2005 Mar 5
\nBy Katy Butler<\/p>\n
Interview with artist David Best.<\/em><\/p>\n ONE WINTER DAY FIVE years ago, junk artist David Best was rummaging inside a dumpster behind the B.C. Bones model dinosaur factory in Petaluma when he found a trove of what manufacturers call \u201cdrop\u201d \u2013 the discards that remain after industrial processes. It was sheets of plywood, cut into skeletal frames and traceries, from which dinosaur bone shapes had been cut out by a computerized rotor. The repeating, filigreed patterns looked like slices of hollowed-out bones themselves, or crude wooden lace, or parts for a Moorish temple frieze, if spiders on LSD had designed Moorish temples.<\/p>\n \u201cAt first I didn\u2019t know what the hell to do with it,\u201d Best told me recently. \u201cBut what\u2019s neat about this stuff is that it\u2019s really user-friendly. If you have identical panels, you can flip them and they become mirror images. You can make a mandala. I can hand an unskilled person this stuff, and they start seeing it.\u201d<\/p>\n Best trucked the drop back to his compound on Sonoma Mountain and went back repeatedly for more. In the summer of 2000, he and a crew of volunteers prepared to take truckloads of it up to the Burning Man art encampment in the Black Rock desert near Gerlach, Nevada and build a temple. \u201cWe were going to build a pretty thing and burn it,\u201d Best recalled. Not long before their construction date, a crewmember named Michael Hefflin — a wild, good-looking 26-year-old Petaluma boy who rode a motorcycle, made his own swords, and loved to act in Shakespeare plays — was killed speeding on his motorcycle at 140 miles per hour under a full moon.<\/p>\n \u201cWe go up to Burning Man anyway, because we had planned to, and as we build, we\u2019re thinking about Michael and doing our best,\u201d Best said quietly recently, over tea at his kitchen table. \u201cWe put a picture of him inside it. When people asked what we were doing, we said we were building a temple as a tribute to a friend of ours. Automatically people started saying, \u2018Well, my brother killed on a motorcycle.\u2019 And from there it just snowballed.\u201d<\/p>\n Best invited visitors to write messages to people they\u2019d lost on blocks of wood and place them inside the temple. In the course of Burning Man, more than 2,000 people left photographs, mementoes, Bibles, ashes, notes to miscarried children, and simply tears. On the night the temple was torched, Burning Man itself was transformed from a wild art party into a ritual mourning space reminiscent of Pearl Harbor, the AIDS quilt, or the Vietnam Veteran\u2019s Memorial: public, ragged, human and sacred.<\/p>\n Since then, Best — whose encrusted \u201cart cars\u201d and porcelain sculptures were already in museums — has become internationally known for his sacred structures at Burning Man, with their visual echoes of Thai temples, beached Viking ships, and the Taj Mahal, all built out of layer on layer of fanned, latticed, plywood drop. One, called \u201cThe Temple of Tears,\u201d commemorated suicide. Built out of discarded materials, it honored the most disowned of human acts.<\/p>\n Last month, Best was forced to dismantle his latest sacred public art \u2013 a smaller \u201cChapel of the Day Laborer\u201d half-built outside the Bellam Produce Market in the Canal District of San Rafael. Central American immigrant women had prayed before the statue of Mary inside it; hundreds of day-laborers signed petitions to save it; and others quietly watched Best and his crew tear it down February 3. (The project had the support of the market\u2019s business owner, but not her landlady, who got it red-tagged.) Best is now designing a similar chapel for Detroit, to include a Jesus and to be built out of old car parts and placed on purchased land.<\/p>\n I asked Best last week whether his first temple would have been the same if his friend had not died. \u201cIt would have been nothing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n We talked over tea in the kitchen of the peaceful, high-ceilinged house on Sonoma Mountain Road that his wife, teashop proprietor Maggie Roth, designed. Outside the window, horses fed. The 120-acre property also held three Airstream Trailers, several barns, studios and outbuildings, and three \u201cart cars\u201d \u2013 one of them a Cadillac encrusted with mosaics of broken mirror, scaled red buttons, a chrome teapot, and rows of seashells, dice, glass hearts, plastic skulls and Chinese teacups.<\/p>\n Best is 60 years old, small, intense and vigorous. A graduate of the Art Institute, he looks more like a carpenter than a fine artist. He was wearing jeans and a black t-shirt reading The Temple: Burning Man 2002, and he frequently leapt up from his chair at the kitchen table to illustrate a point. Q. Would people have called that first temple sacred?<\/strong><\/p>\n A. They would have called it cool. But it took his death to make it work.