UMTravels

As the “Legs of Christ” saga continues… I decide to sell the lovely church on Lopez and all the artwork has to be taken down for the “staging”. It is around this time that Wonderful (whom I bought my Seattle house from) is organizing The Great Art Party to endow Floating Bridge Press — a Washington State poetry organization that publishes a yearly anthology of Washington Poets.

Several of the pieces head for their 1st Annual Great Art Party and the “Legs of Christ” is supposed to be part of the auction as a Big Ticket item. This is where we start researching into the piece (which at this point needs restoration before it goes on the block) and find the connection between the “Legs of Christ” and Burning Man. It turns out that David Best is the mastermind behind the giant burning man that gets burnt each year in the playa of Nevada.

Click here for the whole WikiPedia article on David Best and his Burning Man Temples.

At this point, Wonderful and I am wondering if the way to go is to restore the piece and send it off to an auction house to get a larger donation to the endowment.

But there are problems — the Apollo figure at the top of the piece has had a hard life. Here is a detail shot of poor Apollo.

Sorry the picture is so small and fuzzy, but the poor guy has a couple of broken arms and legs. Wonderful’s wondering if it is even repairable without some help from the artist himself.

Fast forward a couple of days — like the the beginning of this three part post. I finally get  a return call from one of my contractor/friends in the Bay Area. It’s a nice hour+ chat on a Sunday where it doesn’t ding my limited minutes plan on T-Mobile. So we are chatting away when Davey (the contractor/friend) brings up the “Legs of Christ” —turns out that he is friends with David Best and spent five weeks helping build the 2007 Burning Man sculpture.

Turns out a while back he stayed overnight at the Best’s place in Petaluma, and in the morning over coffee with David and his wife he commented on two pieces that were hanging in the house that they looked like the same artist that did this piece called the Legs of Christ that hangs in a friends house. Deer in the headlights look on David’s face, almost spit coffee on Linda’s (wife) part.

Guess I’d better connect Wonderful up with Davey to connect up with David.

It truly is a small art world.