I failed Art!

Back in 1968, I was sitting in my father's radio shack. This is a room referred to by Amateur Radio Operators as your home base. In most cases, a small room, constructed with a little sound proofing to keep the late night noise down. I knew enough to turn on the Heath Kit radio receiver than was in front of me and to turn the tuning dial, to bring in signals.

During the day, there was only local traffic but at night, the ionosphere would allow for radio signal bounce. Depending on the night and weather, USSR or England would have a chance of being heard better. When I showed interest in the gear and how to use it, my father spent a little time, pulling out an old receiver and some parts to repair it.

As we worked, me watching mostly, I noticed the brightly colored parts that we were using. Capacitors, Resistors, Crystals, tubes, and all kinds of brightly colored parts. Red, blue, copper, black, green, lime, yellow. I did not see the parts necessarily, I saw objects, like the brooches, pendants, ear-rings that my grandmother was wearing.

Later that summer, I began to strip wire and solder together images that I saw on TV. Ants, beetles, a little Robot and a wire framed boat. It was really fun to use these parts for toys and jewelry, rather than radio systems. No!, I did not show my dad what I was making, cause he was taking these parts out of radios for other projects. This would not have been good!

Later that second year of school, I remember being graded on a soapstone sculpture. Now how is a 7 year old suppose to be able to do anything with soapstone and a file. Yep, I failed, my first failure was in art. I am so glad that I did fail, because without that, I would have begun to adopt another persons idea of what art was, rather than having the freedom to build or look at anything as a medium for expression. Through all the years, I have always looked for off the wall, interesting ideas.

Cheers, David