<\/p>\n Q. It seems odd. You were best known for \u201cart cars\u201d commissioned by museums and decorated with the help of volunteers. Now you build sacred spaces out of scrap wood. How did you get from A to B?<\/strong><\/p>\n A. I don\u2019t think I even know. I never set out to become a person who goes out and builds temples. But where the car projects had been mindless, they started to change for me through time. I don\u2019t mean to sound self-righteous, and you\u2019re going to get this on tape, but I had to follow my work. I\u2019ve sometimes gone in directions where I\u2019ve compromised my work and tried to make it to sell…<\/p>\n Q. –any examples?<\/strong><\/p>\n A. That\u2019s dangerous, because it might be something someone bought —let\u2019s just say work I\u2019ve cranked out that doesn\u2019t have spark in it. But when I follow my work, it has given me — as if it\u2019s a real person or it\u2019s alive \u2013 it\u2019s given me opportunities. My God. Can you imagine anything cooler than having your art make it possible for someone to walk up to you and say, my son committed suicide and you set him free? That happened at Burning Man. Wow. Wow. My art gave me that. It\u2019s a privilege when someone confesses their sins.<\/p>\n Q. What about the temples makes that possible?<\/strong><\/p>\n A. One year [at Burning Man] a guy came up to me crying, and he said, \u2018Why can I cry here when I don\u2019t cry in my own church?\u2019 Well, he\u2019s in the desert. His cell phone won\u2019t work. He\u2019s lost his keys. The ice chest is leaking all over the inside of his car. His girlfriend left him for someone in another camp. His mushrooms are bad. He\u2019s worn out.<\/p>\n You have to make it so that people get worn out. Maybe that\u2019s why churches have steps, or mazes. There\u2019s got to be a journey. There need to be barriers, even for people in wheelchairs \u2013 a spiritual barrier.<\/p>\n Q. Anything else?<\/strong><\/p>\n A. The temple is imperfect. It\u2019s made out of junk, by craftsmen of various skill levels. So the building is imperfect but the people who go in it are perfect. Chase Manhattan banks are perfect. The architecture is flawless. The new ten million dollar welfare office in Sacramento is stunning architecture — for a woman who has nothing to walk in to? I mean, what the f— is going on ? It\u2019s architecture at the expense of people. A. I\u2019m so \u2013 what\u2019s the opposite of sacred?<\/p>\n Q. Profane? Secular?<\/strong><\/p>\n A. Profane. I am prejudiced against religion. I am not sacred inside me. I\u2019m crazy like everybody else. I don\u2019t hide it, but I have darkness.<\/p>\n Q. What\u2019s your darkness?<\/strong><\/p>\n A. [Laughs, shakes head.] Oh no. Uuh-uh. A. My first wife ended up becoming a born again Christian, and I had to too in order to stay married. Stay away from that stuff. It\u2019s just creepy. I\u2019m not prejudiced against blacks or even Republicans but I have a prejudice against religion. So I build a temple in the desert. It\u2019s non-denominational. Anyone can come in. And I know that the temple can\u2019t be sacred.<\/p>\n Q. Huh?<\/strong><\/p>\n A. One year there was a wimpy, hippy guy climbing on the temple. And another guy, maybe from South Central, wherever, a big tough guy with gangster tattoos on his back. He\u2019s saying, Hey, man get off of there! This is sacred! The wimpy guy was just stoned but he was also a little bit of a jerk, and the other guy had already ripped a button off his hippy vest. I said, Look, it\u2019s not sacred. If it was sacred we wouldn\u2019t let Jews in \u2013 I should have said Baptists \u2013only pure people could come in. And the hippy guy started saying, \u201cI\u2019m sick of your anti-Semitic\u2014\u201c and then Boom! The guy from South Central punched him. [laughs]<\/p>\n The whole point of my tirade is that I don\u2019t particularly like Republicans. But I can\u2019t make a temple that excludes Republicans. Because if that Republican\u2019s son has just gotten killed in a car crash, I don\u2019t want him to stop and say this isn\u2019t for me. A. I thought, what do I dedicate it to? I\u2019m more of a carpenter for the church than the creator of doctrine. So I think, what\u2019s the hardest thing to deal with? And suicide came up automatically. Not being able to be buried in a graveyard. In the community at Burning Man, we hold sacred the things the outside world wants to put shame on.<\/p>\n We called it The Temple of Tears. I said to people who came into it, your left hand represents the suicide and your right hand represents a child who died of leukemia, that was here for a short period of time but experienced love. You ask this person [holds out right hand] to help this person out [places over left wrist.] Even if you don\u2019t believe in the spiritual level, just your presence next to someone whose son committed suicide is enough support.<\/p>\n Q. Why do you think strangers are willing to trust these temples, and you, with their secrets? Q. Did you study Thai temples for inspiration?