Click on the picture for the interview in its entirety.

enpen: Olympia needs some new public sculpture. What sort of representation do you think would be good for stirring up the imagination in downtown Oly?

bil fleming: This is a hard question. I think the imagination (mine while I'm downtown in particular) is pretty well stirred.

Having said this though, I do think Oly is in want of some new public sculpture. So much of what we end up with has minimal content (the minimalist sculpture in the traffic circle at the top of the new bridge). I don’t see this as an insult or criticism to/of the many fine artists who have work sited in Olympia. I see it as a criticism of the way the public art process is hampered by bureaucracy and the "least offensive to the most people" kind of atmosphere that has pervaded our city's past art choices. I remember reading something in one of your earlier interviews with artist baso. He was right on when he said "(p)eople need to get over hating what they don't understand." It sometimes takes time for people to get there and unless we are willing to give stuff we don"t understand a chance (a BIG ONE is necessary at times) we will miss many opportunities for positive personal and cultural growth. Olympia Arts Commission and all of us need to get some back bone and allow some controversy! People will be critical of how public money is spent no matter what you do with it!

My next submission for public art funding will be something like "Performance Dishwashing." Don't miss it! I's sure to make a big splash!

If all the world is a stage, what are those two pits next to the Capitol Theater's?

I will answer but feel a need to convey two references your question evokes for me:
"All the world's indeed a stage,
And we are merely players,
Performers and portrayers,
Each another's audience
Outside the gilded cage."
Lyrics by Neil Peart from the song Limelight by RUSH

Of course RUSH was merely paraphrasing Shakespeare. We are all familiar with the first line but I was curious about what followed. Here it is:

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."
— Jaques (Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-166)
William Shakespeare's As You Like It

Shakespeare brings us to the stage and its "pits." The pits (orchestra pits?) were probably originally "royal boxes.” Wikipedia says "Boxes: typically placed immediately to the front, side and above the level of the stage. They are often separate rooms with an open viewing area which typically seat five people or less. These seats are typically considered the most prestigious of the house. A state box or royal box is sometimes provided for dignitaries." So the "pits" are where the Queen of England or George Bush would sit if she/he were to see a movie at the Capitol Theater. Since Abe Lincoln's time and given the present level of insecurity/security maybe these boxes are less than desirable seating areas for visiting dignitaries and so have fallen into disuse.

I cannot remember anything of note ever being done with them in the twenty some years I have been going to the theater except that they were often filled with "trash." My installation continues that tradition by literally using trash as a medium. The spaces were dubbed the "Gardens" by the theater in their call for artists to display work. Perhaps nocturnal, albino chlorophyllless plants once were grown there by some troglodyte volunteer.

I have named one of my installations "The Projectionists' Gardens" in order to combine references to the space's given name as well as the current situation involving the OFS board and the theater"s projectionists. The electricity/lighting for the spaces is controlled from the projectionist"s booth. I am also referencing my interest in how meaning is projected by viewers/participators of my and other art work. Much like the control the projectionists have of the lighting and electricity in these spaces that controls how and whether the theater patrons see my work, the viewers of my work are also projectionists (in the psychological sense) in that preconceptions influence personal meaning and the relevance of what we experience. To quote my statement for the piece: "In this space known as the "Gardens" controlled by the projectionist, I have installed a garden of flowers made from the fruits of our culture. This is a system driven by our actions and given meaning by our projections. We are projectionists.”

Is trash more indicative of where we've been or where we're going? And how do the unintentional/unknown effects of decay fit into this narrative?

I don’t know if it is either/or. To me it is both and more. Trash as I see it has more to do with identity than teleology. It is closer to who we are and what we are. It is what we leave behind in the world when we are done with the parts we need and/or want. It is our personal and cultural excrement. If we are what we eat, what is what we excrete? I would suggest that what we excrete is a very personal gift we give back to the world. It can be nourishing (in the sense of compost and soil amendment) and yet it can be putrid and foster disease and pollution if allowed to "soil our nest." Whole academic disciplines like Anthropology and Archeology are built on data derived from examining cultural trash from middens. So to some refuse has great meaning.

