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=> Dear Eunuch aka Balls

Dear Eunuch aka Balls
Posted by Farid (Moderator) - Sunday, November 16 2003, 12:30:29 (EST)
from *** - *** Mexico - Windows 98 - Internet Explorer
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The Don has been disassembled and each and every little Ugly, plus the horse are having moulds made so I can reproduce them without having to re-position each one every time...that's assuming of course I have any reason to make another one...as in I sell one. I won't have any trouble in getting into any gallery I want here. As for the States...I'm not so sure, though I've been told to not be silly and put it there.

On my recent trip to Disneyland, I showed the Don to the owner of Quixote Winery in the Napa Valley, down the road from where we used to live. He's of Lebanese descent...Carl Doumani...his father actually knew Khalil Gibran...said his father said Gibran was "squirrely"...I think I know what he means...anyway Doumani previously owned Stag's Leap Vineyards which became the first every winery to beat out the French in an international blind tasting in the early 70's...and sparked the tremendous growth of California wines...about as important an event as Robert Mondavi having a feud with his brother Peter and openning his own winery and running the business the way he envisioned it...which also brought tremendous success and notoriety to California wines. Narsai is soon going to have his own label too.

So I went to see Carl, for whom I'd made a bas-relief of a print he particulary cherishes some years back. His new winery...he sold the other one to Mario Andretti among others...is a most interesting place, set far back from the road among the peaceful golden hills of Napa. He used a lot of ceramic pillars and things that had to be glazed in Germany cause the glazes are deadly and the whole place hasn't a straight line in it...something very different and quite pretty. Before I left St Helena he'd called me out to the winery to see if I could come up with some special thing we could cast in iron...rusts beautifully. I couldn't think of anything and never got back in touch with him till I pulled up his driveway three years later with the silver Don. I wanted to make it into a monument cast in iron.

He liked the piece well enough but said they'd tried a promotion for the Mezcal brand he's now producing in Mexico based on calaveras; skeletons and the Day of the Dead...and it fell flat on its face. Americans are too intimately involved in creating real skeletons round the world...naturally they don't like to be reminded. We discussed some other form of the Don and left it at that.

I think LA and New York might be good places, but there are other skeletons I want to make so I have enough for a small show. With the ones I already have and the 24 inch one that has yet to be cast in bronze, it shouldn't take but a year. But down here I think the Don might do well enough,,,at around $6,000 it isn't too highly priced...considering it's in silver and so damn unusual I also can put it right away. The gallery I'm thinking of recently had paintings seliing for $15,000...so it isn't out of the question. There's also an exclusive and very expensive store in Mexico City that sells only silver...and has some silver sculpture..nothing like the Don though...but I don't know about a "store"...got to stay snooty...it's expected by Ali if no one else.

When I left for Disneyland I carried the Don in my hand...in a special wooden crate I made. Wasn't about to let the gorrilas handle it. In San Jose I almost lost the Don. I met with an Assyrian friend in San Jose at a cafe to show the Don but more to show some Assyrian pieces I was unloading...as I'm not making them any more. He already owns a few. We sat outside at some sidewalk tables and got to discussing how much he couldn't afford to pay the very reasonable price I was asking...unless I knocked off $1000...the usual thing we've learned to do to each other...even though he drove up in the lates and most expensive bomb of a car. He made his "final offer" and I made my "usual response...no". Sold the pieces later for what I was asking....also to an Assyrian...so we needn't despair completely. Anyway, in the rush to pack the sculptures back in the car, I left the Don in his crate on the sidewalk and didn't realize it till two days later on the morning I was set to fly back to Mexico. Drove frantically to the cafe at sunrise sure the thing was gone by now...and kicking myself for not having made a mould of the horse before leaving. With a lot of work I could have made all 12 uglies again from the three master moulds I had, plus I HAD made a mould of the Don, so that was good...still it would have been such a bummer.

I pull up to the closed cafe and what do I see on the inside by the glass window but the Don's crate...and I only had to wait two heart-pounding hours...prowling the parking lot like a Cheetah of the junglest, to find out that the Don was indeed inside of it.

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