5 Weirdest Stories

5...Wake Me Up on Judgment Day (1986)

This piece was one of the gifts to Boulder's Sister City, Dushanbe, Tadjihkistan by the Artists of Boulder in 1988. Since then, the area has been subjected to four 7-point magnitude earthquakes, three or four serious rebellions where hundreds lost their lives, and the changing of the Soviet Union back to Russia. It is my guess that sometime back, it was used for skeet practice by some folks with automatic weaponry.

4...Rose Selavi (1984)

This work, from the New York Cheesecake series, was finished, taken to the photographer's studio for documentation, then down to Denver where it was to be included in an exhibition called Cats and Dogs. I delivered my pieces, returned home, then called the gallery to confirm the inventory list. This piece was missing from the gallery's inventory, but I couldn't find it anywhere. Then I remembered as I was packing the car back up to leave, I had set this piece on the roof to adjust the crates. Then completely forgetting, I drove off. I think it met its fate somewhere around 17th and Larimer on a sharp left turn. No one but me and the photographer ever saw it. The slide is all that remains.

3...This Is Only a Test, and the Meek Shall Not have Much Left to Inherit (1986)

Part of the Ten Seconds to Impact series, this piece was created after I was contacted by the Rocky Mountain Defense League, the folks who constantly tried to stop nuclear testing at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada by sneaking in and standing on Ground Zero. They had heard about my work, were impressed and wanted me to go with them to Ground Zero to make a statement. I told them that I appreciated the exciting offer but that I could be of better assistance in my studio making work like this. Ironically, this piece, later reviewed by a juror ( a little old lady) in a show in California with the comment, "What the hell is this shit?" , met its demise with a sudden stop in an automobile. It wasn't wearing a seatbelt.

4...Sometimes I Despair the World Will Never See Another Man like Him... (1991)

I made this piece around the time that Superman died in the comics. The Crash Test Dummies did a song, The Superman Song, that the title is taken from. On a trip to Manhattan, I presented this piece to a top gallery after schlepping it ten blocks through a freezing rain storm and they chose to include it in an international exhibition for a fundraiser to benefit pet owners with AIDS. It was a perfect match for the show concept. The piece didn't sell that I know of, but a few months later when I called the gallery to make arrangements to get it back, the phone was disconnected, there was no forwarding number, and I never found out where they or the artwork went. It was one of the best pieces that I made while I was in California...(and the IRS won't let you deduct such a loss)....

5...The Pelican (1981)

Actually my first commission, it was commissioned by a collector in Florida who saw a one man show of mine in Detroit. It was to be life-size, in porcelain in the Miessen/Sevres tradition, unglazed. Had I known that a piece like this was almost impossible to execute in porcelain, I would not have taken it on. I built it in Colorado, and it was to be delivered to his summer home in Northern Michigan. I lost the check he sent me for a down payment, built the thing so that it was far too fragile, certainly not sturdy enough for a long journey, and rode a train from Denver to Detroit with this awkward creature crushed against my knees. We all met at the gallery, where upon the uncrating, it came out in four or five pieces. I returned the second check he had sent me, and returned home. 200 hours of work, four days of travel and expenses, and I figure that my "first commission" cost me over $ 3,000.00. It was no one's fault but my own.