<\/strong><\/p>\n A. I studied the drop.<\/p>\n Q. Turning to the chapel for the day laborer \u2013 did you put it at the market because a statue of Mary couldn\u2019t go in a public park?<\/strong><\/p>\n A. The chapel didn\u2019t need a good frame. It needed a crappy frame. I wanted a place where the day laborers went. I had a complete vision. I saw the woman getting off the bus, going into the market, getting her groceries and going outside to pray. A. Oh yes, totally. And there was another part of the community I wasn\u2019t even aware of. A nicely dressed woman, about our age — not fancy, but you could tell she had good taste — started talking to me. She tells me she\u2019s living in her mobile home now. It\u2019s down the street — a four hundred dollar RV. One of those old junkers. She\u2019d lost everything and the man she was living with took all her money. She was homeless. A vulnerable woman. And she went in it and prayed. Not to Mary but to the Goddess.<\/p>\n Q. Excuse me for not understanding, but how did you get here?<\/strong><\/p>\n A. Twenty, thirty years ago, I had a studio in San Rafael. I was working on a show, and a friend of mine had an aneurysm and died. It was the first time I had death come anywhere near me. The delicatessen next door , where I got coffee, was run by a couple named Jim and Josie. Jim was from Butchertown in San Francisco and Josie was Italian from North Beach. One night I dreamed that Josie was like — Snow White, a princess. I knew what the dream was about: I\u2019d taken them for granted. So when I went back in the next day we got to talking and I find out that both Jim and Josie have cancer. At that time people didn\u2019t look at people who had cancer. It was like having a big mole on your face. I started going to the hospital with them, seeing Jim dealing with prostate cancer, seeing Josie when she was doing chemo. I became a journalist. A. No , but it went into me. I thought, If I\u2019m an artist and my art is real, I should be able to find a cure for cancer. People make rattles with beads in it, shamanistic things, medicine bags \u2013 and I thought, god damn, my art\u2019s going to do that! Talk about an ego.<\/p>\n Q. And it didn\u2019t.<\/strong><\/p>\n A. And it didn\u2019t. A. Then the Exploratorium asked me to do a car, and asked me who I wanted to work with. I said people in recovery, or developmentally disabled people. I don\u2019t work with artists. I\u2019d rather work with the beat-up people. Not the people who are running good. If we don\u2019t include them, then what are we doing?<\/p>\n They brought me a group of developmentally challenged people with AIDS. [pauses.] They brought in condoms, they bought buttons, they brought spoons from someone that died, they brought plates to put on the car. When we finished the car, I said, this is what you\u2019re going to ride to heaven in. And they started jumping up and down and going [gets up and illustrates, hitting fisted hands against knees] Oh! Boy! Oh! Boy! We\u2019re going to go to heaven In!This!Car!. That was it. The light went on: we are making physical vehicles for a spiritual journey.<\/p>\n Q. So you are working not only with discarded objects, but discarded people. And although you found your art couldn\u2019t heal physically, you started to explore other forms of healing. I imagine all those people are dead now.<\/strong><\/p>\n A. Oh yes, they\u2019re all gone.<\/p>\n Q. The art you do by yourself \u2013 your collages, your porcelains — are meticulous. But the art cars are somewhat chaotic.<\/strong><\/p>\n A. When I\u2019m working with the public, it\u2019s not about craftsmanship. When people are going to die in a year they don\u2019t have to become f—-ing good artists. There\u2019s just not enough time. A. At the Exploratorium, there I am with this car, it\u2019s a BMW, and this woman has put glue on her hands and reached into things, and she\u2019s got glue and beads all over her but nothing on the car. It\u2019s pretty messy. I walked up and went [stands, demonstrates, sucking breath in]\u201cDon\u2019t you \u2013uuuh -know anything \u2013uuh- about craftsmanship! — I\u2019m just sucking the words back into me. [laughs.]<\/p>\n Her father said it to her, her husband said it to her, and she was waiting for me to say it:You\u2019re stupid. I got a caulking gun and went splat and put a big wad of silicon in her hand. I gave her shards of broken plastic. And clear plastic rods. I said, You are only going to work with pain and tears. This is your pain. [Gesturing with one cupped hand] This is your tears. [Gesturing with other hand] No more colors. No more shapes. Just all this broken clear plastic. And she spent an hour working only with pain and tears. And that was a long time for that person. A. Like a porcupine. Like acupuncture. Or pain. The car ended up in Texas at the art car museum in Houston. I once did a car for a museum in Reno with people from rehab. Two of them are heroin prostitutes. Tough. One is native American and one is Filipino. And one says, \u201cHey Man, I want to put this on the car. \u201c It\u2019s a sign saying \u201cJesus loves you,\u201d and I\u2019m like \u2018AAAACK! No!