<Begin Segment 59>

AI: Well, before we get too far ahead I wanted to mention also that it was, wasn't it the late '80s or 1988 when you received the commission to do the mural, here in Seattle for the Westlake Mall station of the Metro bus system.

RS: Yeah, and that's something that I've avoided my entire career, were possible opportunities to do public art projects. Because I always heard from friends of mine, especially up here in Seattle, that they were real nightmares to deal with and to get work approved by committee was just awful, and I believed it and I understood that. But when the Westlake mural came up and I got the information, I just rejected it. I just threw it away as usual. And then just forgot about it. And then months after, I guess, they made their decisions, which was not to accept anybody that submitted. They called me up again and said, "We've picked out three artists that we would like to do the three murals and you're one of them." And I was very suspicious. I didn't think, I wasn't sure that was even legal, to tell you the truth. But apparently it was, that there was some caveat that allowed them to do that if they weren't pleased with any of the submissions. And so I repeated, I said, "Are you sure this, what I did would not have to be approved by anybody?" And they said, "No, absolutely not." And they were very upfront. They said, "What we will do, however, is we'll take your design and we'll send it all over the state, at every venue you could think of to rid it of controversy, to explain it. And we assume that you will use a certain amount of common sense in design," so that's where the sort of... and so I submitted this design, this 3 x 9 foot design on paper and interestingly enough, Fay Jones, and Gene McMahon who both submitted entries, got all the controversy. And it was all about their depictions of women -- especially Gene McMahon -- women with makeup and putting on makeup and all this, perpetuating that stereotype. And there was no controversy about mine. And there should have been because of the inclusion of four Disney items -- from the standpoint of copyright. But at the time I actually thought I was covered. I thought I was safe and when attorneys for Metro called me up in Kansas and said, "We're concerned about the fact that you've got these Disney -- are we gonna get in trouble for that?" And I innocently said, "This has all been settled in the courts, don't worry about it." And was convincing enough that they said, "Okay, fine, we just wanted to know. Because if they come at us, they're not gonna come at you, they're gonna come at us." And I said, "Don't worry about it." And then I found out I lied. And I found out I lied when I got sued for another painting for copyright infringement, and found out, no, this hasn't been settled. And, but then again, that's another separate story, too.

MT: But the Westlake mural is still up?

RS: It's still up and vulnerable. All it would take is some overzealous attorney for Disney and there would be problems because it is totally illegal. Now they won't, they'll turn their back on one-time usage, and that's how I've gotten away with using Disney in so many of my paintings. They don't care about that stuff. In fact, they'll even organize shows occasionally to show how people appropriated their images. But the minute it goes on a public art piece or is reproduced, there are problems.

AI: And for people who don't know, this particular bus tunnel station is the major downtown stop in the Metro system. So --

RS: Right.

AI: Seen by many people.

RS: One other interesting story was that after the mural was built and installed and everything else and they were putting together all the material for the big public opening, they asked us for statements about the piece. And asked us how the piece related to Westlake Mall, and the three of us were on the phone talking to each other saying, "What?" You know, none of us thought, none of us had to do with Westlake Mall. And so I came up with the most beautiful statement about the diversity of people that go through Westlake Mall and so on and so forth. And they were so pleased with it, which tells you something about art.

MT: Or arts administrators. [Laughs]

RS: Right, right.

<End Segment 59> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.