The drinking was fun when I met Kris Victor. He introduced me to martinis, dirty martinis where you just thought hard about the vermouth. And Dorthey Parker was right 1 Martini, 2 Martini, 3 Martini, Floor. Two was my limit but damn were they good. And we always had fun. There was the night we lost his Edsel in San Francisco’s mission district. We were at a sake bar where the bartender was wearing nothing but a satin shift slip over a bra and a spunky attitude. True, it was San Francisco, so every bartender had an attitude. Frankly even the baristas, and I can attest because I’d been one. Hot sake went down easy. And when we left the joint, we went back to where we thought we’d left the car and found it wasn’t there. Now Edsels are funny cars. Yes, the puckered lemon grill is distinctive as is its reputation. But the 1958 car ran great and its unpopularity meant Kris had picked it up for maybe $800- $1200. And the last known theft of an Edsel had been 20 years prior. That’s right they were such ill thought of cars that thieves let them be, but ours totally gone. We walked up and down the block several times. We went down a couple more blocks just in case. Now I kept seeing this other Edsel on the wrong side of the street from where we remembered parking. I suggested we look at it, but Kris was adamant—he hadn’t parked there. The third time we retraced our steps I insisted. There it was in all it’s glory. We laughed and blamed it on the sake.
We were both working during the day. I was working in house at the pewter foundry, Fellowship Foundry, Kris was all over doing odd jobs for Robert at Streetlight Records. At night, with a drink, Kris would sit in his double seat rocking chair and smoke and sculpt. It wasn’t going fast but it was going. The sculpture he was working on was a jaguar cat who evolved out of a dowel with a round ball end. The plastilina would get too soft in his hands, then he’d have to put it down, usually after an accidental smoosh. He had so many hours in on that one sculpture but it was going to be a work of art, it just needed a little bit more streamlining. The shoulder and the hips were too wide. I’m not sure why it happened but I knew it had to do with the drinking. I don’t recall if I was at his little shack in Pacific Grove or on the phone to him from my studio in San Francisco, but he got frustrated and threw the sculpture against a wall scraping the entire thing. I was devastated. He shrugged and said he could just make it again… he never did. I still have feelings about this.
I quit my job in the bay area and Robert hired me as a personal assistant up in Big Sur where he lived. I moved in with Kris and really there was so much going on dildos took a back seat. My office overlooked a strip of Pfeiffer Beach which at the time was owned by Ted Turner and Jane Fonda. Bob’s neighbors on the ridge were the “Tuckerberrys”, Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker who were big stars from the series LA Law. The road up Pfeiffer Ridge was one lane and it was dirt and it was treacherous depending on the weather. The Tuckerberrys didn’t care. The rules of the road (If you’re going uphill, you have the right of way) didn’t apply to them. Hollywood. It was an incredible place to work though. Robert found misfits. He had found Kris. Kris had recommended our accordion playing next door neighbor. There was a local part time guy (names are eluding me)- an electrician who lived in a renovated hen coupe on another pristine property and who was one of the volunteer fire fighters. And Juan who lived in the glass and cement “studio,” the reason the Coastal Commission had been created. Yes, my office was in the building that looked like it was a bank dropped in the middle of nowhere, on the top of a coastal hill. Boat captains used it for guidance at night. Neighbors wanted to blow it up. Built by the kids of a big publisher, no one had ever lived in it until Juan. He was the caretaker and when he found a deer killed roadside, there might be jerky drying on all the railings. It actually was a great studio. Lots of light. Unfortunately, the elevator upstairs and out to the rooftop patio was broken. The custom-made dining table had suffered severe water damage because the place leaked like a sieve. It was post-modern architecture where you saw all the industrial features proudly displayed like wires, so it didn’t look finished.
In my office, Kris had welded a beautiful desk that went the whole width of the glass windows. It had glorious drips of metal coming to the floor and curved elbows that were designed in case you needed to hold something midair. It was Robert’s custom desk and he hit up the architectural magazines and who’d who in building, to have his team hired for other metal projects.
No jobs came from it, but I enjoyed it immensely. While I am not sure I actually did anything of consequence working for Bob, he seemed to think I was very important. I took care of the Pfeiffer Ridge Water organization which was made up of all the neighbors to clean the wells for the entire ridge which happened to sit on his property. I answered the phone when the general manager of the stores called, and would run and get answers to his questions. I sifted so much garbage from his files and organized them as best I could. I also got to listen to great music on an amazing stereo system and play a lot of solitaire on the computer. And when a glass blower taught a class in the studio, I made certain it ran well and we had food for the reception. I had lots of time and Bob had lots of art books. I would peruse them and image dildo bas reliefs.
When I got a phone call offering me management of the Colorado Renaissance Festival booth for Fellowship, Kris hadn’t had a vacation in five years. Bob rearranged his vacation so they’d be in cinq and we went off to Colorado. It was 5 weeks in the hills between Denver and Colorado Springs. We each brought our kids and we put them to work. Athena was 7 and Zach was about 12. They worked as runners, they worked as relief, they restocked, they had a blast and Athena showed Zach the glory of being a fair brat. Doing fair was good for all of us and so we ran away with the show.
We came back and gave Bob notice, as Randy who owned the foundry lined up a circuit for us. We started with Harvest Festivals back in the Bay Area, working in house as needed, and come mid January we headed to Florida. We made a home base in Ocala near Gainesville. There were no shows there but Kim and Scarlet were amazing hostesses. Kris had worked with Kim at Museum Services and we were quickly brought into the family. We were long term house guests and we knew how to do it right. We actually slept in our cab over camper out front, but each day they went to work and we cleaned up there home, made dinner for them and drinks. It was warm and I was making Pina Colada’s pitcher after pitcher. We had a show in Hollywood Fl for 6 weeks, where we picked up my ex-lover Chris
as our employee (one big incestuous family, plus he’s reading this and said I could post pictures) and then back up to Kim and Scarlets, four days at Ringling in Sarasota, another 4 in Vizcaya in Miami, then back up to Kim and Scarlets. Fellowship had booked us art and craft fairs to keep us busy between costumed events. When we left Florida, we headed up to Crozet Virginia and then Harrisburg Pennsylvania. Over to Colorado again then back up to Minnesota, finally we had a go at a tent in the Texas Renaissance Festival, then back to California for more holiday Harvest Festivals. No one had exactly the same circuit as we did, but we made friends with the roaming Renaissance circuit travelers and with those in the art circuit. The adventures with both were absolutely unforgettable. Did we get any dildos made? Not until year 2.
Kris did get to do a lot of casting though. Part of the show, especially at the big shows, was doing a demo. Randy had sent us a pot, some pewter and some artwork that Kevin O’Hare his artist had created. We made pendants mainly, but Kris would also make porringers and forks for the performers. And after a while, he started making his own pieces. Celtic stag, fools, a Thor’s hammer, things that struck his fancy or someone had requested. He was good at showmanship. I was good at running things and keeping him sober enough to do the last demo of the day.
Somewhere in the second year there was a puppet maker named Crystal who helped make all these incredible sprites, gnomes and fairies out of filo with cloth bodies. Each hand sculpted head had a different expression. They were magical. Each hand sculpted arm with hand and each leg with foot though, those were just time consuming. One day on a park bench in Hollywood Florida Kris did an impromptu class in mold making. He got a couple of tubes of silicone caulk, some water, a box and took one of their sculptures and showed them how easily it was to make a quick and dirty mold.
We called Douglass and Sturgess, 1-800-ART-STUF, back in the Bay Area and got sculpting supplies sent to us. That’s when we really started taking the dildo idea seriously.