Environs of Peralta

Sept. 19, 2015

A seemingly impossible self imposed task of moving this.

Don't even think of buying your six pack here.  Hell, It's It is .25 cents more than the place down the street.

This place.....this place feels right.

Shoes                                                      apart.

Under the Over

Bird/Pole

A real cozy home, I think.

Polishing Out the Parties

The Liquor Cabinet was put into service soon after the martini legs were attached.  Daily service, party service.  Epic epic party service (Big Love out to Henry).  One party went on for 27 hours.  That's a lot of drink making and drink serving and drinks sitting on the copper of the cabinet.

Each party etched a bit of itself on the copper.  Like a guest book almost.  Maybe a history book.

So I thought I needed to freshen everything up for the show up in Napa.  A random orbit with automotive polishes glistened up the copper real nice like.  Some of the memories of the parties though are deeper than I thought would be possible to get out so I left those.

The deepest etch of all was the last party of 2014.  Indelible.  Forever-ible

Legs drying from a new coat of finish 

Last night at the Utah we're talking about mushrooms, the desert kind, the trippy kind.  A rough looking stranger sitting next to Cary broke into the conversation.  "The best mushrooms in the world come from Iceland.  I know, I used to sell them."  We entered into a long conversation of how he went hunting for them at night with his car, the beams of headlights would make the mushrooms "glow", with the heater going full blast he would start to dry them on the dashboard as he went through the night and by the end they were ready to be sold.

Legal to be sold until they were dried apparently.

I asked him what they were called.  He pronounced an unpronounceable word and said "Loosely translated it means...To wander aimless in your yard."

And that my friends, is the beauty of going to bars.

I get off at West Oakland Bart after the Utah and bike back home.  Decide to stop in at a nearby Liquor/convenience store for an It's It.  Outside of bay area people, an It's It is a local ice cream sandwich thingie.  

Dude hanging out in front of the store asked me for a dollar when I came back out.

"A dollar?  Last time I was here, it was fifty cents."

"It's the ghetto, man.  It's the ghetto.  It's the ghetto."

I was still laughing as I went inside.  The guy behind the bullet proof glass counter asked me what I was laughing about.  I think he thought that I was laughing at him.

Don't know why.

I gave the guy outside the door some money.  He said, "I'm just trying to get enough for a beer."

Assembling the cabinet for the show.

I don't even need to tie this all together for y'all.  Do I?

Angel of Mary

I'm thinking it was an Angel that deposited Mary.  Late in 2014, so many things were going on...big life changes... and wham out of the blue Mary came to the studio.
I must admit She caught me off guard.  I mean where did she come from before the studio?  Why was she left on the street like she was, unwanted and alone.  Somehow the Angel convinced me that I needed to have one more thing, a Mary, in my big collection of things.

I was a bit annoyed I had to let her stay.  I mean, a broke down Mary?  I needed a plastic Mary?
But the Angel only laughed and insisted.

She was placed on the ground first by the music, there was an electrical outlet close by, but soon moved to live under the liquor cabinet.  The move to the alter beneath the alcohol was a type of creative completion.  I'm sure it was something the Angel started and I finished.  Soon, since Mary had a large hole in her gut, it was only right to place incense in there to heal her and the sweet tendrils of Chandan smoke started drifting out of the top of her head.  You see she was missing the top of her head as well.

And again, out of the blue, in my email box one morning, was the question.  "I saw your liquor cabinet in a video,  could I include it in an exhibition that I'm curating for a museum?"

Was there a connection you wonder?  That's hell to the yes, there was. It only took having Mary under the cabinet for a month, gently swaddling the cabinet above in her smoke and love for the invite to happen.  Come on, the cabinet sat there for a couple years before, like some Buddha in a cave.  Just sitting there.  Oh sure, serving drinks but certainly not heading out into the big wide world.
There just has to be an Angel/Mary intervention going on.  Gotta be.

The exhibit is at the Napa Valley Museum from Sept 18-Nov 29.  Curated by Nancy Willis.

Nancy, the curator, wanted to actually see the cabinet before committing to taking it.  I was hoping she would see that Mary had become part of my piece and would include her in the show.   No.

Thank you Angel for guiding me to the light.
Thank you for letting me see the light.
Thank you for showing me yours.