Perpetual Inventory – A Ruminative Installation by Scott Kip at Arcadia University

Ryan: This is Ryan from Artblog radio. Recently, Roberta and I sat down with Scott Kip about his latest show at Arcadia University. He’s brought to Arcadia by the directors, Matthew Borgen and Richard Torchia. First, we’ll start with our interview with Scott, to hear the thought process behind his show.

Roberta: Describe the installation in your words.

It’s been described by many people in many ways. This morning in an email that you sent out to people, you said, this holy mess.

Scott: It’s a holy mess. I mean, it’s true. The project was a long time coming. And of course I ran through a million different versions of it in my head. And then the one that ends up getting brought to reality is never exactly one of those versions.

But I mean, what I tried to do was basically just what I say is I tried to make a sculpture out of everything that’s ever happened to me in my life, which is not plausible, but it’s fun to try. But how, how do I describe the installation to people? I mean, it’s I don’t know. That’s tough. I still don’t have a good way to do that.

Roberta: Well, I, I think between holy mess and sculpture out of everything that ever happened, kind of covers it.

Scott: Comprehensive y Yeah. If not, it may not be helpful, but it may be comprehensive. There’s, there’s a lot. There’s a lot to it. I mean I wanted to sort of make, I mean, of course it’s a self-portrait in a way.

I don’t know. I feel like it’s composed out of a lot of different experiences, and I don’t mean experiences that I’ve had. I mean, I don’t know if you’ve had the experience of, and this is a typical art school kind of a thing, but it’s trash day. You’re walking home and you see a really fascinating pile of trash.

On the side of the road. That’s not, not trash bags usually, but it might be whatever, cans or a dumpster. And you’re like, oh, what is this? And you start looking through it because there’s some interesting items. And then you realize what, that it’s the, it’s the same person’s name on all of the documents and papers and whatever’s in there.

And then you realize, wait, this is someone’s stuff. Like this is a clean out. And then you, you, you kind of go through it and then you create this portrait of the person in your head and their life. I don’t know if you have this experience, but this is like, this is an art school. This is an art kid thing that, that would happen, you know?

And so I wanted to make an experience sort of like that.

Roberta: So, wait, did you have an art school experience? That was just what you said, where you Oh, many times. Oh, yeah. Yeah, many times.

Scott: Times, sure. I mean, downtown, I mean, I went to University of the Arts, and so I spent a lot of time. Downtown in the mid to late nineties.

And I, I guess there are a lot of renovations happening, and so you’d see a dumpster and you, you know, you’re always looking for interesting stuff as an artist. Also, I mean, I kind of grew up on a skateboard, like skating around downtown and going to like love Park and City Hall every day. And do you

Roberta: still skate

Scott: much as I can.

It depends upon the weather. I mean, it’s a little more, but I mean, yeah, basically, I mean, any day that’s warmer than 60 or 65 and it doesn’t rain. I’ll try to go skate. So I mean, I’m kind of a compulsive practicer. One of many things, but

Roberta: Oh no, it’s all on the track. I was talking about looking, come on.

It’s all about everything. Everything is relevant. Right? Let’s get back to your inventory, which I find fascinating. You’ve got an itemization of objects including. Skateboard decks, as we just mentioned, every skateboard deck that I have worn out from 1991 to the present.

Scott: Yeah.

Roberta: And that is a formidable pile of decks and you’ve got them up high that’s near the ceiling.

Talk about the placement of where things went. This is a, an installation for our students. We have two students who are sitting and listening here that we working with this semester. T and Anjali and Hi students, students. And they’re very excited to be here, and we’re excited to have them, but they haven’t seen this.

So explain that. This is in a 33 foot tall space, right? And you use every inch of the space from the top, pretty much down to the floor. So talk and talk. And there’s scaffolding. So some things are up high on scaffolding. Some things are down low on the floor. Talk about the relation to the ceiling versus the floor.

It, was there a metaphorical relation, are skateboards closer to heaven than

Scott: No. There, I mean, so if you want me to describe the the installation in the most literal sense, I mean, I, I took just an 1100 square foot rectangular gallery space and built out the entire thing. I basically wanted to make something.

