I guess you could say my first brush with creation came from my parents, who weren't artists at all but naturalists. They were a wild, bohemian sort. Every few months, they'd load my 12 brothers and me into the back of a Chevrolet conversion van and drive us cross-country to protest some act of environmental destruction. Once, it was a Norwegian Oak upstate. Another time, a rally for the mangroves. I remember, at my her own behest, chaining my mother to a treehouse in Tennessee. I saw a lot of this vast country on those long, hot trips and learned to appreciate the flora of the American landscape.
But a life of arrest and seizure and shuffle is not good for a young person. I was left cleaning up their messes.
After enduring years of a family doctrine that emphasized preservation, I wanted to wreak some havoc. Maybe that's why I gravitated toward disposable art.
When I first got involved in the paper towel scene in my twenties, it was in its infancy. Some artists were playing around with different shades of white and embossing different shapes into the grain of the paper itself. Uninspired stuff. I was the first to add flowers and sunbeams and birds in muted ink to the towels. That was a revolutionary at the time. I was the only guy crazy enough to do it.
It wasn't before long that I started seeing my designs in the kitchenettes of some of the cooler galleries downtown. From there, the buzz built. Harold Rosenberg once called my work "sturdy" and "subliminal" and "mostly inoffensive" in The New Yorker ('s break-room when cleaning up a coffee spill).
When fame hit, I started to live a life of excess: too many women, too many parties, and too many disposable cloths to count. I hit rock bottom when, after a long night out, I found myself drying off with a paper towel of my own design. Sure, I didn't want my parents' life, but I didn't want this, either. I was wiped, and I needed to clean up my act.
After I got finally got clean, my peers suggested I'd lost my touch. At the convenience store unveiling of my first new designs after my extended recess from the expendable art world, a respected friend of mine told me she thought my design belonged in the trash– though I suspect that may have been her just being clever.
It's been a long road, but I'm in a better place. I've even come to peace with my family, for the most part. We're even getting together for the holidays. I've even wrapped their gifts in my own design.
Share This Article
