see A Small List of Great Artists : ROBERT ARNESON (American, 1930-1992)
All through my college experience at UC Davis, Robert Arneson had a larger-than-life presence, even though he had passed away within a couple years of my arriving in town. He had been a UC Davis faculty member for four decades! His work continues to pop up on banners along the streets or on campus, in a mural in the downtown parking garage, in local art shows, and of course dotted all over campus as egghead sculptures.
So I feel like I regularly saw his work. It was certainly everywhere in the ether in the art building on campus too. That bearded balding white-haired man that was always portrayed making those “funny” faces. Bulging eyes. Sticking tongue out. Picking nose. Vomiting. It was just around, wherever I happened to be in town. But it never really spoke to me while I was studying art in college. Partially because I never found much personal attraction to sculpture. But partly, I think I found the humor of “self-effacing artist” just not to be that funny to me. I wasn’t really thinking about what it meant for an artist to be creating self-defacing work about being an “Artist.” I certainly never laughed out loud, or even smiled, I don’t think. It felt to me like it was trying to be offensive or edgy, but it wasn’t really that offensive or edgy. I was held back by quality of the artwork itself (kind of cartoony, kind of kitschy), and not really thinking about how that adds to the feel of the piece, not really reaching past to enjoy the message behind it.
I do remember, in college, seeing one of his sculptures, on campus, on display, that was of his home. It reminded me a little of how a kid might sculpt a model of their own home – simple, a little silly. That one I liked! I was kind of enchanted that he would choose his home as subject matter.
When I graduated from college, I realized UC Davis had never offered any info to me on how to make a living with a studio art degree, and I suddenly realized I needed to get a job, and what was I going to do? I wasn’t going to be a doctor or lawyer or engineer. So I found work at minimum wage, doing retail and picture framing (My degree, actually, helped me negotiate up from the then-minimum wage of $4.75 to $5.00! On my application, I just rounded up, and didn’t find out until much later that the managers deliberated and had to fight for getting me that $5, because it was unheard of for this retail outlet to waste money like that on some dumb employee!) Experience there worked its way up to me managing a framing shop back in Davis, where the owner regularly did work for the John Natsoulas Gallery. As a result, I wound up framing a few of Arneson’s prints, including a self-portrait he’d made in front of his Davis home, 1303 Alice Street, at the corner of L Street. I had to stop and take the piece in. Another framer there and I were looking it over, together. Yep, he lived here in town, and that’s his house, and he lived there for years. It’s the subject of a bunch of his artwork. That’s his address. You can drive by it and see it; it’s still there.
Something about this just captivated me, that he would draw himself in front of his own home. And then the image was covered with little details everywhere, little personal details about his life. About who he is (or how he wants to be presented, or thinks he’s perceived). It was an autobiography as much by the image as by the almost graphitti-style inclusions of weird textual and symbollic details. And once again, I was delighted by how personal I realized this autobiography was. It was an art piece that I thought to myself, Natsoulas Gallery is selling this, and this is a piece I could see myself wanting to save money and buy, and enjoy looking at on my wall.
I never bought this piece or any other art “like this”. But that’s really something, right?, to be moved enough by a piece to consider it, for the first time, when you’re a struggling artist making a little over minimum wage. To feel inside you that this is something special that moves you, that you want to support, to be more a part of, and make more a part of your life in this way.
When it came time to begin my Brush with Peril graphic novel, I really wanted to represent Arneson, EVEN THOUGH I still wasn’t quite yet a fan. And it was when I began surrounding myself with his imagery, and trying to draw it, I began to really have fun with it, and with him, and really appreciating him, as an artist, and what he’s SAYING. (What I THINK he’s saying.) What I think he’s saying is, Art is high-falutin’ and absurd and pompous, and I’m an artist, so I’m going to be an absurd and pompous high-falutin’ artist making fun of high-falutin’ absurd pomposity. I’m gonna relish in the absurd pompous high-falutin’ pomposity of it all. I think? This dichotomy of ridiculing the pomposity of “Art” and “Artist” while simultaneousy elevating himself to, and reveling in the pomposity of, being an “Artist.” As Mazzy Star sang, he made himself the “superstar of [his] own private movie.” I’m sorry I was too young, and time was too short, and I didn’t yet speak or understand the language, and I was too unaware to have worked harder to go out of my way to meet him. But that’s just life sometimes, that you don’t realize your potential opportunities you could have had until you’ve missed them. How lucky for us all that people like him created so much work that lives on for us to enjoy, long after they’re gone.
Read the comic book, “Brush with Peril”:
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