Akin to the experience of sort of exploring an abandoned building or an abandoned space. But in a, in a, a way that’s safe for viewers. And it’s sort of like a, a giant still life. A giant cluttered still life space at the center of the gallery. And there is a built environment that the viewers pass through that has a series of openings that show you views of this interior space.

And there are I. Different views of the same space that reveal different things. And it’s all in the center of the space is all life. Like objects from my life that have sort of accumulated. So just in the most direct descriptive sense, that’s what the show is. But I also wanted to create the experience of or a sensation of sort of going deeper and deeper and deeper and sort of further and further and further as the viewers progressed.

I mean, I don’t want to give too much away, but then I guess also if this is. If we’re doing this for posterity, the installation is now gone and there’s no chance to, I don’t know. I guess I’ll just describe it. I mean, I, I wanted to create a sensation of going further back in time as you progress deeper into the installation, and so I had the object that you encounter through these openings.

Basically begin with my current, sort of develop adult. Self and then had them progress sort of older and older and older in basically back into childhood at to, to the very beginning. I don’t know if that was the experience you had, but that was what I tried to create in reflection. But again, I’m giving too much away, you know, I mean, it, it feels uncomfortable to speak so directly about something that I just want people to go.

Experience.

Roberta: Well, we all understand that artists are not the best to explain what they made. Right. That’s my core understanding of art. It’s

Scott: someone else’s job.

Roberta: Yes. It’s better for the artists to maybe not even understand, and maybe artists don’t always understand what they have made until upon reflection 20 years later they understand.

Yeah. We should say that you, you had a similar but not exact. But similar installation at Marginal Utility in 2014. 2015.

Scott: Yeah,

Roberta: 2015. And that was an up and down and scaffolding. And there was a central still life as you called it. And so I wonder upon reflecting how things changed to change the installation between 2015 and 2024, what, what’s changed apart from time?

Or can you even describe what’s changed? Is that a fair question?

Scott: Some of the mechanical also, I should just, for people that haven’t seen it, describe, there are some mechanical elements of the show that are interactive. Where there is a mirror or two places where there’s a mirror that remove. To different positions and then pause at an angle and basically pick out and present to the viewer at one of the objects in the space.

So since the 2015 version, I’ve learned a bunch more about how to build, how to build things. So technically the show is a little bit different or better in that way, I would hope. There’s 10 more years added on my life. So I’m 10 years older and 10 years sadder. Oh.

Roberta: Wiser. Wiser.

Scott: Yeah. Well, well maybe, hopefully wiser.

I don’t know. I don’t know if we get wiser. So it’s different in that respect. So this space, well also, I should say, this is the first time I’ve ever had a budget in any project I’ve ever done.

Roberta: Oh, well that’s interesting of itself.

Scott: Better late than never. I had I had more resources than just my own resourcefulness, which was good.

So this was able to be more ambitious because one, the scale of the space and two, I had like some financial resources from the Andrati Fund.

Roberta: Yes, that’s great. Yes, we should mention ADE Fund. That’s good.

Scott: And thank them for that opportunity. It was pretty great. I,

Roberta: Speaking about some assistance. I know that there was a friend of yours from Texas. Richard explained to us and Matt that there was a friend of yours from Texas who’s a construction person and actually helped you create. The stairs, for example. And whatnot, so that it was constructed solid and all this kind of stuff.

Scott: So that’s my friend, Phil Jackson.

Roberta: Oh, I know Phil Jackson, the artist, right?

Scott: Yeah. He was a photographer also a friend of mine through skateboarding. He went to University of the Arts. Yes. For photography. Lived in New York. I know Phil Jackson. Absolutely. Yeah. Really, really excellent, excellent human being. He lives in Austin now and has actually become a very, very skilled builder, and I don’t have people sort of think of me as a carpenter sometimes, but I, I’m actually really terrible at carpentry.

Like, if it doesn’t fit on my work bench, I kind of don’t want to work on it. But Phil’s really good at building larger scale, things like that. And so when we got the go ahead for the project, I immediately asked Phil if he’d be willing to come spend some time in Philly and help me. So he came for two weeks and we figured out the initial staircase and that first room, the, like the initial room where the show begins.

