My First Art Opening

© 2004 Dave Archer / All Rights Reserved

Ah yes, first art openings, joy to the art world.

Mine, age 24, 1965, proved a deeply personal collision with stark raving terror ––– a grinding crash worthy of two 18-wheel Safeway trucks pushing 80, head-on. Held in a San Francisco gallery on lower Haight Street called, "The Unicorn Pottery Studio," --- the show was fine enough I suppose, for bleating.

Bleat ––– bleat-bleat.

When owners, Wanda and Sylvia, invited me, at first I was thrilled beyond major mania, bragging to everyone I knew.

I even called mom collect.

About a week later however, after I ran out of people to tell, I decided my work was way too personal ever to show in a room full of strangers, period, to heck with that, forget it, never, not now, not later, ever, ever. That I would rather lose both arms and legs beneath a Cable Car. My daily battle cry: "Fine, I’m crazy, but I sure as hell ain’t THAT crazy!” Later then, after artist friends "made" me go through with it, at the opening ,  a beautiful spring day I might add –––  kookie birds urping-arias just outside ––– frozen in the center of a room full of art lovers, I could not help but notice my pictures were recieving just about as much attention as a mental patient flashing on a lock-ward.

NONE.

Nobody even glanced. Art lovers chatted.  Art lovers  did not chat with me, and, I did not chat with them.
I chattered, which is quite different from chatting, frozen as I was into a hunk of blue Norwegian ice.

A Norwegicle.

My jaw, so to speak, simply would not, or could not, schmoove. I did not know what to do, so, as usual, I left my body, then followed along behind the piteous creature sort of creep-crawling through the art lovers into the living space in back of the gallery, through the kitchen-combination-bedroom, back-porch, back-door, NO STOPPING NOW, down a flight of stairs, into a storeroom, actually quite an accommodating place for an invalid invertebrate. A sinkhole only a banana slug could love. And there I sat on a box, full fetal, hugging my knees, panting to rival birthing class, intending never to leave, ever, ever, ever, waiting for an asteroid the size of Texas to completely demolish Mother Earth.

After what seemed like four days (and nights), my musician friend Tom Hobson came down the stairs calling, "David ... David ..." and since it was good old Tom, I opened the basement door and let him in.

"Shut the door Tom, I hate this, I can't stand it and I'll tell you one thing: I'm never going do THIS again, and I am never going back up there".
 
"Why!," he said, "It's your show!"

"No no no no no-you're not getting it Tom ... I'm way too freakin’ paranoid, way TOO paranoid".

"Yea, well just in case you hadn't noticed, you're hiding in a crappy basement with no light, which I'd say is one hell of a lot more paranoid than actually being up there, where at least you can get drunk".

"Ummm ..." I had to admit Tom had a point.

My boho friend was also kind enough to continue sly-joking me upstairs and back inside that flaming hell where I would surely shortly melt into a puddle of shoes, belt and clothing. I remember seeing my artist friends Rick Barton and Harold La Vigne, sitting in one room with their sketchbooks open, painting and drawing. Only Mickie Hobson, Tom's wife spoke with me. Oh, how I longed to join Rick and Harold.  Wanda and Sylvia however were adamant about my "mixing and mingling" with "possible new collectors”. I love those women to this day and if I saw them, and they let me, I would give them a big wet sluggy kiss. That day however, I would not call what I did, "mixing and mingling," with, "possible new collectors". Loitering? That's a misdemeanor. Lurching like Egore? Dragging the main room for bodies? Mine. Pretending to study my insensible shoes? From geranium to philodendron, pretending to scope the plants for possible new painting subjects, acting "just fine", thank you. Other than Mickie and Tom, only one person actually spoke to me about my paintings that entire, endless afternoon. With all due respect, a rather bovine woman wearing big red plastic jewelry. Bless her beef heart.

One strap over her arm caused her unsnapped purse to hang open like a feed bag, where instead of oats, a flash of cash protruded in full view of everyone from a wallet sticking part way out. And, she simply had to know, although she certainly acted like she did not.  Other people saw it too, pointing and giggling a bit behind her back. And so incredibely thankful was the young painter, that even one "possible new collector," would actually speak to me at all, let alone while gesturing toward my ART waving twenties, I simply swooned worse than Mr. Bean, and he wasn't even around back then. Then the woman lifted her arm until the cash brushed my face like a funeral fan, and pointing toward a small drawing, mooing: " ... ve-ry-in-ter-es-ting ... "

El Dorado!

So, naturally, I started squealing "Oooooueeeeeeeeetttttttttt" just like mom's pressure cooker going off when I was a kid, which, once begun, I simply could not stop. Oh god, I told that poor woman every pestilent secret about the piece, as if confessing to a crime I hadn't committed: all about the pink Caddy trip through the Sonora desert, and keeping Jo Ann's pistol for her in my room that night, and Paco's generator cutting out, and no lights, not even a candle after twelve midnight, and painting it with a brush and ink in pitch black darkness, just to keep my instability from shooting a hole through my head.

Let's face it, nobody wants to know what's in a sausage, especially a weenie.

I sensed a blur of racing images behind Mooga's mask, as if I'd yanked one of her horns and wheels were spinning inside. Then her glasses lit up:

... cherries ... cherries ... bar ...

Yes, Ma-damn-a Mooga was a three-eyed cow, okay. It could happen.

Stepping back a bit then, the woman sucked up her considerable brisket and scowled at me hard from beneath three gnarled eyebrows. A devastating moment. Looking me up and down then, inspecting me as if she were General Guernsey looking over a calf-soldier at parade rest, I wanted to run for Ocean Beach. So unnerving in fact, I felt  both kidneys attempt a strong bilateral migration across my lower back, reaching as if to grab onto, then hold tight, my spine from slipping out of place. My organs were more limber back then. Then Mooga moved in for the slaughter. Leaning closer, peering down her wide nose directly at my perfect boy chin, peering, squinting, then closer, tilting her head, a full five seconds. Oh god. Everything went black and white, like a Robert Mitchum movie where the room begins spinning, this time, around my chin. If I don’t say so myself, and I do, my jaw, even after scattering at sea, will remain my finest feature. This woman I assumed must be horrified at some godforsaken pimple the size of a conga drum and I was not about to reach up and pop off a riff or two.

Then, in perfect condemned-man-cadence, actually said, "Do you ... know ...  the way ... to ... the restroom?" Obviously, this woman was a ruminent-witch and I had a lot more to learn about life in the The City. The next thing I remember is being swept over completely and utterly with: Nearly Insane Artisté Rejection Syndrome --- NIARS --- I mean, worse than any psychic tsunami I had yet experienced in my short brutal life. Face it, them psychic tsunami's can be downright murder on a wannabeatnik.Finally, in cool North Beach Californesé:

ANNOUNCER / Scott Beach:

" ... in San Francisco today, cyclone suck-force winds completely demolished the Unicorn Pottery Studio on lower Haight Street, swooooooooock! Now, only starfish and seaweed spot the wet floor, while one enraged moray eel continues biting into the lad's hamstring, the pain of which evidently drove him to fall head first into a rot-iron plant stand, thus killing the unfortunate artist instantly. Yes, another promising Bay Area boy painter, dead on impact ..."

I wanted to jump Mooga all the way to the toilet using a cattle prod, then drown her red lips in the watering trough. And Rick and Harold took me home on a bus and gave me several gulps of Seagrams Seven along the way, and I did not recover from that awful show until just now.

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