PANIC AVERTED

My entire career has been a search for material with which to make my art. In the early days it could be something as intangible as relationship. How could someone get to know another person and contextualize the experience within (art)? MISSIONARY (the extended family as sculpture) 1978 attempted just this. At 26 years old I picked a 12 year old boy out of the SF Examiner newspaper and "got to know him" through phone calls, a series of outings and letters. Then I documented the experience with objects and writings. I was still in graduate school at the time. When I presented this piece to the review  panel it was met with bemused dismissal. One panel member suggested I drop out of art school and join the Salvation Army.
   Along with relationship as material, the machine that creates art and artists' careers also fascinated me.   My little group of SF artist friends, Jose Bustos, Peggy Ingalls, Tony Labat, Bruce Pollack, Richard Irwinn, ....were all doing shows either still in school or just out of it. So I decided to invent a critic who would write about them. MO David started out writing about their work (not mine). In a short amount of time I was published in New York and LA magazines. Quickly tiring of this bald-faced promotion, I opened a gallery of the same name- showing these individuals and others. This was the beginning of the use of other artists, their work and careers as material for my own work.

  The gallery piece brought me to NYC, where I expanded my circle to include more established artists like Robin Winters, Les Levine and Stelarc, as well as up and comers like Tony Oursler and Karen Finley. Naive and clueless as to the workings of the NY art world, I hired Bob Nickas and Renee Ricardo to sit the gallery as i went out to make a living as a carpenter. Dumb move? 30 years later and I still don't know. My next use of artist as material found me creating a fictitious painter by the name of Kristan Kohl and showing her anonymous looking work in MO David.  Kim Levin of The Village Voice wrote- "A Neo-conceptualist in the era of the entrepreneur, this artist's documented acts of art range from a fictional artist who had an actual solo show, to buying a cow, attending seminary, and adopting a boy. Is he for real?"
   Having the gallery allowed me to trade services for art. I would frame pieces for a show and get a couple in return. It was then I began to actually paint over other artists' work with a viscous green called  IKG (International Kohl Green). Everyone hated me. Still, I limited myself to one per artist and stand behind this series. Artists like Finley were REALLY pissed. Others took it in grudging stride. How much is an Oursler these days? I can only guess. I got a nice green one I'll sell ya cheap.
 
Then came rock and roll, a church, a school, and hunting, killing, guiding, and another gallery, all "as art". So it goes from here. Carlo McCormick once wrote of my "self- abrogating" career decisions over the years. I had to look it up to realize he was talking about my constant foot shooting. And this brings me to PANIC AVERTED- Ethelbert B. Crawford. No, this is not another pseudonym. This is the use of another's totally obscure career of 100 years ago and trying to promote it through MO David North. The title is from a 1910 newspaper article declaring that the police had "averted panic" by the throngs of art lovers attending THE INDEPENDENT ARTISTS SHOW  of 1910, which Ethelbert was a part. The work is not for sale at this time, but may be someday. I love the stuff and just want to see it on my walls. I feel his ghost upon me. The title is fitting for what we all feel as artists everyday. Will this panic ever be averted? I doubt it. Now if I can just keep myself from painting it all green.