anymore.

Once I had a great conversation with this older woman who had really been around the block and said: “Hey, when you show next time, let me know and I’ll have you on the radio.” “Oh, I don’t show,” she sniffed, in a way that implied this was beneath (or behind) her. I then told her I was after current events, to which she replied: “Well, then all you are doing is just marketing.”

I never saw it that way. It’s the listener I was remembering. They counted, and if we were talking about something they had no access to, it didn’t feel right. But now the approach has changed a bit because I don’t know how long this show will continue, so I’m trying to cram in artists who are of interest, whether they are showing or not.

The reaction of that woman is something I have run across before, especially in older artists who have had it with the art world. It has let them down. They can’t even begin to detail all the layers of dismissal, so they package it up with denial or lack of interest or well, they’re just too busy. I never believe them, because in my own way I’ve been there.

Tintype, January 11 2006

Awhile back I had mentioned that I needed help at Chambers. I’m happy to report that I have two great young women with me now: Kelly and Sika. Both are smart, hard working and interested in photography -- a good thing too, as we have a great photography show coming up soon.

I also mentioned that Sika had a penchant for the old ways as regards the photograph (and is in a current group show at Newspace). She took the above tintype of me and my husband Martin in our backyard.

Getting an education, January 10 2006

An MSN piece stated that Seattle is more educated than any city in the States. This could either be wonderfully stimulating or insufferable, depending on the day.

Don’t get me wrong. Someday I might have a degree myself. But I’ve never considered it the most essential thing to make an artist or even a very smart person. I recently spoke with a young man who runs an exceptional exhibition/ studio space. He chose doing it over returning for graduate work. I don’t think he’s going to regret it.

I had a chance to finish out my art history degree back in 1977, Scott-free. But there was this thing in London that was calling me, telling me it was the opportunity of a lifetime. I followed my instincts on that one. I still think I was right about that detour too, as I participated in a history to change lives then but also decades later. Not many get that kind of opportunity.

Degrees of course facilitate many great choices in life. But I think there is something wrong when they also limit choices, by convincing people that certain life options are below them, when in fact those options are the kind of hard work that might actually make their art interesting. Strife outside academia might give you something of value to say.

One young woman got her degree at PNCA and told me how she could not find a job. She was there in Lovelake, obviously pissed at me (but not directly saying so) because I did not give her a show and paid attention to rivals instead. So she went on a tirade of how: “I will not work at Lloyd Center! I have a degree!” She actually said that more than once to me, knowing full well I have put in my time at places like Macy’s New York (which as a workplace feels like only one step up from the subway station underneath it).

No doubt Starbucks et al was beneath her too. What option did her family have but to send this completely unemployable girl off to graduate school? Then she’ll have a job alright. And to think that these are the kind of people who get to teach how to make and think about art!

January 8 2006

Happy Birthday, David Bowie.

It’s kind of strange that I would always remember this day, while many friends’ birthdays slip my mind. But then again, maybe it is not so strange, for Bowie has been with me longer than any of them.

If anyone were to ask me who was my biggest style mentor, it would be him, with no close second place. Of course I am aware of the universal influence of Coco Chanel and wrote about her in some depth in these pages (the 16th), but she’s not the one I specifically want to look like. That’s David Bowie, and not just for one day or one album cover or era.

I was one of those countless teenage girls with the long blonde hair, parted in the middle, uniform to the early 70s. The first time I cut it off I said to the hairdresser: Make it like David Bowie. Ziggy Stardust. “Are you sure?”- asked the hairdresser from Eugene, Oregon. Yes, and after that, I dyed it red, siren red. My life changed. I was no longer hit on, at least not in the States, but Europe was a whole 'nother ballgame.

And while I champion the ‘original’ in this diary, in my philosophy and ambition, I’ve never felt a twinge of guilt in copying Bowie. He fully acknowledged that he stole whatever and whenever to fulfill his goals. He was thinking more than just a little bit about Fred Astaire when he created the Thin White Duke, or countless other movie stars, like on the cover of David Live.

As I went through the albums and the incarnations, I always saw style and meaning relevant to what like I wanted to look like. He gave me more than ideas. Even his most recent body of work – Reality – I looked through the graphics and thought that was the perfect black suit I had imagined in my mind at that time.

Of course there are limits to this kind of adoration and this is the time to demonstrate. The most obvious example was, what I called in a previous post (the 22nd), How I Found Out About Punk, in which I entered a club full of three camps in 1977.

The club had a special night called “David Bowie and Roxy Music Night.” I went for that name alone. The Roxie Music boys were actually the hottest – skinny ties, sharkskin suits and great hair. The Bowie freaks, however, seemed kind of pathetic. You saw the various versions of Ziggy and so on in a too perfect imitation. It was that other camp I found unforgettable: nameless, what the fuck were they? Clothes pinned together, some dressed all in white or all in black, heavy face paint too, with black lips and graffiti written all over themselves. Totally made up from scratch. Tartan, zippers, glorious hair colors. This was the group, influenced no doubt by Bowie somewhere along the line, that I had to find out about.

