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With Our Little Hands: Reports From The Pacific Northwest I have always admired the Sasquatch chainsaw tree sculptures for sale along Hwy 101 in Humboldt County. I've driven past them since I was a child. At some point the idea occurred to me to gather up several of them, with maybe a bear sculpture and an elf, and bring them down to Los Angeles to be installed in a median strip. I would call the piece "Gift From The North" --sort of an attempt at resolving some of the hostile feelings that exist between the opposing geographical ends of California. The opportunity to do that project never really presented itself. Then the Wrong Gallery in NYC asked me to do a show in their two doorway gallery in Chelsea. I suggested putting one of the chainsaw sculptures into one of the doorways. I reasoned that the gesture might help ease any West Coast/East Coast hostilities, that is, if any exist. The idea was received favorably, but when I went out to investigate I found that the Sasquatch sculptures were carved from old growth trees. That made me feel uncomfortable and sad. So my friend Kenneth Mroczek (who grew up in Olympia, WA) and I decided to just make a replica of a chainsaw tree sculpture Sasquatch, made from recycled paper and various other pieces of trash found in the dumpsters of NYC. We based the sculpture on photos that I have taken over the years of chainsaw Sasquatch sculptures, and a small scale figure of a Sasquatch that I found in the gift shop of a road side chainsaw sculpture establishment in Southern, Oregon. I have a great fondness for Sasquatch. Off and on throughout my life I have lived near forests and wildernesses and I have always imagined that the Sasquatch people are out there hiding in a tree or bush or behind a rock. They must have fascinating lives deep in the beautiful forested zones of the Pacific Northwest. I hear they have a very strong odor, and are extremely shy. I relate to them in at least the shyness area, and in my love of nature. Kenneth did most of the decoration and coloration of this sculpture. He has a very interesting interpretation of the look of chainsaw carved wood. In some ways Kenneth reminds me of a little Sasquatch. I mean that in the very best of ways. When I was young a friend of mine told me that if he grew up and had children he would name them Sasquatch and Eroctanya. I always thought those would be very nice names for children. But when my friend actually had a son he chickened out, and just named him Leo. For the other Wrong Gallery doorway I asked my friend Dana Dart-McLean to make a series of images about the Pacific Northwest. Every two weeks or so the image and topic in the doorway changed. Dana grew up in Salem, OR and currently lives in Portland. The Northwest is in her blood. She's the real thing. Dana sent her images to Kenneth Mroczek who lives in NYC for the moment, (but whose heart and history is in the Northwest). Kenneth changed the images and created whole new backgrounds for each one. Dana's various image topics are as follows: 1. Multnomah Falls, which is in the Columbia Gorge and is very impressive. I love to get a good dose of negative ions while visiting the waterfalls in the Gorge. It only takes about thirty minutes to drive there from my house in Portland. 2. Raymond Carver, who was born in Washington State and lived in various places around the Northwest before he died. He is of course greatly appreciated all over the world. But Kenneth had never heard of him. That might have something to do with the general state of the younger generations. But then again Dana has read all of Carver's stories, and she is a younger generation person too. Anyway, I really recommend Carver's short story Cathedral as a starting point if you haven't read him before. 3. Mt. St Helen's, an active volcano just over in Washington which is visible from Portland. Back in 1980 Mt. St. Helen's erupted and covered the whole region in ash. Recently there has been some volcanic activity again. We in the Northwest find this kind of geological disturbance very exciting. 4. The woman who drove her SUV off a bridge and into the freezing waters of the Willamette River. While submerged she realized that it wasn't her time to die, unbuckled her seat belt and shot out of her smashed front windshield to the surface above. She was rescued from the water with only minor cuts and bruises. 5. Native Americans of the region. What a place the Northwest must have been before Europeans arrived to mess things up. Just in general I'm not very happy with the humans at all these days. Did you read the recent articles in the New Yorker about global climate change? That is some serious messed up business. Bush of course is doing everything he can to make things worse. Reading those articles really made me question my life and activities as an artist person. I probably should have made this whole display about global warming and how fucked up the Bush administration is in regards to that issue. One interesting thing is that the mayor of Seattle got over 130 other mayors across the country to agree to follow the Kyoto Accord regulations in their own cities, even though the federal government won't sign the agreement. 6. Also the general sort of psychic energy and vibrations of the Pacific Northwest. I'm curious to see how Dana handles that topic.
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