Because I knew I wanted for the show, I wanted it to start sort of at the top. Then kind of wind down, down, down, down, down. So that means, you know, the first thing was how do we get the viewers up and then in a way that takes up the smallest footprint possible in the gallery and actually took us a whole day noodling around and measuring to figure out just the best place to build that first room.

And also how to get viewers up there because you know, you look at the SP Bruin Gallery with nothing in it, in its normal state and. You know, you see it as very empty, but it’s actually really full of stuff. And there, there is a lighting grid there that’s at 12 feet off the ground that you just sort of visually out of habit, you just tune out the lighting grid.

But it’s actually a pretty dense structure. That was almost always in the way of everything we were trying to do. So. It still, even in the current installation, it, it does kind of blend in, but man, that thing was a pain. It was in the way all the time, and it took us a lot of work to figure a way to build a conventionally scaled staircase that would take people through the lighting grid.

In a way that wouldn’t take up an enormous footprint in the space.

Roberta: It talks to how much engineering went into this project, in addition to the materials that you’ve Yeah. Collected and arranged. Yeah.

Scott: Yeah.

Roberta: There was huge engineering that you undertook to do this.

Scott: Yeah. I mean, we figured out the staircase, the mechanical stuff I sort of figured out as I went, my intention was to have all of the mechanical things working before.

Because the, the technically the residency was June, July and August. I intended to have all the mechanical stuff worked out. Functioning in the spring before I started in the space, and I could just bring it in and put it wherever it ended up. I sort of lost my day job last year at the Want tomaker organ.

Oh no. Yeah, I mean, I was there 17 years and 10 months, and they gave us three days notice and two weeks severance.

Roberta: So what are they going to do? Who’s going to take over the organ?

Scott: Oh, I, I mean, it’s a long story, but there was a person, this is a change of subject, but there was a person on staff from Macy’s who, who technically worked for the parades.

Studio in New York. He got laid off in Jan. We got laid off in September of 23, I believe, and then Matt got laid off in January of 24. The guy that runs the nonprofit. Who I won’t speak too much of, but he’s the guy that laid everybody off. He has sort of become the by default curator of the organ. And it’s a bad idea, but that’s another story.

What I, what I was saying is I intended to have all of my mechanical stuff worked out before I started working in the space, but life intervened and that didn’t work out. It was you speak of the engineering. Like I, I had less time to figure that out than I would’ve liked, but that’s, I guess that’s how it goes.

Roberta: Necessity. Well, we should, I should say, and Ryan. Probably too. We love the interactive things. Yeah. They were really, really well laid out and you had to discover them. It was not like, here’s an arrow pointing to something or other you’re supposed to touch. It was a little subtle. Yeah. But Ryan got it immediately, so I followed in his path.

Scott: Yeah. One of the things that I really wanted to do with this opportunity is make a space. In the show that was accessible. Like, this was really important to me because in 2015 it was not possible for me to do that. I was like, okay, this is, I actually have resources and I have a, a grant and a space.

And so I did end up making an area that the entire show is built on top of an additional area that is very uncomfortable if you’re standing up. Because the ceiling is so low. But if you’re sitting down in a wheelchair, it’s a perfect height to my intention. But you talk about the interactive areas I.

I wanted to have a third sort of interactive mirror mechanism at that lower level that could be used to basically point the mirror anywhere in the space and let people explore that central space from in the accessibility area. And I just plain ran out of time and that’s my fault for not being able to plan effectively enough.

But anyway, in the future I, I guess I’ll just. Keep going, but I don’t know. That is a, one of the ways I didn’t succeed in the show is, but it was not nearly as developed as I intended

Ryan: a unique space. We did explore that. Lower under, under the other section there. Yeah.

Roberta: It was stooped our way through.

We didn’t get in the wheelchair. Okay. There’s a nice wheelchair right there that people can sit in if they want to go through it that way. I love that setup. It was beautiful. Yeah.

Scott: Well, I tried. I, I don’t know. I mean, my intention was I wanted to have an area, like a, a part that would sort of come down from the ceiling there that would stop sort of almost like the height of a desk, right?

