Ann Scherbarth - Chicken in Plumbago, 2004
aquerelles on paper - 12 x 24 inches
Bert: It was good.
Jim: Are you staying in art?
Ann: YEAH! I'm staying in art. Yeah, but, it feels weird
to say I haven't painted anything, but I haven't.
Jim: You know, I know an artist who quit — Tre Roberts, * do
you know her?
Bert: Yeah, that sounds familiar.
Jim: She was active in the 80s-90s. I have a couple of her
pieces in my office, and then she — quit. How do you quit?
Bert: Duchamp quit. He saw the folly and he quit, spent the
rest of his days playing chess.
Jim: Interesting thing for a guy whose whole body of work
was about folly.
Bert: Yeah
Jim: Like he was bought into it at some level.
Bert: Well,
everybody quits somehow, I mean, I've quit that whole
gallery scene deal and I don't wanna say it with disdain, but, what's
important to me now is what's going on in my brain, my heart, you know,
I've got to feel good. I don't know what else to say about that?
Jim: How many gallery openings could a person stand in one
lifetime? The same group of people standing around in clumps not talking
to each other and acting bored? Acting like the last thing they came for
was the art
Ann: It's tough.
Bert: It was my social scene for 15-20 years — '79
to — I haven't really gone to a lot of shows lately. a friend of
ours, Chuck, from New York was here recently, and we went around through
a bunch
of galleries and it was like Wow! 'course he's got whole super-art point
of view.
Jim: Being from New York and everything.
Bert: He's an artist's artist, and works as guard at the
Metropolitan. I don't know, you gotta be happy with what you're doing.
Jim: What were some of the memorable gallery scenes that
you remember?
Bert: (Laughs) The coolest one that I remember was while
I was still in school, was the Dallas Women's Co-op — DW Co-op.
I had my MA show, that was when I met Frank Tolbert and some
of those guys, and I liked the way he drew, you know, I really liked it,
but then, it was like, I liked it too much you know, and you can't do that,
cause he had like his whole Texas thing going, and you can't get into that
... so we became really good friends and he and Ann Stautberg got me into
a show....
So I had a show there, that was fun, that was cool, and all
the older women artists were in that gallery, all the big ones, and that
was fun....
Jim: Was there
a party aspect to all this stuff?
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Ann: And he asked that with such a straight face, too....
Bert: You know things are different now than the eighties
and even the nineties.
Jim: Any other galleries?
Bert: Well there was the Delahunty ... and what was that
other one? Ah, hell, I don't know, there was a ton of them, they come and
go. But like someone told me, there
are like 35 collectors in town, and unless you're getting collected by
them, then you're not going to make it but, I don't
know, I don't know if I buy into that; I never got into the write-up thing.
You know, somewhere along the line, they should teach in
art school how to get along with people (Ann laughs) better, skills you
know, not people you wanna bring home with you, but you know, like clients
and stuff.
I always admired Dan Rizzi. I didn't know I admired him,
I didn't even know what he was doing. But later in life, I realized he
was schmoozing — but at the time, it was like, "He really likes
those people?" and I think he really did — I
never had those skills.
Jim: Sounds like you never wanted those skills.
Bert: Yeah, yeah.
Jim: I always felt uneasy with schmoozing — aggressive
schmoozing, I don't know. In my field, like all of them I guess, there
are those whose real skill is schmoozing, and they take their little ability
in what their field is and schmooze it into one hell of a deal, you know?
So, what other galleries were there? Didn't you do furniture for a while?
Bert: Yeah, it was the early 80s, you could make a good amount
of money doing furniture. I worked my way up from framing to finish grade,
working with a sharper and sharper pencil. Yeah, and then Conduit Gallery
opened. I got in with the furniture, the painted furniture and stuff, that
was an interesting time.
Jim: Would you say there were stages in your Dallas art career?
Bert: Oh, yeah, definitely. When
I first came here, I was convinced I was in a backwater, coming from
Kansas City, it was like back in the 40s, these big artists
all around, and you'd go to an opening up there and then like the next
day, there'd be a review of the opening in the paper ... so I came
to town, and I thought I was really hot shit, and that confidence helped
me get through the early days of going to school, and I think I still
have that bull headedness, but you get older you know, and you've got
this knowledge....
Jim: Could you describe the stages?
Bert: Well, first there's denial. thank goodness (laughing)
I don't know, I think I'm going to let that sit.
Jim: Ann?
Ann: His? Oh, mine? Well mine's not even that long. Well,
like, I had my blue period. We all laugh at this reference
to a gallery show that Ann did at CGB several years ago, in which she
presented a series of canvases whose predominant shade was an aquatic
blue.
Ann Scherbarth, untitled, 2004
aquerelles on paper - 36 x 24 inches
Having
spent a good while coaching the St. Croix Swim Club in the Caribbean,
where they actually worked out in the sea, I think I have a pretty good
idea of where that particular shade of blue was coming from. She also remembered
that she 'had a lot of tubes of blue.'
