"The Answer"
A 65' neon light sculpture for Dallas is born.
My story begins with this totally poetic and random letter..
"Mr. Livingston,
I have built and moved into a new, very modern house and am considering commissioning a neon piece. I admire your work and wanted to explore the potential for this with you.
The following is a link to an online article about the house.
The north side faces I-30 and is about 80’ above the freeway. I look out the window at a lot of lights on buildings and want this art piece on the house to answer back in some way. A picture of the north side of the house is attached. I envision something that goes vertically across the openings.
I do have some questions.
Are you available and/or interested in doing this sort of thing?
Most of the work on your website is indoors. Do you do outdoor pieces as well?
Can you do this with LED’s instead of neon? Just curious, not wedded to the idea.
How much is this sort of thing likely to cost?
Are you willing to work with the architect and contractor in attaching the piece to the house? They are both very protective of this house. (we hope to win awards and that sort of thing)
Thanks for your attention to this matter. I look forward to hearing from you."
Well, how about that?
I pondered her thoughts for a while and then the voice of Kinky Friedman in my head blurted out his famous gubernatorial campaign slogan, "Why the hell not?"
So off we go on a year long voyage into the unknown territory of getting someone else to do pretty much everything except draw the original sketch, direct and help install the thing for the last two weeks until it was done.. This is pretty much a blow by blow account that I either sent by email or posted on facebook in realtime as the project progressed, starting in January of 2018 and ending with a blissed out lovefest unveiling party in July of 2019.
My reply:
"Dear Ms.Peterman,
Thanks for your poetic inquiry about my neon sculpture. At the moment I'm working in San Angelo but I'll be home mid week and happy to focus on and discuss your questions and needs.
For now:
I can't imagine anything better to vertically adorn your shiny steel cube as a beacon of beauty over I-30!
- Yes I've done some outdoor pieces.. Just think of these "technically" as neon signs without words. They must follow a certain fabrication process including following electrical code so, being out of that loop I'll definitely need to collaborate with a sign manufacturer and your architect on that part of the design. See the shapes below, that's called a raceway and could easily double as your neon mounting system. One of my all time favorite mentors was Stephen Antonakos who did this one and a ton more of these as public installations all over the world. Click on his link to see.
To answer your questions:
- LED's: In my experience, trying them once with high hopes, was a major pain. I reckon that LED's are a pretty good for folks who can't manage neon.
- Price: My neon compositions typically sell somewhere between $4000 - $25,000 but as far as relating to the scope and scale of what we're looking at; appraisals for my work go up to $100,000.00 for "Where the Roses Get Red" at UT's Bass Concert Hall and my legendary 80's Austin Landmark, "Neon Mural #1" weighed in at $90K. Because of City budget constraints,"Confabulating Orbits" at the Austin Convention Center came in at about half of that.
- I'd love to brainstorm/work with the architect and contractors...
- Contests: Winning awards is FUN!
- Again, thanks for your interest in my work.. And please, call me Ben
Sincerely,
Mr. Livingston"
I bring up Stephen Antonakos here because to me, he has always been an integral part of big scale work, and being in Dallas has special appeal concerning Stephen because of how we met.
For the sake of storytelling, I'll intermingle my Antonakos and I become friends and ultimately mentor tale with the rite of passage that came of creating "The Answer".
I used to love going to see Stephen and Naomi at their all white flat in Soho where he ran his studio like an architect's office where there would be several works in progress, sculpture studies, building maquettes and blueprints all over the place but always very organized. So generous about showing me what he was up to and always serious about what he was doing. The man was deeply immersed in an international business of large scale public and private art installations and he was sitting solidly on top of his game.
And yet Stephen was a giver with a fierce generosity of spirit.
Over the next fifteen years or so, we had a lot of long conversations about everything from conceptual ideas about space and form. How a sculpture can serve its community on several levels from simply atmospheric for the preoccupied to some stopped dead in their tracks to feast their eyes on what is before them. No matter what angle Stephen was coming from he always had a pragmatic approach to the tedious process of bringing an idea to fruition in the public arena.
In other words, how to think about creating something significant that worked in a large scale public arena without loosing your shirt.
John Sayles instructed me how he and Maggie Renzi come at film making the same way, but that's a whole other mentoring story.
This was Stephen's thing, he did massive public and private work all the time, all over the world, it was his bread and butter.. For example, when I was applying for the AIPP Austin Convention Center competition he offered this in so many words: "Research and develop your idea completely then work your estimated costs backwards from the budget's total.
Simple enough, right? - LOL!
Definitely a cool challenge but one that always makes me bat shit crazy. As a man, I speculate that if I never pass a kidney stone and the gestating of a high stakes art commission is about as close to the pain of child birth as I'll ever get.
If I've learned anything from our life long relationship, it's that she gets great pleasure from my suffering, then, just maybe as I'm raising the white flag to surrender, she'll mercifully switch on some stunningly epiphanic over-head lightbulb.
The next thing to keep in mind is delegating, because as they say, "the devil is in the details" and man, those details really add up quick!
So, this is another shot at big work for me, others include Neon Mural #1, Where the Roses Get Red at UT's Bass Concert Hall, Confabulating Orbits and Texas Sized Caduceus.
Here they are:
Neon Mural #1
1988
Austin Landmark and IIDA International Lighting Award recipient.
Where the Roses Get Red
1993
The University of Texas Permanent Collection - Bass Concert Hall.
City of Austin Permanent collection - Austin Convention Center.
