Julia Klein

http://henryinhudson.com/subpages/retail_21.htm#

Baby at Henry
(or, Structures that Act as Objects)

At the party, I saw Baby sitting on top of one of the red carts with the prints of Rail and Elana and John between his legs. I brought people by the Shop to see my new piece that someone else had made. I pushed Baby around Fisher on the red cart, anchoring it in spots for days at a time. John, it turned out, made Baby on The Red Cart.

Leila saw Baby but first she saw Wing, who was not Wing until she named it so. She watched me dance Wing and Rail around together. I posed them and she saw a dance. Wing pirouetted. Rail was the base mostly. They did not dance publicly and shortly after Leila saw them, Wing’s namesake was bent. I bent the wing.

Group Photo was taken about five years after the wide shot of Braziller with Kristi in it. In Group Photo, Baby is not yet all black. The process of coating Baby was enjoyable. The big fiberglass abdomen held the colored plastic differently than the arms did. When wiped with water and put in the light, Baby can gleam.

Wing hung above the right window of three windows in the three-sided wall facing the street in my living room. At that time, I think there were two chairs in that space, with a gap in front of the biggest window in the middle. I have a picture of it somewhere, and the picture shows a very dark but also very blue night sky. In the picture there may or may not also be parts of the couch and the white book shelf that are also in the living room. Anyways, it hung on the window while I had the big gray photo backdrop on the wall and floor of the living room. I was building Rail on top of the backdrop. When I left for the summer, I can’t remember what I did with Wing—did I leave it there or did I put it in a closet? When I came back, I was still interested.

After my critique, I decided to leave Baby in the Print Shop rather than take it to UBS with the others. I just didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

It took a lot of effort and much time went by before Leila and I were able to arrange a time for her to come back to my studio to discuss Wing. By the time it happened, I was working in an adjacent space that was much bigger than the one in which we had originally met. We went back to the old space first—I wanted to record Leila talking about the Wing she remembered before she saw what Wing had become. Leila expressed some discomfort about being recorded, but was willing to do it. She put earrings on before we began.

When Wing became Baby—Todd didn’t like Baby but Carla did—I felt like, what is this thing I’m making? It’s mine for sure but how did I get here? I tried to read about fetish objects. African Art in Motion was a nice brown, library-bound book that I carried around till I finished it, though it did get a bit hard at the end. I marked lots of pages and when I went back to find what had been exciting to me, I couldn’t remember.

Baby and Rail. Whorl. Baby and The Dog (or, Lot of Lot and Lot’s Wife). Baby on a Stool. Baby on a Cart next to Yoni’s photos. Baby on a Cart in the Hall.

When I edited what Leila said about Wing, I only took what I liked (not necessarily everything that was important to her to say). I changed what she said, I slanted it in my direction. It was scary to have insight into what the media does daily, all the time. What Leila “said” about Wing ended up having something to do with expansion. About energy going outwards. both accidentally and logically.

I left Baby sitting on a stool at Henry. I first set him next to the rugs on the bench on the right side of the store, but then Nancy moved it to the stool on the left side next to the big boxed shelf. I remember liking what was next to him and also trying to adjust him and finding that he was already in the right spot. I carried Baby up to the store. She fit in my arms. I realized on the way that I hadn’t said goodbye.