Tony’s Office, 482 Wurster. The connection here would be Daniel Spoerri, An Anecdoted Topography of Chance, one of my favorite Fluxus projects. ““Following a rambling conversation with his dear friend Robert Filliou, Daniel Spoerri one day mapped the objects lying at random on the table of his room, adding a rigorously scientific description of each. These objects subsequently evoked associations, memories, anecdotes; not only from the original author, but from his friends as well: a beguiling creation was born.” (Something Else Press, 1966)
Each of the objects on this table would also have a story, a set of personal connections, with the photograph as an aide-mémoir. (Although I could also imagine writing this from memory alone.) Many of them from particular students (the dried lei--that was Don, an architecture grad.From Hawaii--one of the students who helped me move my studio in 1995. He did the 280 seminar, I think, made beautiful things. And the gray pigeon--that wonderful Chinese-American girl, the one who who preferred the Japanese nickname (or was it the other way around?)--she sewed a set of these for a Songs & Places project, gave one to me at the end of the evening. Maybe 2008? It found a place on top of the wrapped box (package never unwrapped!), also from a student from Asia. The cap is Indian--Aditya Dhawan brought it for me, from Punjab, where he’d gone to make photographs of a Berkeley Sikh cab driver--and next, a small piece of palo santo, charred at one end--Vreni came into my office with it, lighted, one afternoon in 2013--a kind of limpia ceremony--maybe she felt that I needed it-- there’s a note there on the wall, from Vreni as well, on the same day, “You also have to let her rest.”
The crushed paper (from Victor, one of the Berkeley Luz de Oro Mariachi players, who grew up in Salinas, his family all mariachi, originally from a pueblo in Michoacan, Purépecha)--he’d used it to wrap the shot glass, from his time in Barcelona--these worlds, mixed so inadvertently (or was it really inadvertent?), and as I touch on them, I realize how much more I could say about each one. (And perhaps shall?) But to touch on them is also very much like walking into the office, seeing them there again, with new chance thoughts and associations adding new levels of connection.
The small bottle of Nardini grappa--that was from Stefano Schiavone--brought all the way from Italia. We always planned to drink it together, but when I once reminded him of this, a little embarrassed, he gave a Stefano smile, and with his latent Venetian syntax, “Sometimes the best things remain yet to be enjoyed…” Likewise the small clay cup, with handle and leather cord--from Lucy, in Mexico for a wedding party, mezcalito… Also brought back to share. And the rum, brazileira--Jen Siqueira.
Also the postcard, in the pile of papers, partially covered--the figure of a Basque dancer, with beret, one foot cocked--from Berta--she left it for me in 2011...
The two writing implements (narrow bamboo) on wall--from Deborah Barrett--Egyptian scribe’s pens, their tips still black with Egyptian ink. And the guitar--the one Mauricio took to Mad Dog (at Subway) who re-glued the neck… The paintings are mine, of course, from different times and different places (mostly when the studio was set up down the hall in Room 491--that’s where I offered my VS180A-B--in which we all painted together). And finally, the drawing--one of the Analects, printed at Copy Central, of course, then laminated in the way I liked--a figure wearing tefillin, holding a forked branch--a kind of divining rod.
The wall itself is Wurster re-sawn plywood--the old plywood from the original building, before seismic re-do in 2000 (the sections with new plywood have a very different feel). The dark table surface--oiled masonite--I must have put that in when I first realized that this office would be my ongoing Wurster home. Maybe 1978? (I noticed a can of Watco Danish oil on the shelf in the corner, from that time as well, no doubt…) Edged with pine molding. And just outside the window, the eucalyptus trees, their filtered light…
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