Fish Eye Paint Drips
May 6, 2011
There's a silver statue of Andy Warhol in Union Square. It's temporary as far as I can tell, but if you ask me, they should install it there permanently.
I moved to New York in 1986 with my now ex-girlfriend, an aspiring fashion designer, whose first job was with a designer named Isaia Rankin.
Not many people remember Isaia anymore, but at the time, he was very well known and quite influential, featured in all the magazines and carried in the best stores. Part of my ex-girlfriend's job with Isaia was working part-time at the infamous Fiorucci store on East 59th Street, which had an in-store Isaia boutique. She would report back to Isaia about what was selling and what wasn't, how the customers were responding to various designs, and so on. A lot of celebrities shopped there, and my ex would often come home with stories about having seen or helped this one or that one. Once a month or so, Andy Warhol would come to Fiorucci, Polaroid slung around his neck, to hand deliver a stack of Interview magazines, and if you were at the right place at the right time, you could get yourself an autographed copy. My ex was in the right place at the right time, but being too shy to approach one of her idols, she let the opportunity pass. "Next time," she promised herself. But, sadly, there never was a next time because a couple of months later, Andy Warhol was dead.
(Only two years later, at the young age of 35, Isaiah was dead, too, but that's another story for another time.)
Less than a year after Andy Warhol died, I landed a job with Stephen Sprouse. Not only was Stephen a friend of Andy Warhol's, but his studio was in one of Andy's former "Factories" on the third floor of 860 Broadway, overlooking the spot where the Andy Warhol statue now stands. This is where I worked, in a small corner of a large room, separated from Stephen Sprouse's desk by a metal locker.
At my desk, Stephen Sprouse, 860 Broadway, 1988
My desk, Stephen Sprouse, 860 Broadway, 1988
Whiffs of Andy Warhol could still be found in the space. The vestibule just outside the elevator was still painted silver, and a column next to my desk had a hand-drawn crown by Jean-Michel Basquiat. An area in the back, by the service elevator, mainly used to store bolts of fabric, had previously housed a makeshift private gym, and penciled on the walls were measurements tracking Andy's progress.
While cleaning up the studio one day, I found a loose paint splatter on the floor. I might've thrown it away, except I thought it was kind of neat. Several colors of paint dripped on top of one another and peeled cleanly from the wooden floor, forming something like a vinyl sticker. Entirely too dusty to stick to anything, however. A few days later, Stephen asked if I had come across a paint drip, describing in detail the one that I had found. There were plenty of paint drips on the floor, and it would've been easy enough to peel up another one, but something about this one was special to Stephen and thankfully, I saved it.
When Stephen's business closed -- that particular incarnation of it, anyway -- I continued to work there for about six months, helping to tie up loose ends and to pack up the last of Stephen's things, bringing some of it to his apartment, and sending some of it to storage. The paint drip wound up being put in an manilla envelope labeled "AW drip", and filed away in a box that was ultimately stored along with a host of other things in a Pennsylvania barn. On my final day at the studio, I went to the corner of the room and peeled a paint drip from the floor for my own souvenir.
I was unemployed for a while after that. I picked up a couple of jobs here and there -- mostly things I was completely unsuited for -- but devoted most of my time to starting a rock and roll band and making art. At some point, I painted a picture of a fish. It was fairly large, about 45 inches square, and right in the middle of the fish's eye, I glued the Andy Warhol paint drip. It worked perfectly. A girl I knew fell in love with the painting and offered to buy it. Being sentimentally attached to the drip, I tried ungluing it before selling it, but the painting just didn't look as good without it. Oh what the hell, $200 bucks and it was hers. Less than a year later, the girl got kicked out of her apartment and she left the painting behind. She was still in contact with her former roommates, however, and was determined to get it back. She never did. A year or two later, she killed herself. Hopefully, there's still some magic left in that fish's eye, and the painting still exists somewhere.