\u2019 You can\u2019t put this on the car! We\u2019re going to make the Kingdom of God! [laughs] Remember, I\u2019m not mellow.<\/p>\n I gave them coins and said, here, cover this section with these. The Filipino girl does scales. The Native American girl does a Native American pattern. Way — back back back back back! — in both of them was that information. They had done everything possible to wipe out who they were, and it was still in them. One was still an islander. One was still a tribal person. Those are the things that led me to the temple. [pause] Are your parents still alive? A. Is he proud of you? A. You think so? Why not you know so? A. That you\u2019re not a car thief? There are two ways of looking at it. Which is more beneficial to you? That you think so? Or you know so. He\u2019s going to be gone. You\u2019ve got the choice. Okay? A. I\u2019m sorry to embarrass you. A. A filmmaker who was making a movie about me told me that his father had committed suicide. He\u2019d gotten the pictures from the police which had bothered him \u2013 the decomposed body hanging from a tree. Then he\u2019d dreamed he was in an elevator. He felt the doors open and his father was there, saying, it\u2019s okay. The filmmaker said to me, I want to believe that this is true, but probably it was just a dream. I told the filmmaker, which do you want? Do you want to believe that your father came back to say goodbye to you and say he\u2019s at peace, or do you want to believe that was just a dream? Your choice.<\/p>\n The same thing\u2019s true in the desert. When the temple burns, these tornadoes, these wind currents go through it and fly out into the crowd, into thousands of people and they\u2019re dancing around. That\u2019s one interpretation. Wind currents. Native Americans believe that those are ancestors coming back to visit you. Both of them are true. Which one do you want? I choose to believe that they\u2019re ancestors.<\/p>\n \u00a92005 Katy Butler. All Rights Reserved. Not to be reprinted without permission.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.katybutler.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.katybutler.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.katybutler.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.katybutler.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.katybutler.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.katybutler.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.katybutler.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.katybutler.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.katybutler.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nQ. What are your own sacred roots?<\/strong><\/p>\n
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\nQ. It\u2019s my job to ask. So why are you prejudiced against religion?<\/strong><\/p>\n
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\nQ. Some people would say you\u2019ve just given a beautiful definition of the sacred. What did you do the second year?<\/strong><\/p>\n
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\nA. [Picks up pieces of scrap wood] When somebody puts this on the temple, they\u2019re not four pieces of scrap wood. They\u2019re four pieces of wood that have been cared about by Heidi or Will or Becky or Maureen or Jody or Tim. The temple crew has handled thousands of these sheets. They\u2019ve had to count it and pack it and carry it and sort it and figure out what the hell I wanted to do with it. There\u2019s a whole lot of layers. They\u2019re putting it on because they know I\u2019ve collected it for a year. They\u2019re putting it on because they know someone\u2019s son committed suicide and that person\u2019s going to come up. So they put these on nicely. That is how the temples got built.<\/p>\n
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\nQ. Were you surprised that people really did pray in it?<\/strong><\/p>\n
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\nQ. Took notes, photographs?<\/strong><\/p>\n
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\nQ. And then?<\/strong><\/p>\n
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\nQ. Is there a tension in this?<\/strong><\/p>\n
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\nQ. What did that part of the car look like?<\/strong><\/p>\n
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\nQ. Yes, but my father had a stroke.<\/strong><\/p>\n
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\nQ. I think so.<\/strong><\/p>\n
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\nQ. Well, I think they\u2019re relieved —<\/strong><\/p>\n
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\nQ. I already know. [tearing up] He loves me.<\/strong><\/p>\n
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\nQ. I\u2019m not embarrassed.<\/strong><\/p>\n