Historical September–October 2008 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Skinker DeBaliviere residents know neighborhood artist Bill Christman as a kid on a playground, especially when he’s creating new work. Take the “Big Legs” towering over the front door of his studio, at 6014 Kingsbury Avenue, like the lower half of some roadside Paul Bunyon.
The now legs stand in the shadow of a new Christman creation – a huge rocket ship that’s as wacky and distressed as the artist himself.
After 13 years of displaying work at the City Museum and also hosting live music on Thursday nights in his studio’s famous Joe’s Cafe, Christman is building a new solo art exhibit.
The rocket ship and some 40 other pieces are part of an event he calls “Strange Gods.” It opens to the public on Saturday, Oct. 4, and Sunday, Oct. 5, from 2 to 6 p.m. each day.
It is free and to be viewed mostly outside in his sculpture garden, where his huge new wooden face of a smoker oversees a sputnik and assorted other whimsical works of steel, glass, copper and cement.
They are industrial salvage and found objects — raised by Christman to the next level.
The exhibit, he says, with eyes half-closed, “is for people who wonder what goes on back here – – like that Tom Waits song, ‘What’s he building in there?'” “I try to create the kind of experience I had growing up,” he continues, “like the quirky momand-pop miniature golf courses that no longer exist, and the feeling that around any corner you could stumble on something ‘bigger than life.’ I’m trying to preserve that sense of wonder, of an American kid from the Truman era.” For more information on the exhibit, call Christman at 314-862- 2541.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, September–October 2008.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Archival transcription note: Printed now legs appears to be new legs source error; retained as printed.
Original source: SD_Times2008_09.pdf, printed page(s) 6; PDF page(s) 6.