So that you could, in the wheelchair, roll your legs, sort of like underneath the desk and have a. Almost like a periscope coming down that you would look into, and then you’d be able to move, like through, like touch controls, similar to the second mirror in the show. You’d be able to direct a mirror and sort of explore the space visually from a position underneath, but I, I just couldn’t, I just couldn’t get it done.

Roberta: I mean, you did a lot. You needed a six month residency, not three months. You know?

Scott: Yeah, I, I think that would’ve been put an end to my life. I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining, but I mean, it was, I like, I’ve never worked so hard for such an extended period of time. I mean, I was there like 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

June, July, August, and half of September. And I mean, it was like, wake up, eat a sandwich, and then just. Go straight back to what I was working on, whether I was working on the mechanical stuff in the studio here, or working on site there. I mean, but I mean, my approach was if I’m going to drive all the way to Arcadia, I’m going to stay 12 hours.

If I got, if I make myself go all the way there, I’m not leaving until I work for 12 hours and then clean up, you know.

Ryan: It felt like you built the house inside of a room.

Scott: Yeah. It was about that. No, it was about that scale. Yeah. And it was, it was about the same level of construction quality as half of these houses they’re building pulled up too, which is to say built it with a reckless haste.

Yeah.

Roberta: Well, that sounds like the life of an artist though, wasn’t it? Yeah.

Scott: Yeah. Oh, I, I mean, oh yeah. I guess I’m lucky that I get to work on something. I care about that much.

Roberta: So talk about clockwork and clock fixing and clock making and all that, because that’s part of what you do and

Scott: now. Yeah, now it is.

Well I mean, I, so I went to school for furniture making at University of the Arts. Did that for a while and managed to slowly build up my own, my own workspace. And then, but I always wanted to learn machining and sort of like how to make mechanical things out of metal and I just didn’t know where to go to learn that.

And then in 2017 I met a guy named David Lindo, who was a clock maker. He lived outside Scranton, Pennsylvania, and he just was an amazing and supportive mentor. And he said, we have a guest room. Come, come up, come to my shop, bring something to work on. Like, and I was like, okay. I don’t know. In 2017, I started spending weekends or a week here, a week there, living at my friend David’s house, in his guest room and just working in his shop every day.

He has a, a, a shop space that’s in the downstairs of his barn. I mean, it’s a very rural, it’s called Lake Ariel, PA. It’s a very small rural town. So

Roberta: does he make a living from this or is this I don’t know,

Scott: he doesn’t know either. He’s a he was a manufacturer of clock movements and he had, we raised four children while doing this.

So I, I, I think things have changed a lot in the, in the clock world. And he has since started a foundation called the Plumer Foundation, which is focused on ornamental turning la and that is now they’re building a building outside of Pittsburgh. So when he started doing that, I think in 29. Teen, it was just pre, a little bit pre covid.

He couldn’t or didn’t want to or have time to work on the clock movements anymore, and so he passed one. One of the clock movements in his business, he passed off to me, so he’s sort of like my clock making mentor. I, I manufacture these things called banjo clocks, which is just a, a small time only clock movement made of brass.

The design is from 1802 and it’s kind of unchanged since then. And I think I’m, I am the, the last like manufacturer of this particular type of clock movements in the us. So mostly they’re purchased by woodworkers who want to make a clock, but which for them means the, the, the case. So some of the ones to make a clock case and they don’t want to put a crappy battery powered quartz movement in it.

You know, they want to put an actual, like weight driven wind up clock movement.

Roberta: Wow.

Scott: So I make, I mean, I haven’t, I’ve made maybe two dozen of them.

Roberta: Really?

Scott: Yeah. Which is not that many.

Roberta: Seems like a lot to me. It’s a rather niche market.

Scott: I get. Well, it is small. I mean, you know, how about how to make a small fortune in clock making you know about this?

Roberta: No.

Scott: You can make a small fortune in clock making by starting with a large fortune and working full-time for 10 years.

Roberta: Work it down.

Scott: Yeah, I’m working on that except without the fortune part. Yeah, so that’s, I mean, so that’s clocks. But most people that describe themselves as a clock maker, really what they mean is they, they restore clock movements, which is a whole nother thing.

