WAIT

Life eventually kills you. In the meantime you wait. Waiting doesn't come easy to everybody. But for me? I'm pretty good at it.

   In 1984 I rented a crappy little storefront, filled with unkeyed plaster, years of debris and a stopped up toilet. The floor sloped 6" over 8' and it was only 10' wide. But this little shithole was located just off the park, on E9th and Ave. A in the East Village. In 1984 this was prime gallery district real estate. It cost me $600 per month.
   I had had a gallery in SF for the past couple of years called MO David, but I never kept formal hours and rarely sold a work of art. I'd have openings and once in a great while someone would call for an appt. The rent was dirt cheap and I lived in the back. This was a different kettle of fish altogether. This was art- retail. I had to keep regular hours. I had to sell art....even if my whole intent was to create this gallery as a sculpture.
    In Jan. 1984 I opened MO David, Inc. At first it was exciting- new city, new friends, new fucking world.....the artworld. But pretty soon I began to get antsy. Waiting wasn't easy. Waiting day after day for some rich cat to come in to your place of business and drop down hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on art was downright nerve racking. Some days I'd get loads of lookers. Other days barely a soul darkened my doorway. But then, out of the blue, some man or woman would come in and I'd actually make a sale. It didn't happen often, but it did happen. I'd make a sale. We'd be reviewed. It was enough to keep waiting.
    Then, 2 years down the road, the wait was over. The money dried up. The scene changed. I started a rock band and a church. I moved on. In 1994 I started hunting again. I climbed in a tree and I waited. Instead of women in furs stepping from limos, I had red squirrels on tree branches and porcupines lumbering through the woodlots. Instead of trying to spot a collector or a critic I had fat does and big eight pointers in my sights. I sat in that tree and I waited, until the wait itself took on an attraction of it's own. I couldn't wait to get back in the woods and wait some more.
   Then, even that lost it's allure. I started a school and waited for students. I started another church and waited for parishioners. I started a business and waited for customers. And once again I started another gallery- this time called MO David North, and waited for attention. I'm still waiting. A couple of years ago I bought a shul. This is where I'm waiting now. Every morning I tote water from the spring well, unlock the front door, grab a sack of feed and proceed to feed and water my chickens. When this is accomplished I sweep out the front and back office, sit down in my swivel chair, prop my feet up on my desk, grab a fly swatter and wait to give away chickens and art. Every day a few more people in town hear about it. Today about a 1/2 doz. people stopped by and two people adopted birds. Mostly it's Hassidim and hardcore hillbillies. At first it was boring, sitting there swatting flies, smelling chicken shit, hearing squawking roosters and clucking hens. But now I'm in the groove. I love to see a minivan or pick up pull up. I couldn't have predicted in a million years that I'd be sitting in the back of an old synagogue filled with chickens, swatting flies. Waiting becomes it's own reward, if you are where you want to be. And then you die.