Posted by panch from adsl-64-160-45-125.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net (64.160.45.125) on Wednesday, March 27, 2002 at 8:31AM :
I don't know if people can imagine how outrageous it is for a fellow, an engineer no less, to take it upon himself to weld together an artist's sculpture for him, in a way he thinks appropriate, and even after being asked, then told, not to do so. What's the big deal, one might ask...was the sculpture ruined...was it perhaps improved?
Some things you can't explain...you either get it or you don't. Atour doesn't get it. His subsequent behavior and that of Janey, who trusts this guy short of Jesus Christ tells a good deal about the two of them also.
Having first bragged about the expertise of Ford technicians and how they could weld anything in the world, as a way of getting me to agree with his claim that he could improve on my design (blame someone else for the cars that roll over)...and telling me, when I saw my sculpture welded inspite of my insisting over the phone that he not do so, that the work was done at Ford, with their equipment etc., and being convinced by then that I would put up with any sort of abuse just to get the monuments made, rocked back on his small heels in total self-satisfaction at what he had done.
It wasn't until he went a step further by telling me to leave the convention, drunk by now with the power he seemed to so effortlessly have gained over a "tall" man, that I decided to seek damages for what was an act of vandaliam on his part, that Janey changed their story.
Fearful that word would get back to Ford, they now claimed that a neighbor had done the welding, in their garage and with equipment he dragged over from his own. This tells us that Atour knew damn well he'd done something he shouldn't have and was trying to sheild himself from any fallout at work. It also says that he and his wife are both liars...something I did not want to have to accept. My only consolation is that whatever Janey does, she will always be above that slug Gassman.
Having now implicated a neighbor, whose identity we would like to know as he can be charged along with Atour...the story was modified to include the willingness of one of the owners of the model of the Hammurabi to have his piece welded, so that Atour can be seen as having shared his concerns with the rightful owner, who then presumably gave him the okay to "improve" on my design.
This is just as much of a lie as the others, and came about because I wrote here that Atour, not owning the sculptures, could not even claim that any one of them was his to modify in any way. In fact the only role he was to play was to distribute the three models to their rightful owners.
Reading what I had written Janey decided that her Jesus would be off the hook if it could be made to seem that he was merely carrying out the wishes of the rightful owners who, I had written, might have had some ground to stand on. But it surely isn't true, though I don't doubt they may have talked one of the owners into agreeing that Atour had "improved" the piece...just to cover his ass. However, this now opens the owner up to the same charge because neither one of them had the right to weld my sculpture for me, especially as in this case one of the reasons I changed the design was that the piece was too heavy and might harm people if it ever fell on them. An Art foundry is bonded and authorized to weld bronze sculpture together...they have the kind of people who know how it should be done...who have the right equipment etc. Atour and whoever did the welding and whoever authorized it, if anyone did, have raised the issue of who last worked on those pieces, as to liability, should the welds ever come apart.
The truth is that he was a fool to have done such a thing in the first place. He was sillier yet to have lied about it, and to have continued spinning more lies in an effort to shield himself. He has shown himself to be contemptuous and devoid of any basic understanding of Culture and what is proper when dealing in it, behaving as if art is just "stuff" that anyone can have a go at, even to the point of intruding himself on another's domain...something a man of sense would never dare to do. Janey has shown herself willing to help him concoct lies in an effort to prove that he is a man of substance and quality who would NEVER do a wrong thing, though all can see how dishonest and childishly they behaved in this instance...and if they would lie over something like this and in such a haphazard and wholesale manner, how honest are they elsewhere, and how little do they really understand about what they meddle in....yet another bargain basement set of Leeders for us.
Will we ever and only shop for our leadership at garage sales and fire sales and discount houses? Is it impossible for us to behave and think and plan in ways that would require better leadership, or are these Bejans and Golanis and Nimrods about right for the toilet we plan to dwell in as Assyrians?
-- panch
-- signature .