And I, I don’t do very much of that. I mean, I, I can a little bit, I have restored some clock movements. I’ve never had the experience of working in a clock shop where there was a, a, a constant stream of different types of movements coming through. So I, I mean, I’m, I am, I’m far from an expert, but, there is one type of clock movement that I do know how to make and have made a lot of, so that’s partly what I’m working on these days

Roberta: for. That’s the banjo clock, right?

Scott: The banjo clock movements, yeah. Yeah. Almost done with a website that people can go to purchase them. All right. Let, let’s talk, that’s that.

Roberta: Talk about if you could, your connection to the Masonic. Is it a religion or practice?

Scott: Yeah, it’s, it’s certainly not a religion. Okay. The Masonic Temple, I mean, so the, the, the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia in particular is right across the street from City Hall. It’s a, I think the building had its hundred and 50th anniversary last year.

I mean, it’s a fraternity. There’s, there’s a, I guess there’s a lot to talk about, but it’s an old organization. My maternal grandfather was a member of one of the lodges in that building There. I, I don’t know, in terms of my personal connection to it in 1996, I had, I was a sophomore in college at University of the Arts Center.

I, and I knew, basically I knew art students and I knew skateboarders, and that was it. I had just moved back to Philadelphia and I’d been reading about Freemasonry and I saw that building there and I thought, wow, this is. Crazy. Look at this, look at this crazy building. And so I just walked in the side door and went to the first person at a desk that I saw and, and said, I’ve been reading about this.

It seems fascinating, and I’d like to join. And then eventually, I mean, I sort of kept after them a little bit. And then, I don’t know, 1997 I joined harmony Lodge, number 52, which is one of the Masonic lodges that meets in the building there. I don’t know, that’s. My experience. I mean, I, what else would you like to know?

Roberta: Well, how does it impact, is there a, an ethos that impacts your art making? In other words, it’s an old organization, you, you call this Yes, a fraternity. Fraternity means there’s community. So I see a lot of community in what you do. You’re revealing yourself. It’s very vulnerable what you did. I want to say I, I think anytime an artist puts themselves out there, it’s vul.

They’re vulnerable to criticism or misunderstanding, and that takes a lot of guts to do that. So I, yeah, really applaud that. But the fraternity aspect, the community aspect, the sort of. Tutorial mentorship. I mean, to see you as someone who has at your core, an educator ethos, that you’re talking to people in your art, not only explaining what you’re doing and revealing yourself and aren’t I great and this is my life, but it’s like, think about this and you’re trying to imbue a certain.

Thought process through your art for people to pick up and think about. So you don’t necessarily want them to think only about you when they’re, when they’re going through your installation. Right. It’s not about that. So explain,

Scott: okay. There, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot there in what you just said. I’m not sure which of those threads to pick up.

Roberta: Yeah. I’m not sure either. But just pick one out and go for it.

Scott: But well.

Roberta: Does it come from Masonry? Masonry? No temples, right? Temples are sacred places.

Scott: Well, yeah. I mean, there’s I mean the masonic, there’s, it, it, it’s so basically the like, I mean, it’s a little hard to describe, but, so free masonry is kind of like an oral tradition that’s very long and it’s, the whole thing is sort of based on ritual and that like, and ritual is kind of a weird word, and, and it, you can, you can hear it the wrong way.

It just means there’s a, a predetermined way that you start the meeting, you read the notes of the, the minutes of the previous stated meeting. Like, it, it’s kind of like a, a like a preset way to do things that’s kind of unchanged and that’s sort of the, the point of it. And I certain, and that’s one of the aspects that I like.

But in terms of community, I mean, I don’t know. There’s a lot of, there’s a lot to what you just said, and I’m not sure where to go with it, but I don’t know it. But in terms of the personal aspect of, of the work I mean, you’re absolutely correct. I mean, it is pretty vulnerable. But you know, there’s always the question of like, who cares?

Like why? Like, why, why should anybody care? And I don’t know that they should in from one point of view, but then from another point of view, I feel like as an artist, everyone, as an artist, you have to depart from the position that. It matters as in like your starting point needs to be the idea that what you do matters.

