Every piece of art is an amalgamation of ideas, influences and techniques from others and my stuff is no different. Here's a partial list of my thought crimes, starting with . . .
My Grandfather was a butcher
Yes, Granddad took up a blade to dispatch poor beasts and carve up their warm carcasses. I never saw him at work -- thank god -- but as a child I held his hand on walks through Seattle's Pike Place Market where he'd talk shop with other butchers in their blood stained aprons. Making sausages by grinding piles of glistening protoplasm -- ears, lips, cheeks, noses and other odd, unmentionable meaty bits -- was his specialty. Though a committed vegetarian now, I do share his instinct to deconstruct the ideal and refashion it into something new and dynamic.
LA's La Brea Tar Pits
In elementary school I was fascinated by the well-illustrated specter of Pleistocene animals -- large and small -- trapped and waiting to die in the oily mire of California's La Brea Trap Pits. Was this localized attritional nightmare an analogue to my childhood spent caring for a chronically ill mother? I dunno but the prehistoric drama clearly haunts each Smacker.
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Crack-pot car dealer Dick Balch
During the '70s, Seattle car dealer Dick Balch took a sledge hammer to his inventory of Chevrolets in low-budget commercials every week. Hugely successful, Dick was far ahead of his time -- anticipating elements of the Punk movement. From Dick's meta example I learned that an object's value can be enhanced by its destruction.
Excavating fossil bones in Oregon Badlands
As a teenager, I worked summers in the Oregon desert as a field assistant to a Vertebrate Paleontologist. Months at a stretch were spent scouring steep green escarpments for fossil mammal bones. I loved the sight of a fossilized skull or skeleton emerging in situ from its mint-colored matrix as the fragile specimen was carefully pedestaled and jacketed with plaster bandages for removal to the lab. (In camp I slept on a cot, not the ground, to avoid being joined in my sleeping bag during a chilly night by a heat-seeking rattlesnake [Crotalus Oreganus] -- a terror that once befell my boss!)
Low-relief portraiture: Persian bas reliefs
In the mid '70s I found myself flat broke in pre-revolutionary Iran, where I got hired by the Imperial Iranian Army to teach English to helicopter pilots. The Shah was buying up surplus Huey and Cobra choppers by the hundreds after the fall of Saigon in preparation for the anticipated dust up with neighboring Iraq. As a result of this rotor-mad shopping spree, the medieval domed city of Esfahan thrummed with whuppa whuppa whuppa 24/7 like a sun-beached scene out of Apocalypse Now.
My students were 18 year old conscripts with little or no mechanical experience. Few had even driven a car so it was no surprise that one or two were killed weekly in training accidents. On a roadtrip to nearby Persepolis, the ancient Persian capital destroyed by Alexander the Great 2300 years ago, I was staggered by the massive, fire-scarred tableaus of royal life that remain in the palace ruins. When sunlit, these majestic reliefs -- huge hand carved expressions of absolute and brutal power -- produce dramatic shadows and deep impressions.
First foray into sculpture making . . . and sales!
The early '80s found me driving a Yellow Cab in Cambridge and butchering cardboard boxes to fashion kinetic wall sculptures with a hot glue gun and poster paint. Themes of childhood confusion and the excesses of American life littered my boundary-pushing work but I soon found an appreciative audience while showing at a local artist space. My first sale -- a cardboard piece entitled Exploding TV -- was to young curator from Boston's newly established Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA). Now a tenured Harvard professor, his advice to me back then was "Scott, you could have a future in the art world if you use more durable materials . . . like aluminum or plywood."
From Basement artist to its Artistic Director
That first show of my work was at the Basement, a struggling space near Boston's China Town. Its founder was departing so I took over as Director and quickly established a board of directors and acquired tax-exempt status (501C3) from the IRS in order to accept grants. Funding followed and the gallery hosted edgy events including Boston's first LGBTQ artist show in 1984. In the course of feeding Basement activities to the local press, I discovered a knack for publicity. So in 1985, as the gallery was closing due to condo conversion, I embarked on a plan to create a collectable and then leverage interest in that newly galvanized commodity to experience first hand the summit of America's media and entertainment establishment. Hell, why not?
Mr. Lunch Box and Mr. Cereal Box
So I worked like a demon and by the late 1980s and early 1990s incited not one but two baby boomer crazes -- vintage lunch boxes and cereal boxes -- by amassing huge collections at flea market prices, publishing two zines to whet collector interest (Hot Boxing and Flake), writing five reference books (all out-of-print), and then flogging the heap on radio and TV to enjoy an exploding market and my 45 minutes of fame.
Terry Gross was irritating (heresy, I know, but she insisted my real name must be a pseudonym), Matt Lauer smarmy, while Charlie Rose was a riot in person (he begged me to stop making him laugh so he could catch his breath. In that moment I knew how David felt as he stood over Goliath). Madonna once phoned me in the middle of the night to shame while I shivered naked in my unlit kitchen. Mark Hamill -- a.k.a. Luke Skywalker -- invited me to stay with his family out in Malibu. On a Delta flight to Atlanta the pilot announced to the cabin that the "gentleman" profiled in the in-flight magazine was seated on the left side of the plane in row 26. Passengers turned en mass to see me blush as red as the tomato juice I had been sipping. The downside of a profile in People is getting recognized in line at the post office or in the men's room at the airport.
That deep dive into collectibles taught me two lessons germane to Pop-Smack: first, that the preoccupation with perfection or "Mint" condition among collectors is a trap to be embraced by numismatists but avoided by artists breaking new ground. Second, that incorporating pop icons like Bart Simpson, Batman and Michael Jordan is one key to a future artistic endeavor by insuring instant recognition. To paraphrase a realtor trope, it's Character, Character, Character, stupid.
On a visit decades ago to Frank Lloyd Wright's Arizona house -- Taliesin West -- I was blown away by how the architect had embedded antique ceramics — large and intricate scenes from 19th century Chinese opera— into the field stone and concrete walls of his desert masterpiece. This delicious contrast between the fragile green and blue details of the porcelain and the rough surrounding cement was unexpected, strange and oddly beautiful. I loved 'em -- and pocketed the idea for a later day.
Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons and (Neo) Pop Art
Andy Warhol's appropriation of consumer iconography to blur the line between what is or is not art is everywhere and inescapable. And Andy loved Americana and ceramics, especially cookie jars. More an affirmation than inspiration to me, Julian Schnabel applies gobs of paint to canvases paved with broken china. Lastly, Warhol's artistic heir Jeff Koons scales up common-place objects and kitsch (a.k.a. "manufactured art for the masses") to open the door wide for the post or altered-kitsch of Pop-Smack. Bless his gargantuan but black heart!
The take away?
While my inspirations may be varied and somewhat eccentric, the historical antecedents for Pop-Smack are plentiful and solid. Unpacked, the entire gritty pile stands in a long and time-honored tradition of deconstructing the past in order to process . . . and preserve . . . the present. Whatever the eventual popularity of Pop-Smack, at least I'm getting my hands dirty and having fun in a way that is uniquely and defiantly me!