SCULPTURE TRIUMPHS

It's been a long time coming. Since the cave dwellers first spit blood over their hand, leaving a negative record on the wall, painting has always been first and foremost in the minds of most, over it's bastard brother sculpture. Sculpture was utilitarian. Painting was art. Then, the other day, a spindly 6' figure "Walking Man" by the sculptor Giacometti, surpassed Picasso's "Boy and Pipe" in monetary value brought at auction. The skinny feller went for over 104 million USD. Finally!

Although I've done my share of paintings over the years, I've always thought of myself as a sculptor. Back in the 70's, when i was cutting my artistic teeth at The San Francisco Art Institute, I was in the sculpture department. It was where they put you when they had no idea what the fuck you were doing. I set fire to my shoes while tied in a chair in class, bought a cow, adopted a boy, got people tattooed, pulled bloodprints and stood in front of the school store berating sunday painters from Marin Co., in order to get out all the money I had been given as part of a scholarship. I put their paints and canvas on my account, taking their cash in return. I was doing sculpture.

In those days we thought time and space could be sculptural materials. It was all inclusive. Painting had limits. Sometimes I wish I could've been a painter. It was so much simpler. If I did paintings I felt obliged to create a fictitious artist and assign her the work. Then I killed her off and kept painting. The cumbersome elements of identity and narrative drug behind the work like a ball and chain. But I couldn't help myself. I took my cues from old timers Beuys and Klein. If I followed Beuys' ideas of "Social Sculpture" it opened up the possibilities even further. I shot animals, became a hunting guide, started a church and rock band, went to seminary. It all tied together and made perfect sense in sculptural terms.

(I warned you hunting season was over.)

But not to bore you too much. I just wanted to own Giacometti's triumph just a little bit. I'm sure some painter will pass him soon. But for now. Way to go Jock-o! 3d rules. Now I'm going coyote hunting. I feel like doing a little art.