Several years ago, my friends Dan and Al shared a place in Brooklyn with a young sculptor by the name of Dave Simon. He was a cool guy and his work was really good One day, it must have been about eight years ago now, when I was visiting, he agreed to help immortalize me in plaster. It was a long, messy process that required lots of sludge to be poured over my head. I remember that I had to breathe through straws stuffed up my nose and withstand the heat of plaster setting against my face. I also remember that I couldnt speak and tell people that it was freaking me out. I just layed there on the floor as people milled around me, drinking and chatting. Occasionally Id hear someone make a comment like, Lets drip some plaster down his breathing straws. In the end it was worth it though, and Dave was very nice to have done it.
Somewhere here in this old house of ours I have the mold and the five or six casts I made from it. Linette hates the things. She says they look like death masks. She thinks its bad luck or something. I think theyre upsetting too, but for a different reason because they show what I was like the better part of 50 pounds ago, before my heavy face started sliding (Senator Kerry-like) into my chest At any rate, I just got a note from Dan directing me to David Simons new website. I thought that some of you might enjoy it. Its not the kind of self-taught, visionary art that I typically gravitate toward, but its beautiful stuff, very old-world, yet modern at the same time.
My suspicion is that Dave wont be calling me any time soon to barrow the old Maynard Life Mask. I think once you have your first solo show in California and get commissioned to sculpt a horse from one of Leonardo Da Vincis drawings, you pretty much stop associating with people who blog about poop-touching and ball-shaving.
