Viewing page 17 of 38

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[image]]
Artschwager.

sharp. They work hard, they take their work seriously. When I first started, there was adamant hostility. This was an affront. With the foreman I laid it on the line. I told him, "This is not going to stop, and it's going to get worse, and you're going to live with it." But as soon as I could show them my name in print or that I had sold something (best of all my name in print), then it was okay. On the other hand, when I tried to find a gallery dealer, Leo Castelli was the only one who gave me a positive answer in the mail, and it was a very positive one. I had sent out about a dozen little kits - you know, with photographs and a letter - and either I got short, courteous answers, or no answer. One of the major New York museums wrote this: "I am sorry to tell you that the Viewing Program deals only with work in the realm of sculpture and painting. After looking at the photographs you sent us, I am afraid that the committee feels that your work is more in the category of a craft."

QUESTION: In what way did the craftsmen in your shop show their hostility?

ARTSCHWAGER: Oh, by making bad jokes, by treating the stuff badly when it was standing there in the shop, shoving it around. I'd have something set up in clamps, and I'd find it off in a corner. Then I'd raise a riot, and there'd be a big fight.

QUESTION: Why did they feel affronted?

ARTSCHWAGER: Many people are affronted by this the first time around. My wife was affronted, and we are very devoted to each other.

QUESTION: But how, exactly, does it touch them?

ARTSHWAGER: Because it's some sort of an invasion. Nothing is safe, and everything is discovered in a limited way. The offense is that I'm spending time and money on things that should be good for something. That's what I've gathered. I'm making objects for non-use; by use, I mean cups to drink out of, a spoon to stir with. By killing off the use part, non-use aspects are allowed living space, breathing space. Things in a still life painting can have monumentality - and I don't think their monumentality has been lessened because their edibility or other use has been either taken away or put into them. Instead, its focus is on other things. 

QUESTION: And what is this?

ARTSCHWAGER: It's a table with a tablecloth. There are a lot of wisecracks made about it - "Well, you never have to send that to the laundry," and so on, but it's called "Table with Tablecloth," and it's about the way a table with a tablecloth is in a painting, in a still life - a three-dimensional still life. 

QUESTION: What do you call that?

ARTSCHWAGER: That is, believe it or not, a frame - rather it's two frames. The steps at the bottom were done to make sure that anybody of any height could look through the opening. There's a frame, this bevels in. It has serations something like the bellows of a camera, and the opening is just about eye-size, and you have the same thing on the other side. There should be somebody on the other side, so it becomes a viewer of somebody else's eyes (photo page 29).

Now, these wall pieces have titles. One is "Expression," and the other is "Impression:" pictures as objects, or object-pictures. I've been playing with this notion in many different ways. And this wall piece is no picture-all frame.

This is a picture, an enormous picture with a great heavy "albino teak" frame. Now, bleached teak supposedly doesn't exist, but here it is. This is an idea, a real manifestation of an idea.

QUESTION: From the days when you were making useful furniture, how did you come to this notion?

ARTSCHWAGER: I was a slow worker, and I found this kind of work, making useful furniture - with good design, craftsmanship, and materials - is hard to survive on because there's so much involved for what you can get out of it in the way of money. Then I started doing some work for a Catholic church. I made altars. I must have made thirty shipboard altars over about a year's time-portable altars with all kinds of brass fittings. I don't know if they did anything for me as far ideas are concerned, but I was making something that, by definition, is more important than tables or chairs-that is, an object which celebrates something that is supposed to be more important than sitting down or eating or taking out garments or putting them away, which is what furniture does. The altars were good though. They opened up to show some words in Latin to help the priest remember the vital parts of the Madd - a sort of prompter arrangement. And beneath that there was a drawer and then a cabinet for vestments. 

QUESTION: And the progress towards the present work?

ARTSCHWAGER: I think that happened very quickly. First, I was working very hard and making very little money. The years went by, and I kept on making furniture. I couldn't make enough to get my head above water. Now, there are a lot of people who do good things, who work with simple tools (sometimes with not-so-simple tools), and they are mainly concerned with making furniture that is well constructed and has a presence, which is what there are a lot of arguments about. I know that (continued on page 54)

30  CRAFT HORIZONS September/October 1865