Carlisle-Gibson: An Installation
by J. Clyde Jarvis
November 27, 2006 - February 27, 2007

J. Clyde Jarvis was born on October 23, 1962, in an air force base in southern Georgia. As part of a military family, Jarvis traveled around the world. He and his family were stationed in Japan, New Mexico, Germany, and Texas during their years of service. In 1994 however, Jarvis' travels came to an end with his enrollment at Texas Tech University, wherein he received a BFA upon graduation. During the 1980's, Jarvis became the founding member of the Texas DIY artists group "Big Snuff." After a ten year run with shows at galleries and alternative spaces from Boston to Dallas, the group disbanded in the early 90's. A few years later, Jarvis relocated to Baltimore, where he currently resides.

Carlisle and Gibson is a graphic representation of ideas of the American West, as seen through the eyes of a young child. When I was six years old, my family moved to (or in military jargon, was stationed at) Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. When my own son turned six, I began to place myself in his head and to remember where I was and what I was thinking and feeling about life and the world around me as a six-year-old. These recollections led to comparisons of the America I knew as a young kid to the America of today. Snakes, jets, and skulls of animals are three things that I remember vividly about growing up in New Mexico. A typical day in the early seventies for my friends and I included playing in the desert, collecting pottery shards, arrowheads, and skulls, and chasing various reptiles while super sonic aircraft boomed overhead. An equally memorable daily event was coming home to find nothing on television but the Watergate trials, though Richard Nixon and his enemies never measured up to Captain Billy's cartoon hour. This was an unorthodox introduction to politics that I'm sure I share with a lot of people. As war protests and the realization that our parents were the people in the war entered into school conversation, our naïve opinions about the larger world began to take form. Carlisle Avenue and Gibson Boulevard are the intersecting thoroughfares in the Albuquerque of my childhood. Hopefully with a bit of humor, Carlisle and Gibson connects the visual elements of daily life with the emerging political opinions and conclusions about life that people begin make at a young age.

-- J. Clyde Jarvis
November 2006

diego drinks miller too.
diego rivera
miller highlife
it was a painting early on
i think that was when i knew he was a great artist
that he could move people
one lady was so pissed off at his art blasphemy
she publicly lashed out at him
the hierarchy of art breeched
maintance of myth is essential in art for some
comparing diego R the brilliant muralist married to la artista
with a unibrow played by salma hayek
to a common piss beer is unthinkable
jay shrugged and without emotion said to her:
"miller high life is the champagne of beers as advertised
and diego rivera despite being the brilliant international artist
was after all just another mexican artist cheating on his wheel chair bound wife."

i don't know who owns diego drinks miller these days
if it's owned by an ex SS officer in the andes
or by an ex-wife
or perhaps by my ex-wife latisha
or if maybe just maybe its at the bottom of a land fill in lubbock moldering
but jay has moved on
once the original energy of the piece has expended itself
in birthing ...jay loses interest....time to move to the next one
he was always like that

but inspiration can run on you like a twenty dollar whore sometimes
i met him for lunch once when he worked at the cuckoo clock factory on airport boulevard
he took me to the back of his truck
and showed me his latest creations
tossed in there next to the spare tire
some pop cans and the a tire jack
they were some kind of keith haring paint by numbers rip-offs
they totally sucked
i told him they were brilliant
his talents were stronger that his ego
an artist's ego is a fragile thing
i knew if he kept working through it
something great would come of it

we drove to his apartment where he lived with his first wife, rayanne
"deep thoughtful folds about the eyes often marks a man of distinction"
he whispered
then carved a canyon of scar tissue into a wooden block
with a large V gouge
this piece never went anywhere
in fact it marked a profound downward trend in his life
it sat in the back yard off kerbey lane in the rain and sun for three years
before it was hauled off by the city refuse crew
proof positive that not all shit out by master artists is gold
oh shit yeah there were barren years
when personal intrigues and health problems would be a major preoccupation
driving endlessly from el paso to lubbock to baltimore and back
looking for a magic elixir for his boils and the meaning of life
he fretted over weighty issues that when examined in the light of day don't amount to shit
and were in the most part madness playing out before him without a script
his fingernails detached and blowing on the dashboard like loose fritos corn chips as he drove onward and still onward

but like the old adage "even a blind pig finds an acorn from time to time"
he finds new inspiration
rebirth
he learns a lesson handed down from the art gods
that skill is a tool that needs to honed,
maintained, and used often
in a place where one is settled
"baltimore that's my home" the billboard read
he found a bar where he could drink
all the crab cakes a person could want
and a place to make art
a fresh pack of smokes
and miller in the fridge
under these controlled conditions he births outs his new art
he thinks back
diego drinks miller too
he chortles
yeah mofo
diego drinks miller too
yeah mofo
then drives forward

el pelón

Austin Texas 2006

el pelon is artist, musician, custodian and sagittarius Charles Hancock of The Amazing Hancock Brothers. He resides in Austin, Texas grills year round and has known J. Clyde Jarvis for a hundred years.

Selected exhibitions:

2002 - Kaiserslautern, Mission Media Gallery, Baltimore MD
2000 - The Floor Show, Artscape, Baltimore MD
1999 - Snapshot, The Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD
1996 - Suicide Weather, Kingston Gallery, Boston, MA
1994 - Big Gun, Tool and Knife Show, Cornwall Gallery, Jamaica Plain, MA
1993 - Joy of Life, 500X Gallery, Dallas, TX
1993 - Arms Ten Feet Long, Catal Huyuk, Houston, TX
1992 - Six Big Devils, Suite X Gallery, Dallas, TX
1991 - Noise Le GRANDE's Dixie Fried Minstrel Extravaganza, Café Mezz, Lubbock, TX
1991 - Triumph of Ubu Kong, 500X Gallery, Dallas, TX
1990 - Day of the Dead (Invitational), Mexic-Arte, Austin, TX
1990 - Infidel Circus, Cultural Activities Center, Temple, TX
1990 - Limbo Salon, Lawndale Art and Performance Center, Houston, TX
1990 - Lullaby of Shadowland, The Center of Contemporary Art, Oklahoma City, OK
1989 - Auto-Da-Fe, 500X Gallery, Dallas, TX
1988 - Art for the New Age, Gardiner Art Gallery, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK
1987 - Werner Horliche Presents: Ordure Dujour, Artspace Gallery, Austin, TX