Yeah. Like you, you just have to start there and, and I mean, it has to matter to you anyway. In the end, I feel like nothing matters. I, I don’t know where I’m going with this, but I don’t know, just make what you want to see and nobody can stop. You just go do it. You know what I mean? I, I don’t know. I like, I, I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t know where I’m going with this.

I don’t have a prerecorded. I don’t have a preplanned speech, but

Roberta: I appreciate all this rambling and I’m sorry I let you know. Yeah.

Scott: Well, that’s all I’m good for is rambling. I, I think people’s experience matters. And

Ryan: do you think your current show had a, has a ritual or were you trying to express a ritual?

When I was experiencing it, it felt like there was some religious overtones in the, with all the wood. And like the, the, the energy that I was getting was very much not like you were stepping into a temple or a synagogue or a church of some kind, but there was definitely some sort of connection to that experience.

Scott: interesting. Well, I guess I should also say like, I am not religious at all. Yeah. Like I am, I am, I am not religious at all, but I love churches. I mean, I worked on I think. Oh, I don’t know. But what was your question? Like you were saying, does it seem religious? I mean, there’s, I, I like the undisturbed aspects that, that you often find in places like churches where it’s just.

They made a beautiful and careful space, and then they just left it alone. They just left it alone and took care of it for a hundred years. Do you know what I mean? I think that’s, that’s an aspect that, that I like about, like religious spaces. I think maybe like what you’re talking about. Okay. Like I, I like undisturbed spaces.

I, I, I like, and it’s, it’s funny that those, I think there’s an aspect of. Undisturbed spaces that I feel like Joseph Cornell has in his work, if you know what I’m talking about. Like the spaces that are left undisturbed are often spaces that are unoccupied, if that makes any sense. Like attics and store rooms and interstitial sort of places that aren’t occupied very often.

And there’s something that I like about that. I mean, the whole, the show is sort of like a big metaphor, a big giant. Like a metaphor for like a big giant walkthrough version of the unconscious. Do you know what I mean? I mean, I mean quite, quite intentionally. I mean, I mean that first mirror that you encounter, but I intended that room to have a door on it so that you would have to actually open a door and go through.

That first doorway that’s there, but it ended up not, like, literally not fitting. And I didn’t have a, I didn’t have time to solve the problem of making a sliding door or something, but I really wanted that first room to sort of be the starting place. And then I feel like you descend from there, but that like, you know, if you remember the, there’s the mirror and the sort of shelf and, and basically that’s just like, I mean, the title is Rumination Mirror, but that’s like the bathroom mirror at 4:00 AM.

When you can’t sleep, you know, it’s, it’s just sort of, I just tried to build a literal version of just overthinking your life and things that have happened, you know, from that mirror. And then you can, if you want, just descend from there and just burrow as deep into it to the bottom, if you want, is really what I tried to create.

I don’t know if this makes any sense.

Roberta: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

Scott: Or if it matches your experience of the work. I don’t know.

Roberta: Well talk about the words because rumination, you don’t ruminate with someone else. You ruminate by yourself. Right? Isn’t that generally the connotation of the word? So it’s of course, yes.

You’re going to ruminate at this mirror and then look out beyond and keep ruminating. It’s, it’s all about ruminating throughout the whole space. Except for if you go through it with a buddy and you’re talking and you’re not ruminating, I guess you’re having a conversation. Yeah. Unless there’s a rumination.

I do. You know, you’ve got two people ruminating at the same time, but, and you also use the word transitional. Somewhere in some of the writeup about this piece, there is transitional, always changing, perpetual motion. Those sorts of ideas that, yeah, add up to a life actually. I mean, what is a life, if not ever changing and transitional?

We’re always in a transitional space,

Scott: but where do I go? Well, so transitional, I mean, at the end, the last thing is my transitional object, which is actually like if you look up the. Like it’s a psychological term, but it’s basically your transitional object is, it’s like your, you know, your, your childhood teddy bear or your comfort blanket, blank.

Linus is blanket, like your, it, it’s like literally technically your first possession, like a as, as a human. I mean, and you can look up the psychology of it, but it’s like the. You know, it’s like your comfort object. So that’s where the word transitional is in there. And, and that’s what my other, the 2015 show was named Transitional objects.

