A Clean Well Lighted Place

 A Clean Well Lighted Place. 

Dee, there is a direct link from Clean Well lighted Place to the Bruce Lee piece I gave you last year in at least two ways.  One is through my evolution as an art collector and the other is through Dave Hickey’s putting Texas art on the National art stage. Both started in Austin in the late 60’s.

Dave and I were both born and raised in a Fort Worth.

Both of us attended UT Austin in the late 60’s.  The difference was he was 100% into art and I was attending law school with a strong interest in art.

In those days you could take one elective course per semester and I was the only law student who took art history courses.  I took a Renaissance to Modern survey course, in which the most memorable recollection was that Farrah Fawcett was a classmate.  Then I took Modern Art, Architectural art, and finally a graduate Seminar with then Chairman Fred Weismann on “Artist as Witness”.  I am not sure I ever learned what artists are witness to. Besides law I was doing psychedelics and may have missed some of the curriculum themes.

I had bought my first piece of art in 1968, a Cape Dorset lithograph, Wounded Bear by Kanujiak I had seen at an exhibit as Laguna Gloria. I sent $60.00 to the Canadian Government agency that handled sales of indigenous art.  That was the beginning of my collecting.

I was living at College House in 1969 then an old seedy complex of buildings and apartments west of the University.  It was a hotbed for radical thinking. One of the residents was a fellow named Watson.  If I recall correctly, his first name was Ken and he was a graduate student In Philosophy.  He was definitely a leader of SDS on campus and a friend of Bill Bennett, who was also a Philosophy grad student who would come over to hang out with Ken and play volleyball with us in our courtyard.

One of the residents was a girl named Carolyn who was dating Gilbert Shelton.  I met Jim Franklin during this period and was attracted to their art work. I heard that some of their art was for sale at a new gallery named Clean Well Lighted Place at 12th and Nueces.  I was interested in buying one of their God Nose or Wonder Wart Hog or the Furry Freak Brothers.

It was 1968 or 1969 and I recall meeting the owner, who I assumed was Dave.  I wandered around the gallery for a few minutes, but only saw an original cover for Sergeant Rock for $325.00. I may have asked about the other three comic characters, but I left without a purchase. In those days $325.00 was out of my price range anyway.  I would save $20.00 from my monthly allowance of $20.00 for room, board, and a minuscule amount of spending money to have $200.00 in order to afford a one week trip to Mexico at Spring break, usually to Mazatlan.

So that was my first gallery purchasing experience corresponded with Dave’s first gallery ownership experience.

I have always collected the art of the locale in which I live.  Now that I live in New Mexico my main interest is in New Mexico artists, but have retained my interest in Texas artists.  When we visited Marfa for New Year’s in 2019 I  visited a gallery that was showing Bruce Lee’s work.  I immediately fell in love with his fresh outsider take on art and bought the piece I gave to Dee.

I think Dave’s and my reaction to art is similar.  We both love creative, well done art. 

I do not know why I did not collect the comic books.  Perhaps because I was more attracted to the T shirts which were wearable art that also made a fashion statement.  Here are a few that I wore but survived.

I have never lost my interest in art and nave been collecting since returning to Fort Worth from a one year foreign student gig in Sweden in 1970 to practice law.

I have collected ever since. Here is one by Vernon Fisher, a Fort Worth artist who I knew when living in Fort Worth associated with minimalism from the 70’s, which is the only Texas artist besides Bror Utter in my collection.  I bought it from the famous Dallas Gallery owner Janie Lee.  His work was included in a number of exhibits of Texas artists working in the 70’s.

Dave’s path and mine have kept crossing but I never sought him out. Perhaps I shall now that he has retired and living in Santa Fe.

We have had different experiences but the common thread is our love of art.

Bob