Thoughts December 2002
Better Homes and Gardens signs, 2000
A few days ago while I was going through files on my computer looking for something, I found two documents - one titled “Thoughts December 2002” that’s 10-pages long; the other titled “Thoughts January 2003”, 18-pages long. Both are reflections on my work divided into titled sections that indicate I was spending time writing almost daily for several of weeks. I have no idea what inspired the entries. However, it was interesting to read these reflections almost twenty years later.
Branching out into the public/outside realm 12-23-02:
Gallery work had become stagnant to me – the context itself – working within a limited space with a limited audience. This started in 2000. I started thinking more about creating “spontaneous” works in the public environment – they would appear to be spontaneous yet would require a good deal of planning on my part. I loved the idea of working outside of the art establishment. Some of this inspiration developed out of being rejected myself from that establishment – submitting slides or proposals to galleries with little interest from them or full rejection and beginning to feel on the outside anyway – what I was interested in, was not of interest to the “hip” gallery establishment or the “in-crowd.” And some of this might be due in part to my own subconscious resistance to working within those parameters or resistance to delivering what I knew would be accepted or would be “hot” – it became too predictable and too much like just another marketing strategy – it didn’t really seem like a challenge.
Appurtenances, 1999/2000
What excited me was the idea of working completely independently – that notion itself was just as intriguing and thrilling as specific ideas of what the work would be. During this period – late 1999/early 2000, I was walking a lot – working at Southern Exposure and walking to work Monday – Friday. So, I also started noticing the urban environment much more. I had always loved the pipes and standpipes/ grids – appurtenances – of the city. I found the standpipes to be the most obscene and erotic structures out there on the street. I started drawing these structures and other elements of urban architectural elements on little pieces of wood – I ended up with close to a hundred of these. The drawings themselves were amateurish in draftsmanship, but the exercise itself was very rewarding and meditative to me. The process also included taking many photographs to draw from – so I was also spending a lot of time looking at structures throughout Nob Hill, South of Market and the Mission. The combination of this time spent looking and studying the urban environment and my feelings of dissatisfaction with the gallery context, as well as feeling rejected myself from that establishment – led me to begin thinking about creating projects directly in the urban environment – yet I also envisioned placing things inside – but publicly, unsolicited, unsanctioned.
Initially, I thought about maybe installing my little drawings on the wood outside – putting them up randomly, nearby the real structures – but I never ended up doing this – I think that I got caught up in making more and more of them so that I would have a critical mass to work with.
Murals/signage for LeBeau Nob Hill Market, 1999/2000
Before that ever happened, I decided to do the “Better Homes and Gardens” project. In addition to noticing the appurtenances of the city, I was really struck by how many folks I was seeing living on the streets – it was increasing significantly. I was also hearing of more and more people and spaces being evicted. Then it became very real when my landlord served our residence with an eviction notice. It was so stressful. We only had three days to respond, otherwise we’d lose by default. Thankfully, my dear friend Ken Greenstein was just finishing law school and specializing in tenant’s rights. He generously wrote and filed a strong response on our behalf. After several months, the landlord dropped the case; however, he continued to make threats and harass us. During the eviction threat, I was working on a series of murals for LeBeau Nob Hill Market across the street from our place. I was using a spare room in our flat to paint on plywood pieces to then be installed at LeBeau. The mural designs were all taken from old Art Nouveau works of flowers that I used as templates to work from. While I was painting the sign for the Deli, which I included a flower in the “D”, the idea for the ‘Home’ signs came to me – to create hundreds of signs with the word “Home” and a flower painted in the “H” to give to folks living on the street or to those in danger of being evicted to put in their windows and call the project “Better Homes and Gardens”. The idea to display the signs in windows was inspired by an incident that happened almost 10 years ago in my hometown of Billings, Montana. During Hanukkah, Jewish families were having bricks thrown through their windows by members of a radical rightwing group that had moved into the area. The response was that Christian homes and businesses began placing menorahs in their windows - the city's newspaper ran a full-page ad of a menorah urging everyone to place one in their window. It was an amazing show of support and the violence stopped.
However, I almost didn’t do the project – it felt very risky – and I knew it too would need to have a critical mass of signs for it to be effective – and I knew that it would be very labor intensive and time consuming. But I started to paint the signs and kept painting them. It felt good to be doing work that I knew was on my timeline and to know that no one was expecting anything from me – I had resigned myself to believing and accepting that my career as a gallery artist or as an artist recognized within the higher art canon was not to be – and while that felt a bit defeatist and disappointing to me, it felt much more empowering to be creating work that felt like it had a deeper purpose. At the same time, it was liberating and exciting because it opened many new possibilities – I was no longer thinking about how I would be perceived by the art community – I had removed myself from it – and that also felt empowering.