So that’s where that word comes from. And you talk about, it’s funny you talk about community and I was joking with someone about. I forget who. It was someone that came to visit when I was working on the, you know, building the show and they were talking about art and community, and I was like, I, I want people to come to my show and feel alone.

I want them to go in there and feel alone. I, there’s no community. Oh my

Roberta: God, you’re so right. That’s ridiculous.

Scott: I mean, you’re alone. I mean, in the, in the way that you’re like alone inside your solitary self. You know, no one knows you the way you know your solitary self. Isn’t it great when we can successfully invite someone else in?

I, I don’t know.

Roberta: It is, it is. Great. I just want to ask, I think we should wrap it up. We could go on for another hour. I want to ask, what’s your relationship to the digital world? You obviously have this robust relationship to the non-digital world. Well, the world of material, so yeah. Are you on the internet at all?

Scott: Yeah, I mean, I have like a completely normal Instagram, like, although I should say weirdly, I don’t, there isn’t any easy place for you, for people to go and look up my artwork on the internet, and I, I should probably change that. But my, my, like day to day, I don’t know. Bread and butter, you know, income work I, I put on Instagram.

I’ve got a Facebook somewhere that I almost never look at, I think, but I, I do, I do go on the internet. I don’t spend a lot of time there.

Roberta: Whatever do you, do, you save things. I mean, people have various ways of dealing with the internet. You can copy a link, you could bookmark something, you could. Download something and then save it somewhere else.

Do you do any of that sort of thing? It seems archiving, you know, in the way that there was archiving in your piece of materials.

Scott: Not so much on the internet, no. I mean, something I meant to mention before is like part, partly what the show is made of. It, it, like for me is, is like, and I’m not the only artist, it’s like this, but it’s almost like my past is intrusive.

Like I pick up any, like anything that’s in here, like whatever object. And all of a sudden I just unintentionally remember where it came from, who gave it to me, what was going on in my life when I got it. And I like all this sort of information that’s attached to the thing, just swims up to mind whether I like it or not.

And I think lot, you know, lots of people have that, but I. Partly that’s what the show was composed of, and the locations of the objects are sort of related to that. To answer your question from 20 minutes ago, digitally archiving things, I don’t, I I, I probably should be better about that, but I don’t really spend a lot of time online.

I mean, I I

Ryan: have did yourself any notes from the previous show to this show, like, leave yourself so, or make something specifically in this show as a note to yourself from yourself. From your past offer or to your future software? Something along those lines in this show?

Scott: Oh, well, yeah. I mean, there, there, there’s a cabinet in the show that has like sketchbooks going back to the beginning of my, I mean, back into the early nineties, and I, I take a ton of notes on these, like note cards.

I mean, I don’t know, I just always have like kind of note cards on hand. I mean, like I said, in the inventory, like I, I do, I consider list making as a constructive form of worry. So, I mean, I make a lot of lists. I don’t know. I could be kind of scatterbrained for sure. So it does help me to write things down.

Ryan: Did you leave yourself any Easter eggs that like only you specifically would enjoy seeing, knowing how, how much internal materials there were, like personal

Scott: materials?

Ryan: Oh,

Scott: in the show? Yeah. I mean, I think in a way the whole thing is like that, but. I don’t know. I mean, there are things for individual people that they would probably see and be able to pick out, like friends that I have or, you know, loved ones.

But I don’t know if I’ve left too much for myself in there. So you left them notes in a way. Yeah. I mean, there are, there are things for, for people to see, I think that people that know, that know who they are. What was I going to say? So I, I know we’re running out of time and this is another topic, but I want to ask like so.

What’s going to happen? What are we going to do with art? I mean, the University of the Arts is gone. PA kind of sort of gone, I mean, hanging in there and certificate and stuff. But like, are there, is there still going to be like fresh energy coming to Philadelphia? Like, what’s going to happen? What are we going to do?

This is really important to me. I know we don’t have time to answer this question, but I mean, I do you, I want to ask you like, what are you, like the, the two of you? What’s your, what’s your quick thought on this?

Roberta: It’s up to you, Scott, to change the world.

