She smiled. “It’s funny; when people ask me what I do for a living and I say, ‘I’m an artist,’ their next question is almost always ‘What kind?’ I suppose they imagine I’m a painter, sculptor, photographer, you know, one specific thing. And I work in all of those media. But if it were up to me, it would be enough to say, ‘I’m an Artist of Life.’” She covered her face with her hands for a moment, as if anticipating a scoff. “I know that might seem vague or, worse, pretentious, but it’s honestly the closest I can get to explaining my career.”
She turned toward me and met my eyes, focused and serious, her hands moving enthusiastically as she spoke, as if my question had opened something up in her. She’d gone from awkwardly quiet to aflame in an instant. “At the core of my work is the belief that everything we do and every moment we live can be a work of art. Every experience can be a thing of beauty or love, sorrow or pain. We choose. We impart the moments with meaning. That’s what art is to me. Imparting objects, sounds, creations and experiences with meaning. Making even the most mundane into something significant and extraordinary.”
“I like that.” Her words rang true inside of me. I didn’t know how to articulate the idea like she did, or how to live it, for that matter, but I understood it, and I believed in it.
“Good. Because it’s crucial to your role here that you do.” She paused to gather the rest of her thoughts. It seemed important to her that I grasp what she was saying. “That’s how I approach my work, and it’s how I approach my existence. I feel things, and then I try to inspire other people to feel things. I want to connect my humanity to the humanity of others, and somehow I’ve been lucky enough to make this desire my life’s work.” We resumed walking, and October continued glancing at me as she spoke. “As if you can’t tell, I like talking about art.” Someone had discarded a plastic bottle on the trail; October picked it up and put it in the little backpack she wore to hold Diego’s water. “But, to answer your question, society likes labels and our culture likes to put people in boxes, and because I’m mostly known for my performance pieces, Ribble and Google and Wikipedia and all the other cyber boxes tend to label me a performance artist. But, like I said, if it were up to me, it would be enough to simply say, ‘I am an Artist of Life.’”
I didn’t say anything in response to that, and she mistook my silence for something it wasn’t.
“Told you it was going to sound pretentious.”
“No,” I said, too seriously. “I like the idea that a person can go about their daily life and be an artist simply by being. But that seems like the most difficult kind of artist to be. What do you think the key is? To making that work, I mean?”
She shrugged, a lopsided, contemplative look on her face. “I think that’s a question I’ll be trying to answer for the rest of my life. I certainly haven’t figured it out yet. But my hunch is that just being here is a good start.” She locked her eyes on mine, and again it felt too intimate. “Being present, I mean. Like we are now. I’m looking at you, you’re looking at me. I’m listening to you, you’re listening to me. We’re engaged. Connected.”
“This is art?” I asked.
She nodded, and her face shone. “This is art.”
As we turned and headed back to her house, completely out of the blue she said, “Have you ever done mushrooms? You know, the magic kind?”
I laughed. “Why? Are you planning on drug-testing me?”
She laughed too. “Inquiring for research purposes.”
“Yeah. Sure. A couple times in college.”
She looked at me again. Diego looked at me too, with so much interest and clarity I contemplated the possibility that he was a person in a dog suit.
“What’s it like?”
I wasn’t sure I could describe doing mushrooms in a way that an artist would appreciate, but I said, “It’s fun if you’re in the right mood, I guess. However, things can get weird pretty quickly if you’re not.”
“I read an article this morning about psychedelic drugs and their effect on drawing. I want to do an experiment where I pick a subject and draw it naturally, and then draw the exact same thing after eating mushrooms, to see how differently they turn out.”
There was a mischievous grin on her face that made me wonder how old she was. She could’ve been twenty-three or forty-five. It was impossible to tell.
“Don’t worry, I’m not into drugs or anything,” she assured me. “It’s just that lately I’ve been feeling like I’m holding myself back. I’m stuck. I need to get out of my comfort zone, in the hopes that it will open me up and make me a better artist.”
I nodded, wishing I could be more like her. Hoping I could become more like her through the osmosis of being around her. “How old are you?” I said, “if you don’t mind me asking.”
“Thirty-four.”
She was only two years older than I, but she seemed so much farther ahead. “One of my old coworkers sells mushrooms,” I told her. “He and I meet up for beers every so often. I could ask him for some next time I see him. If you want.”
A little bashfully, she said, “If it’s not too much trouble.”
I told her it wasn’t, and we were quiet again.
Once we got back to her property, she mentioned she was going out of town to visit her boyfriend, who was working in Denver. “I’ll be back late Sunday night. Get yourself settled this weekend, and I’ll see you Monday morning.”
As I was walking toward my new apartment, she said, “Hey, Joe.”
I turned around.
“I’m really looking forward to working with you.”
FIVE.
On paper, I was the project coordinator and studio assistant at Casa Diez, but the majority of my day was spent working on the specific Living Exhibit that October was focused on during that period.
October dubs her long-term performance pieces Living Exhibits because that’s exactly what they are—life experiences she turns into performance art. The one she was working on when I started there was a film project called 365 Selfies. My tasks included but were not limited to: set designer, camera and lighting crew, website and mailing list admin, general contractor, handyman, and occasional creative consultant.
365 Selfies was intended to be a statement on the “selfie” culture that was all the rage on social networks and in social lives at the time. However, as a contrast to the somewhat narcissistic nature of the trend, 365 Selfies would only be available on a hidden website. October didn’t intend to publicize the page, and when she finally announced the project, she didn’t include a web address. Her fans and the art world found it eventually, though it took months, and I’m still not sure how it was discovered. However, I suspect it had something to do with the fact that the project was sponsored by Phil Pearlman, the art aficionado, entrepreneur, and founder of Ribble. Mr. P. was worth a couple billion dollars and chose to spend a miniscule chunk of his vast wealth supporting art and artists.