Ann: but, ever since we moved into this building, I feel
so guilty about working on something that is my project, instead of doing
some sheet rocking or whatever needs to be done
Bert: I've just
been incredibly lucky in this town ... just fell into
things, jobs, stuff like that ... I fell into a great place just up
here, the Continental Gin Building....
Jim: what do you do there?
Bert: Well that is where my workspace is. Used to live and
work there ... that is probably the coolest thing that ever happened to
me ... since I've been here....
Bert
goes on to tell how, in the late 70s, early 80s, he located the
Continental Gin Building. He had rented a 'shotgun' style space in the
Cedars from Bennet Miller, the early instigator of re-development in that
part of town.
Bert's lease was due to end, and in his searching he'd located
the Continental Gin Building, a vast, boarded up and unused space in Deep
Ellum. He located the owner, negotiated a lease on 6000 square feet, and
moved his studio in.
Shortly thereafter, Frances Bagley and Tom Orr followed, becoming,
effectively, the Sears and Joske's of the nascent 'art mall.’ Sherry
Owens also became a part of what Bert describes as an 'incredible scene'
that lasted through most of the 80s and 90s.
He recalls that the owner's told them to not ask for anything,
but the cheap rents made it
a viable proposition.
He says they huddled together each month to settle up the utilities
based on the square footage of their leases. It was an art commune and eventually
became Bert's home as well after he broke up with a woman and he made the
CGB not only his work space but also his living space.
He has just recently foregone his last lease at the CGB, now
concentrating all of his efforts into the working/living space he and Ann
now occupy.
My next question
is kind of lame, but I am interested in documenting how
Bert and Ann met. It turns out that in the late 90s, Ann had returned
from the Caribbean, and was looking for studio space, at about the time
that Bert was looking to sublet part of his 6,000 square feet after his
purchase of the old Half Price Books warehouse they now occupy.
Ann signed the lease and two years later was helping Bert with
a series of metal sculptures for Sambuca, fanciful creatures cold forged
with hammers and zinc plated, on which Ann did most of the cold forging.
Bert: Ann is very competent ... she remembers stuff....
Bert and Ann Scherbarth - Boxer, 2000
life-sized, nickel-plated plasma-cut steel
Sambucca piece: "This piece showed to rave ignorance
at a MAC show
a couple of years ago, when my name was still associated
with living artists,
it hung from the ceiling," says Bert.
Jim: It's important to have someone like that around.
Bert: Yeah, this whole thing happening now is, this whole
consciousness of making 'art,’ it's like doing this glass (Bert's
current adventures with fused glass) personally,
for us, this whole place is a work of art.
We sit down in here, and this right now, is like our opening,
right now, sitting there with our wine, we go back there and this whole room
is torn up, and we're gonna get a washer/dryer soon, amazing, well, Where
ya gonna put it? Where does it go? Everything affects everything else, so
it's all about, you know, art is not about making these things, it's about
the whole thing, you know?
Jim: It's not making the things, it's making your life.
Ann/Bert: Yeah, exactly — you climb up on the tower
there and you look around, and you go Whoa! look what we've done! It's
the most sustainable thing than anything I've done — personally what
I've done 5, 10, 15 years ago, was sustainable for me then, but not now.
Jim: So, what you're saying is there's been a transition
in your life and your art making from making this very special object that
goes into a space and has a halo around it that says 'ART' and
now you're making this transition where the making of your
life is about that creative impulse.
Bert: Which doesn't preclude spitting out those objects from
time to time.
Ann: The glass, the glass you are making, is amazing — amazing
stuff.
Bert Scherbarth - Love Bugs, November 2004
fused glass -
approximately 42 x 56 inches
Jim: Yeah, I was searching the Web the other day, and I found
your site, www.AlbertScherbarth.com,
and it was about glass, and it had the Brackett/Stewart piece that you
did (a backlit, fused glass ceiling panel for a North Dallas home installation).
Bert/Ann: Yeah! Uh huh.
Bert: Computers didn't work out for me ... all the sitting
still....
Ann: I think what I notice is satisfying for you is the commissions,
it's like you'll be an architect in your next life. Figuring things out.
Bert: Yeah, I
like to look at things and figure things out, solving the problem ...
the hardest thing for me to do in the last ten years was to give up,
to let go, to get over all my hopes and aspirations about where I thought
my art career was heading ... cause I had gotten somewhere, I was selling
a lot of paintings....
Like right before I met Ann, I was a Painter, you know? That
was sustainable. But, it was boring. The challenge of glass has been worthy,
and that's why I think it's sustainable.
Jim: That is an interesting thing you said. That you had
to give up what you thought it was going to be about, let go of that template
you started out with when you were a young guy, and you wanted to get pieces
into galleries, and selling them through commissions or gallery sales.
Bert: Get an Art Forum — but,
it's not like you dream it up and then you fulfill it. The template changes
all the time, and it gets reformed. I
always had this anxiety going on about, Man! I'm not making enough art, I've
gotta get out there, where am I going tonight? and man, you know?
Jim: (Mock sensitive voice) But
Bert, you're not 'living in the now' when
you do that.