As it turns out, this whole process of creating and getting this "Answer" to happen is very much a tribute to Stephen, who was a terrific mentor to me, who I met right here in big D at the Stonleigh Hotel back in 1985.
It was late spring of '85, and while I was off at neon school in Wisconsin, my mom had been in New York at a party at her museum director friend, Cathleen Gallander's flat in Soho. That's where she met this famous neon sculptor. She called me to report that he would be in Dallas soon, working on a huge commission for Southwestern Bell's corporate headquarters in downtown Dallas.
Well it turns out that the name was totally familiar because he's the guy that my boss, Al Nodal, neon fanatic and director of the Washington Project for the Arts commissioned in 1981 to create what Antonakos entitled "Neon Fronts" - and that's exactly what it was, a geometric bouquet of monochromatic clear (red) neon tubes splattered all over the front of an old Ben Franklin 5 & dime storefront which served as the grand entrance to the WPA's bookstore/gallery and hallway to its brand new alternative space-theatre. What a fantastic impression this left on me as a 23 year old whippersnapper.
"Mom, I know who that is! - I explained. "He told me he would be staying at the Stonleigh hotel and you should look him up."
Thank you mama!
Well, This wouldn't be the only time in my life that chutzpah took the reigns...
I made arrangements to stay with a friend who lived in Dallas while I tracked down this man. This was my one shot to learn from a real world-class master.
Cut to me driving up to the hotel porte cochere.
I took a deep breath and whispered "It's showtime!" to myself as I rose out of the comfy leather lobby seat en route to intercept my fate... He was asking for directions in a gruff voice which from that moment on would always remind me of a kind of nasal sounding Popeye from Brooklyn.
Tanks to mom's definition, this man was immediately recognizable as the elevator door opened. I watched the stocky little grey bearded gentleman with wire frame glasses walk towards the concierge.
I took a deep breath and whispered "It's showtime!" to myself as I rose out of the comfy leather lobby seat en route to intercept my fate... He was asking for directions in a gruff voice which from that moment on would always remind me of a kind of nasal sounding Popeye from Brooklyn.
, 2005 Stephen Antonakos and me at the unveiling of my new work for Sidley Brown & Wood's Collection 7th Avenue - Manhattan
Excuse me sir I interrupted, please allow me to introduce myself (reaching out to shake his hand) My name is Ben Livingston, you met my mom, Polly Lou at Cathleen and Milton's place and she told me you were game to meet...
There was a long pause followed with a face filled with confusion. Then he came to, Yes. Yes.... I remember. And so why are you here?
Well I just finished neon school and an apprenticeship down in San Antonio.
Oh, you did? That's terrific. Are you making signs?
Yessir, for now, but I got into neon in order to make art with it.
I see.... Hmmm.. Are you available later? Maybe we can visit over lunch. Right now I have to catch a cab.
Mr. Antonakos, I drove up here from Austin to see you and am at your service for the next two weeks as your driver and assistant, sir.
Here came that confused look again, with an even longer pause.
Hmmmm.. Well I guess you can drive me to work.
Thank you sir, you won't regret it!
Yeah, okay (looking inconvenienced) let me cancel my cab and we'll go.
Okay, sir, I'm parked right out front, I'll wait over there by the door for you.
If there was ever the perfect time for somebody to exclaim "Oy vey!" under their breath, this would have been it for Stephen.
With no judgement he got into my banged up old aqua colored Volvo station wagon and instructed me to drive to the Southwestern Bell Telephone building, as I recall, it was on Commerce street, where JFK was shot!
Once there, I was captivated by the immensity of the architecture from the proportions of the spaces to Antonakos' lighted artwork that filled them. But what impressed me most was the grand scale that this legendary artist operated on.
This was my first encounter with the big league.
I met Stephen every morning at the Stonleigh to drive him to the Bell Building.And I would hang around in case he needed anything, until he was ready to go back to the hotel in the late afternoon.
My problem was making the most of this precious time. So I would write in my journal trying to formulate relevant questions and conversation. I found myself so overwhelmed and preoccupied with the "big league" atmosphere that I realized that I really didn't have anything.. It was like what would you ask God if you're suddenly with him for 5 minutes? You just freeze up. It's too big!
Stephen, bless his heart, must have sensed my frustration and began to ask me questions about my aspirations, which helped. I guess I was coming across as totally insecure about the actuality of my ever becoming a great like him. And that's when he just flat out told me: " Just do YOUR work".
It sounded simple enough but that was the single most well guided assignment anyone could have ever imposed on me.. EVER! And it's one that still resonates so deeply that I'll be working on it feverishly 'till my last breath.
Starting with Step #1. What IS your work?
After about 4 days of this I guess ol' Stephen had about enough of his personal attache. After I let him have his way for fear of wearing out my welcome he proposed that if I was ever in New York City to look him up and let him know how things were working out for me. I was charmed and with no further adieu, produced a beautiful coffee table book filled with his famous neons from all over the world. Stephen, it would mean the world if you would you autograph this for me.
Absolutely!
I watched him scribble in my book as I was all a flutter that my new famous artist friend was writing to me. He folded it closed and handed me the book and stuck out his hand. We shook and he gave a kind sort of salute and headed towards the brass doors of the hotel.
I was elated at the whole experience and couldn't wait to open the book to see what beautiful prose he'd inscribed just for me..
"To Jim, Thank you."
The rest of Stephen's and my story is history and now, thirty one years later, with huge gratitude to him and what he taught me I am back in Dallas doing MY work!
What comes around goes around.
No comments:
Post a Comment