THE ARCHITECTURE OF RELATIONSHIP

It's a little less than a month before hunting season and before I hit the woods full time I want to try to tie up some loose ends on the art front. The past four years I've been working on two large projects that involve a couple of farm houses and five of my favorite people-Samm, Teddy, Carlo, Tessa and Tristan. The houses are not only homes for these people but artworks that I have had a very difficult time contextualizing as such. It's not like I haven't faced this problem before, but for some reason these two houses (White Sulfur Springs Project and White Sulfur Springs Project II) have driven me to quiet desperation in my attempt to fit them with the art brackets. So here's the first of, I'm sure, many attempts to do so. Here goes.

Of course we must go back in my personal art history in order to give you some idea of the field I'm plowing. In 1978 I did a piece called MISSIONARY (the extended family as sculpture) in San Francisco. In a nutshell I got to know a 12 year old boy I had read about in the paper. Darrell Monroe lived in a flea bag hotel in the S.F. Tenderloin. He was spotted by a reporter sweeping the discarded wino debris out of an alley. The reporter did a human interest piece. I read it and saw what he was doing as Social Sculpture. My "Social Sculpture" was to act as a "Big Brother" taking him fishing and horse back riding. My relationship to him became my art. After a few months he and his family disappeared. I never saw him again.

During this period SF artist David Ireland was transforming houses into art. Tom Marioni was drinking beer as art. Joseph Beuys was coining the term "Social Sculpture" in Germany, Gordon Matta-Clark was cutting buildings up on the East Coast. I didn't feel alone. In the 30 plus years since then my work has taken so many twists and turns it's no wonder my neck hurts. I've never had any problem doing pieces that are from the outset indistinguishable as art- a cow, a stint in seminary, a gallery, a rock band, a church...... But as I dredge up this work I realize the common denominator has always been relationship. Sure I do studio work also- but even that is couched in rumor and myth, created under the name of Kristan Kohl (a German woman who died in the 80s).

So this brings me back to WSSP and WSSP II. First WSSP. In 1998 I bought a one room school house for $30,000. In 1999 I held a graduate summer program there called THE OLD SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL SCULPTURE. The faculty which included Linda Montano, Kiki Smith, Robin Winters and Tony Labat concentrated on strategies for art making, not production. It was a big hit with the students. Luckily I was able to sell the school for a nice profit in 2006. I took the money and bought another old farm house at auction. But this was little more than a shell. It had no well, no septic and lousy neighbors. Nonetheless i plowed into it, hoping to turn it into art.

Enter Samm. As the real estate market turned sour and my money dwindled the artist Samm Kunce bought the unfinished piece and ponied up the cash to complete it. I was saved. Now maybe I could've sold this can of worms to a stranger and had the same results, but i doubt it. It was my relationship with Samm that allowed this work to continue and evolve into sculpture. She believed in me and loved the house. Can you recognize this house as any different than any other house on the road? No. Is it outlandish or unusual in any way that would distinguish it as "art"? No. Am I certain this is art. Damn straight.

Hot on the heels of WSSP my close friends Carlo, Tessa and Tristan found a beautiful piece of property a mile down the road with another old farm house. Carlo is an art critic and collaborator I've known for more than 25 years. We started THE CHURCH OF THE LITTLE GREEN MAN together in 1986. Tessa is a filmmaker and Tristan is my fishing buddy. I love all these people and even though my old man always told me not to work for friends nor family I have consistently disregarded his advice. WSSP II has become my latest source of income as well as my most recent piece. Do my friends consider it as such? I'm not sure. I've always said if Carlo was a better critic I'd have been rich and famous by now. (Just kidding).

This architecture of relationship is what holds everything up. It's what gets me up in the morning and allows me to continue the utterly banal and grueling practice of construction now well into my 50's. Contextualization of this kind of work is problematic but in time the work always reveals itself and if I can sit in a tree stand day after day without seeing a deer or take a Victoria Secret model hunting and call it art how hard can this be to visualize?