Okay, now catch your breath.................................

IN........................out........................in.........................................

out.........................................................

relax........... and try this on for size:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwMj3PJDxuo

It's the sort of thing me and my art major buddies were coming up with in the late 60's and early 70's. Naturally, most of our Profs did not appreciate it, which was both discouraging and encouraging for me.

If you liked or like it, here's their site with details on another project:

http://www.improveverywhere.com/2006/08/19/slo-mo-home-depot/

In the daze of the 60's-70's, events like this were often called "performance art" or "guerilla theater". Conceptually, it was incredibly freeing for myself and my friends who were questioning and recreating everything we could get our minds and hands on. If there was a common "theme", it was about the relentless and all-encompassing uncertainty of the Time. Nothing was stable, nothing was guaranteed, nothing seemed safe.

I've mentioned some of these before, but not all, so here are more examples of what we 18-20 year old Art majors* created (most of it done on the campus of Colorado State University):

- Entering a campus building at night, and giving them a beautifully rendered "cave painting" on their hallway wall. The administration planned to paint over them. The students petitioned that they remain. They remained.

- In a "guerilla" night attack, we repainted a door on an Art building as a draped American flag - like one that would be draped over the coffin of a Viet Nam soldier. It too remained - until the building itself was burnt to the ground after an anti-war rally on campus lead by Abbie Hoffman. All the Art majors who stored their work there lost every thing. All equipment, all Art. Gone.

- In another night "attack", we opened all the windows of the second floor of one Art building, ran string through all the rooms, out all the windows, and staked it down into the surrounding outdoor grassy areas. One student put up a sign: "But what if gravity failed?"

- I created inflatable sculptures that slowly lost air. I would anonymously install them in campus buildings, and let them slowly go flat.

- Richard (best friend), myself, and another friend would go up in the mountains, find a tiny cave, and build a tiny - TINY - room setting in there... as though 6" high people lived there minding their own business.

- I created sculptures - mostly hand built, fired ceramic - that looked like they MIGHT have been natural products of the earth - and I buried them (mainly in the mountains). I'm sure most are still there. My intention was that they last thousands of years, and be a serious mystery by the time they're discovered.

- I DID bury commercial products also, but only ones that had the appearance of "deep, symbolic meaning". I purchased a sack full of chromed plastic trophy tops that appeared like the "Oscar" award male figure. I found a hollow tree, and dumped them all inside.

- An Art major friend and I would go into the mountains and build sculptures from the rocks and trees in the area. We built a dinosaur skeleton, and other figural works.

We (the group) had plans (but could not afford) to:

- Fill large, clear weather balloons with air, and let them go on campus.

- Rent bleachers and a truck, and place the bleachers on the main grassy mall of the campus. Groups would sit there silently, and randomly applaud various students as they walked by.

I still regret we couldn't pull these off.

I had plans (but could not afford) to:

- Cast hundreds of solid white plaster forearms with hands. I would use common rubber dish washing gloves for the molds. They would be "planted" on the main grassy mall of campus - the brilliant white arms/hands reaching up out of the ground towards the sky - planted in precise rows like a graveyard. Unmarked. All alike. If allowed to remain (and by this time, I expected student petitions again), they would slowly decompose through exposure to weather. It was clearly a reaction to Viet Nam.

I really wanted to do that one.

The point was we were trying to alter the typical day/experience of others enough to shake them out of their complacencies... at least enough that they ask themselves one or two questions about their expectations and beliefs.

I never lost the urge. I never thought MY Art should be about itself - it should be about noticing, questioning, analyzing, and perhaps changing our days, our beliefs, our lives, our Time-spending style. I doubt any of us involved in such thinking lost the urge. It's an intoxicating feeling to create Art "out there".

===

* Credit where credit is due: Some of the other members of this group (which was not exclusively composed of Art majors) included Will Bennett, Richard Pettersen, Ray Huffman, Nancy Wakefield, Roy French, Dave Small, Bruce Bishop, Mark Gerboth, Greg Padilla, Dee X, Jeff X, John X, Assistant Prof of Drawing George Brownlee, Assistant Prof of Silver Smithing X (male) and, I'm sorry to say, more names are fading..... or gone

from my memory.

My apologies.