Bert: but I'm getting older, now, and I ask myself this more
and more, What do you wanna do with the rest of your life, and you know,
I'm doing it ... I'd like to have more money (ditto yrs trly), but we're
doing great ... ya know, I couldn't have dealt with Ann, someone like that
five years ago....
Jim: Someone like what?
Bert: You know, someone — special (laugh, laugh).
Jim: Nice catch. You mean, someone who has her shit together,
is that what you mean?
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Bert: Yeah, STOP
DATING WAITRESSES! I know you want to make
this about the 'artist couple.'
Jim: Well, no not really, but I wanted to get a picture of
the two of you living and working together, and you both work in art, and
I wanted to hear from both of you.
Bert: Well, it's interesting, I
think what you're going to find is that we're both redefining what
is art, don't you think, Ann?
Ann: Well, yeah. For me, just planting a seed and watching
it grow is amazing, having that yard out there, there's no place I'd rather
be ... and cooking, cooking like crazy, oh yeah. I feel very creative in
that.
Bert: What's happening is, the art is — less these
things, and more these — concepts. Finally, and it's not like I waited
all my life for this, but finally, I am being sought out and consulted
about what new thing I can bring to this project, whatever it might be — to
solve this problem — not, Hey, Kin I buy this pitcher from you?
Bert Scherbarth, steel lawn ornament
approximately 12 inches high
They are asking
me to engage my personality, something
that I have been very reluctant to do, the idea of making things, and
they go away with that person and leave you with the money, that was
not a very satisfying thing to do, but, I wasn't ready for that, but
now, I am ready for that....
Like, if we want, we'll go look at that deal over there,
the deck? (referring to the deck on the building next door, commissioned
by the owner) I didn't just get a job to build a deck — she
ALLOWED me, asked me to design this thing, I made the entire
environment! and the fact that I got money for it too was a bonus and I
started by throwing away everything that was extraneous. We went over there
last night for a little dinner party, and I thought, wow, this is really
pleasant!
I never would have thought I would do something like that,
have the simplicity of mind to do away with things. My early work was like
this (he gestures with his fingers in a very small space on the table,
indicating a busy, space filling visual style), you know, the horror vacua
thing, you gotta fill up every space...so, that's cool, we're seeing more
and more of that, the art is — it's — bigger.
Jim: well, it's coming more from the center, which fits,
from what you know about people who are successfully creative in their
lives it becomes less and less about trying to supply the market place,
or approval seeking, or the money, and it becomes more about who they are
as people. Finding channels to express themselves.
Ann/Bert: Uh-huh. Yeah
Bert: I'm excited, on
a good day, I'm excited about the future, about the present, 'bout
everything. On a bad day, I just don't—
Jim: You just don't give a goddamn ... (they laugh) You just
don't care about what you're doing, is that what you mean?
Bert: Nah, just kidding. It's like, Goddamn, what's gonna
happen? It's never gonna be right....
Jim: (All three laughing) Boy, do I ever know about that....
Bert: WHAT'S
THE POINT? you know, that kinda stuff....
Jim: I'm waiting for somebody to tell me ... remember when
you were young, and you were trying to get a handle on things, and figuring
out how to be a grown-up, and you get to this place where you have this
kind of awakening, and you suddenly start asking What is the Fucking Point?
You go through all this in order to ... to make payments?
What the hell is that? My son Ryan was talking to me the
other day, and he said, Well, Dad, you don't work for anybody, you work
for yourself ... and I said, no, Ryan, really I don't.
I work for my clients and for the mortgage company ...
(bitter, knowing laughter from all three) and he goes,
well that sucks! and I said, when I was your age, I was never gonna
have appliances, and a mortgage, and I was never gonna be one of those....
You know, when I was young, I would drive down the street,
and I would see some old guy out in the front yard in a pair of khaki's
and a baseball hat looking up into the trees, and I'd think, What the hell
is he looking at?
I am never gonna be someone looking up in the trees with
a baseball hat on. I am always gonna be doing something ... interesting
... and the other day, I found myself out in the yard, looking up in the
trees, and now I know what those old guys were looking at....
Bert/Ann: (Laughing)
Bert: These folks over by City Hall have it all figured out....
Ann: Well, I
prefer my mortgage....
Bert: See, I think that if all the shelter resistant people
around had a little bit better drugs, they'd be the hippies of the next
century ... they're living off the land ... I wish I was a writer, there's
so much going on down there ... it's rich....
Jim: Well, let's uh, stop this tape ... it's almost gone
anyway....
Bert's Hand-painted T-shirt from Interview drawing
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We
sit around and chew the fat for a while, and Bert shows me back
into the workshop where he has his kiln and his worktable where he assembles
his fused glass pieces. One of the dogs has beheaded a rat and is excited
to show us her conquest.
I look out through the huge roll up doors into the yard that
runs along side the building, the chickens clucking through the grass, a
cat sunning on a concrete pad.
I am already asking myself what I'll call this piece, and it's
coming to me, as we go through the yard, and Ann is telling me the names
of the different species she's growing and the phrase Being and Making comes,
but in want of another phrase to anchor it, when Bert mentions that at one
time, a small community known as New Lebanon dwelt hereabouts ...
and it comes to me....
