Slow Art

In 1998 I was living in Las Vegas and my good friend and fantastic artist Peter A. Durand was experimenting with some new mold materials and he gave me one of his samples.

It’s an alien head, you cant see the very cool fan-ribbed ears, (think of more discrete versions of the creature from the black lagoon).

When I got to Maui, I carried it around for years from house to house until I arrived at the house that had a hill behind the back door. Well the hill is virtually a dirt wall, the land was obviously carved out with large machinery in order to make a level place for the old garage now converted into a studio apartment.

That dirt wall and that alien bust were made for each other. It was clear and obvious. So I dug very gently into the side of the hill and wedged the head into it, making sure it recessed. About two years later I took this picture.

I moved out of the studio shortly thereafter but I left the bust, it is still there, watching.

Many times, I had visitors and sitting on the small patio, on occasion, some one would notice after a while, usually with a gasp.

The hills do indeed have eyes.

Although I buried his sculpture in a hill, Peter has work that fits much better on a wall, his linoleum cuts are pure genius, simple beautiful masterpieces of positive and negative space. Go ahead, check them out at Durand Art Works.