By the way, a friend gave me this disc of Bowie MP3s. 148 songs, 8 hours. Tomorrow is my last day of just playing music at KPSU and so I will present 2 hours of The Man, starting at 4pm. The disc is actually full of rarities I never heard but will not probably play. But you can count on V2 Schneider.

Newspace and more, January 5 2006

When I worked at Gallery 500, I got to know Sika Stanton, a gallery assistant there. She is smart, a hard worker and also, a photographer.

It was only recently that she told me that old-time was where she was headed: she wanted to work with glass plates, she wanted to understand the old practices and make new images with technology from over a century ago. She made images of those she knew (me included), which will show at this new group show at Newspace tomorrow.

Faulkner by Sika Stanton

I hooked her up with the maestro of all things old and photographic in Oregon: Tom Robinson, who works with printing and archiving photographic history, and hopefully some sort of working/ learning situation could develop. Tom knows all. Tom is remarkable. Someday I will write a big thing on him here, yet he deserves not just an entry but a full-blown biography. I lived with him in that big punk house in 1979 and have barely been able to keep up with the force of his curiosity and achievements.

Tony Wilson, January 4 2006

Last week I wrote of 24 Hour Party People and the reconstruction of the Factory label myth, but I never finished what I started. One might wonder why I took such a long time to get to the film. I was put off by the recommendations of the press, in their insistence that Wilson and his ilk were Hipsters and they had a hipster palace. The word is overused and does not apply to Wilson, as I detailed in an essay on what an original next to a copy means in NWDrizzle.

Like I said, it was about art to me, so when I saw all those drunken parties and blowjobs in the backseat, my mind and eyes started to glaze over, even as my ears went back in time. Then that scene happened which turned the story on its head. I saw in that moment why I was watching the film. If you saw it, you know just what I mean.

Wilson is in his chambers, grand designer table et al, once again dealing with stoned out musicians and their various addictions. In walks a man with an offer, hoping to take it all off his hands for five mil. He wants all of Factory, the bands, the catalogue, the fucking table. Of course there is no mention of the most crucial aspect of the Factory endeavor, an identity like no other, ingrained in that wordless quality known as art, the thing most difficult to achieve.

Wilson then proceeds to give him a truth not so apparent throughout this film: there really is no Factory records per se, not a company anyway. It’s an idea. It’s an ‘experiment in human nature.’ He doesn’t own the bands or their music and doesn’t want to. He displays a rudimentary but framed hand-scrawled poster which declares that bands are free to fuck off (when and if they wish).

Wilson then goes on to explain that he purposely wanted to have nothing to sell, nothing to own, so that when all is said and done, whenever than might be, there is nothing to sell out for. He doesn’t want that kind of ownership of someone else’s life or creativity.

I reran that section of the tape. Here was the crux of the film for me and it was the reason I was supposed to see it at exactly this time. For I too, while being no Tony Wilson at the helm of Factory Records, struggle with what it is I’m supposed to do for an artist and a gallery and how far it is all supposed to go.

More than one artist has quipped that they were looking for ‘representation,’ and it was said in such a way as why else would I be there but to facilitate all of that and that I was below par if I did not.

I know we need those galleries: the kind that connect you to other ones in other cities, the kind that make catalogues and fancy postcards, the kind that go to art fairs, the kind that truly invest in the long-term and build careers. And this is not to say that Chambers will not become such a place, or that it couldn’t be very rewarding to build other careers, year after year.

But I am an artist too, just like all the ones I work with, and one who also wants to write, interview artists and do so many different things. I want to contribute to a change in the landscape, but ‘representing’ artists is not the way I can do it best.

Special projects, yes, and maybe one after another – just like how Tony recognized when it was time for another album from a special group. But he did not own them or owe to them, and that was an inspiring story to me.

Blanket, oil on wood, 72” x 156”

January 3 2006

At year’s end, writers give their 'best of' lists. I only did so when the Vanguard asked it of me, but otherwise I am not wild about them. Of course some years are huge turning points. Art history tells us so. But I wonder how writers, back in the day, accessed 1909? Pretty heavy year. Or 1950?

The lists are transparent in terms of inclusion. They are lists of friends, colleagues, cohorts, lists of people the writers like or believe in and that's all OK, but this is not the same as actual achievements witnessed. About the only thing I saw on any list that was an irrefutable hands down truth was from DK Row, who, while tending to concentrate on events as opposed to artists, included the exhibition of James Lavadour. I don’t think there was any other show in this town that even came close.

More recent entries: December 2005