In 1991, as I was completing an Art History degree and finding my way as an artist, I had unresolved questions about the nature of art and its value to society. I went to New York--to Washington Square Park and the public area in front of the Metropolitan Museum. At the Museum, I randomly approached passersby. I asked them what they thought art was and tape-recorded their responses. I then requested that they "make art" for me, using art supplies I provided and I photographed them doing it. I kept their art and they received a photographic print of themselves creating their composition. In Washington Square, I asked a generally younger crowd to participate.
I hoped that by watching people closely and thinking about their responses, I could gain a visceral and visual confidence about the kind of artist that I would become. I queried people on the street in order to bypass the institutional jargon, fixed ideas and blind obedience to trends I had experienced in art schools. The enthusiasm they displayed in response to my request energized me. The ennui and cynicism I’d observed in schools was nonexistent. I watched them excitedly make creative decisions, in flow, oblivious to my cameras and me. I studied their faces.
While I was photographing in front of the Metropolitan on the public sidewalk, a bureaucrat from the Museum came running down the steps and ordered me to stop. As I was asserting my right to be on a public sidewalk, an NYPD beat cop came along and told the bureaucrat to leave me alone. The irony of a sincere inquiry into the nature of art being attacked by an arts representative and protected by a cop was the philosophical impetus to begin the next stage of the project. After moving to Los Angeles, in 1992 I began asking LAPD cops to tell me and show me what art was.