Scott: I mean within arm’s reach I try, but, but …

Roberta: That’s all you can do. I think that’s what’s going to happen within Arm’s Reach. We’re all going to change the world and help each other. Yeah. I, you know, we can’t put the URS back together. We can’t put PA back together, but we can do something amongst ourselves that makes ourselves happier and Yeah. And nurturing to younger people coming up who want to be artists.

There will always be artists, you know, people need, it’s a human need to make art. We have to find a way to nurture the children and make art available to them so that they can produce in the future the art that we all are going to need to go forward.

Scott: Yeah,

Roberta: That’s a really bummer note to leave it on.

Scott: Let’s talk, let’s talk about something that’s good.

Okay. So if, if few people can there’s, I should say, I, I don’t know. There’s, so there’s this artist named Paul et Lincoln. Don’t know if you know him. He’s probably my favorite living artist and a, a very great friend. He finally has a decent website put together, so he is ahead of me in that respect.

It it, it doesn’t work very well on phone, but if you have a normal, bigger sized screen, like a laptop or desktop, go to paul etan lincoln.com. And look at his work. Love the guy. Shout out to, to Paul Lincoln. I don’t know. There’s also a, a, like a large list of people who rose friends that rose to the occasion and really saved me with this show.

Because there’s no, I mean, I didn’t get done on time. I missed the opening deadline, as you know, but it would’ve been much, much worse if not for all the people that are listed in the thank you in the, the inventory also. So thanks to. The friends that are there, which I won’t list. What else? That’s

Roberta: great.

You, I mean, this is a great little book, a great takeaway that you made for people to have your list. Yeah, and I love the way you categorize your list as, what did you say? Something. It’s a really good way to get rid of your worries. Something like that. That’s a misquote. But we got, oh, I said

Scott: list making is a constructive form of worry.

Roberta: Yes. Constructive form of worry. I love that.

Scott: Yeah.

Roberta: Well, you know, like I said, we could go on and on. Oh, I did want to ask you about dots. How’s dots?

Scott: Oh, she’s great. She’s just over in the other room. My a dot, my African great parrot, she’s she’s wonderful.

Roberta: How old is she now?

Scott: Great. She is 23. Wow. Yeah.

Roberta: Did you have her as a, a wee one?

Was she a little one when you got her?

Scott: When I got her, she was three and a half months old, so she was just weaned. She was about the same size that she is now. Wow. But a lot, we were both a lot younger. Yeah.

Roberta: Well that’s great. Does, does dot say any words to you?

Scott: Oh, yeah. She says all kinds of things. I mean, like, what?

Well, she’ll say she’ll, she sort of generally says what she wants. Like she’ll say, want to go back, which normally means she wants to you to take her back to her cage or take her away from wherever she is. She asks for like grape or paper or she’ll just say, want some? Want some, want some, like you can’t chop vegetables in the kitchen without her starting up with the want sum.

She says, I love you. She says, I love you bird. What else? I don’t know. She’s got all kinds of things that she says, whatever. That’s great. Kind of going on.

Roberta: So does she see you as a bird? When she says, I love you, bird. Is that you?

Scott: Oh, well, she’s just sort of repeating, but yeah, I don’t, I don’t know. She probably thinks that she’s a person and we’re just really mean to her and keep her in a cage.

Roberta: Yes. She’s a person. Definitely.

Scott: Yeah, she’s, she’s, she’s pretty happy. I think, you know, I’ve got a spot in every space and bring her around in whatever room I’m working in, you know.

Roberta: Nice. Yeah. Nice. So

Scott: it’s great. I I, I recommend Parrot says pets. They’re, I think they’re great. I don’t know. Yeah. It’s a good city pet.

Roberta: Yeah. And they’re happy. Happy is so important. That’s what we all need. That’s what’s going to help us get through in the future. Happy.

Scott: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. True. Just a

Roberta: little bit of happy.

Scott: No, a good amount. Okay. It’s good amount. A good amount.

Roberta: Alright, Scott,

Scott: we’ll keep up the good work.

Roberta: Thank you. Likewise, and we’ll be in touch with, have a good rest of the day.

Thank you, Ryan. Great to

Scott: see you. Thanks for your patience.

Roberta: Thanks

Scott: so much.

Roberta: Great to see you. All right. Take care, bye bye.