My materials are things that I find or that I have been given, that were deemed useless or have become disassociated from their original environment of use so that they are "useless." Our judgment of whether something has value has much to do with our ability to find use for it. Our compost waste is valuable, a dirty disposable diaper (i.e. landfill) is not.

When we look at healthy functioning ecosystems we see "closed loops," systems where the wastes from one organism become essential for another's survival and vise versa, creating a web of interdependent life. To the extent that we as human kind can intentionally or unintentionally weave our actions into the web of life on our planet, we will either "be" or "go."

In terms of narrative, I will leave the creation of this to the viewer/experiencer. My work/play is more singular than what I think of as a narrative, more like an expression or oeuvre. To some degree I believe this gestalt is a characteristic of most visual art. The individual's experience and consequent understanding is what drives formation of narrative and that is created by the perceiver not by the creator or the event.

One day while working a lamp into shape a blue haze suddenly envelops you and a scratchy voice calls out, "bil! You get one sense at 20X its current strength. Choose!" Which sense do you choose to enhance? Why that one and how do you think it would affect your art?

There are so many smart-ass (donkey) answers to this and they are all cop outs. But since most people would consider me a smart-ass (donkey) I’m going to try out some of these just to start and get loosened up.

Common sense
Sense of balance
Sense of proportion
Sense of justice
Sense of fair play
Sense of direction
Spider sense
Sixth sense
Sense less
Sense of humor…. There are many more, but that is probably enough.

The sense I would choose is the sense of touch. Of all the senses, I think touch is most associated with pleasure. As an artist I feel some level of responsibility falls upon me to be a loyal hedonist in the great tradition of artist/hedonists. My American Heritage dictionary defines hedonism as: 1) Pursuit of or devotion to pleasure. 2) The ethical doctrine that only that which is pleasant is intrinsically good. (Greek hedone – pleasure.) The word "carnality" might be applied to my preference: 1. Relating to the desires of the flesh; sensual. 2. Not spiritual. (From Latin caro – flesh) I propose that second meaning, negating the spirituality of the carnal or the flesh, is a more recent meaning that became associated with carnality as Christianity and Catholicism became influential. It parallels Christian and Catholic rejection of earthly rewards in favor of those to be had after death. Sentient, a word that is on the same page as that of sensual (relating to the senses), seems to suggest a twist. Sentient: 1. Having sense perception. 2. Experiencing sensation (from the Latin sentire - to feel).

I can’t help but integrate these words and meanings to arrive at some conclusion (I am an assemblage artist, remember). It seems revelatory that sentience, in modern usage as connoting consciousness (from a different dictionary – I won’t bore you with more definitions), comes from a word that originally denoted feeling. Modern sentience has connotations of self awareness and hence spirituality as, at least in non-Christian /Catholic thought, self awareness is a prerequisite for spiritual enlightenment. So possibly the ancients when speaking of feeling, which is locked in our flesh, were also speaking of self awareness and spirituality. It is a stretch I know…but hey I‘ve done my best to rationalize what is ultimately a non-rational decision based solely on my own preferences and feelings.

Choosing to multiply my sense of touch means choosing to multiply my perception of textures, temperatures, pressure, pain, even itch. Other senses are focused in one area of the body. Sight – the eyes. Hearing the ears. Smell the nose. Taste the tongue. With touch, not just one sensory organ, but our entire bodies are capable of the sense of touch - inside and outside - head to toe. Of course some parts of us feel more than others by virtue of having a greater number and concentration of nerve ganglia. Hands, fingers, faces, lips, tongues, feet, genitals. What pleasure to have these feel even more.

P.S. Don't forget to touch my work at the Capitol Theater. Its OK go ahead!

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bil fleming's show The Projectionist's Gardens is on display now through November 29, 2007 in the "royal boxes" of the OFS Capitol Theater.

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