Art Around the House: Daniel Bourke

This edition of Art Around the House is a little different. The work here: Mustard Cactus is somewhat altered from when Daniel Bourke first conceived of it and I purchased it from one of those fundraising enterprises at art school. The work is firstly: unsigned and secondly: missing provenience in the form of a receipt. More woefully and tragically thirdly: has undergone damage and been repaired. Thus, it may be argued that it's value as an investment piece is somewhat diminished; having been replaced almost entirely by a functional affection. It's possible that Bourke might be more satisfied with this second outcome, given his comments upon handing it to me immediately after purchase. They went something like: "You should probably drill a hole in the bottom. But I don't know if that would break it."

For about a year this dilemma see-sawed about in my consciousness as I watched the original cactus shrivel up and die. Frozen in fear by the possibility of breaking the pot if I drilled the hole but without ever being able to maintain the right sometimes wet/lots of drainage conditions, I found myself incapable of taking care of the artwork in it's original condition. I tipped out the dead cactus and soil into the garden in the ever optimistic hope that if there were any life left in the thing it might be resurrected in the natural elements there. For a time the mustard pot sat clean and empty with the jovial CACTUS instructions propped up inside.

The pot never moved out of the kitchen. Gradually I learned the CACTUS instructions; each little flower and spike. How could all those different-looking plants fall under the very uninformative title: "Cactus"? It grew more and more ridiculous in my mind. I became determined to make amends and solve the drainage problem once and for all. Eventually I came across a happy flower-covered cactus who was much too large for the mustard pot but had smaller baby cacti. I modified a seedling tube to act as a liner. The Mustard Cactus rode again.

I've started reading a book by James Elkins called The Object Stares Back. In the first chapter "Just Looking", Elkins briefly mentions curators perhaps aspiring to be objective, disinterested in art. As though they don't desire images.. unaffected.. perhaps I'm paraphrasing very badly... I drifted off. I thought about the grottos of the Merzbau. Schwitters made little homes for the artworks he had from his friends. I thought about taking care of artworks, covering them with fire blankets at night, rolling them up safely in tubes. Or finding them in their places like Mustard Cactus on the window sill with other plants for companions, amongst the greater impromptu Vanitas that constitutes the windowsill. Its very important and not at all. Sometimes the cat knocks the baby cactus out and I worriedly plant it again. Perhaps it's important that it is always in peril, needing protection and daily attention.