 Hi, welcome to On the Waterfront. I'm your host, Mariah Riggs, and this month I'm really excited to have as my guest artist David Stoltz. Hi, David, and welcome to the program. Thank you. Glad to be here. So David, let's get into the very beginning. David is actually one of my favorite, has actually come to Vermont Artists. Oh, thank you. His work is quite remarkable, and so I felt very excited to get him on the show. So David, let's kind of go back, get a little refresher for our audience. So David, you were born in New York City. I was born in Brooklyn, New York. Yeah, you were born in Brooklyn, which is New York. For most people, you're born in Brooklyn. And you went into the military, you were raised in New York, and then when you got out of the military in 1963, you decided to pursue art. So what led you to wanting to pursue art? What led me to where? Wanting to pursue art. Well, I started doing art when I was like two years old. I mean, it was just in me, you know, and I've done so many drawings in my life. In fact, my mother said that I was doing, did drawings of Daffy Duck when I was like two and a half. That's amazing. So it just comes out of me, and drawing is, in a lot of ways, what my work is about. Mm-hmm. If you, it really comes out of drawing as a foundation. Well, a lot of great art is foundational in the fact that it starts with drawing, and then moves from there. And so you knew, you knew when you got out of the military that that was where you wanted to go. Yes, because I was always doing art, and I was very fortunate in my teen years to actually work with a man who was very, who was good friends with Jackson Pollock and Wilhelm de Kooning and the abstract expressionist, and he was himself a very good artist. And I learned so much. I was working with him more than I was going to school. So then... Which probably served you better. Don't listen to that. Students at school. But yes. Yeah. I mean, for me, you know, school was not the answer. The answer for me was to make art. And so in 1963, where did you go study art? Well, I started at the Art Students League. And what is that? And I went there in Manhattan. Okay. So it's an art school in Manhattan. One of those schools where everybody went. You know, and then at that point, I was really, very quite lucky. And I had great teachers from the beginning. I had John Havanus, who was well-known. I had Jose DeCrift, who I asked him one day after I wanted an apprentice. And he said, go to Bill Zorak. And Bill Zorak or William Zorak, Z-O-R-A-C-H. So I went to see him. He lived in Brooklyn Heights in one of those carriage houses. And I walked up the stairs, and his wife, Marguerite, took one look at me. And she said, Bill, hire me. He looks just like you. So he was... Right from the beginning, I had very good teachers. And I really looked for them. I mean, I wanted to get to a point where I really... If I was going to be good, I wanted to really know what it is to be good. And there's no substitute for that. You know, I've been very fortunate to know Henry Moore and people like Alexander Colder and have relationships with world-renowned critics like Clement Greenberg and so forth and artists, major artists. But also, that's not everything. You still need the other part. But that part was very much instilled in me. So when I left the Art Students League after two years, well, in between that, Bill Zorak got me a scholarship to go to a school called Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, which is not Portland, Maine, in Skowhegan, Maine, near Bangor. And there's where I met my ex-wife, and it was a very special time for me. And we were married for quite a few years. We went all over the world together and really we were great for each other. And then the years went by and we just separated afterwards, but 23 great years. That's a long time. That's enough. It's never enough, but it's enough. So what did you do after you got to the, after two years at the Art Students League? After the Art Students League, I always liked printmaking as well, and in those days, printmaking consists of lithographs, etchings, seriographs. They weren't like today when you say, I'm a graphic artist and you're on the computer. There were no computers. So I went to Pratt Institute for two years, and at that point, I was getting at you to get back to sculpture. And I said to Louise, my ex-wife, I said, look, I got to learn how to weld because they weren't teaching that. I really wanted to work in direct steel. And there was no way of doing it in the schools in 1965 or 66. They began it, but it wasn't really sophisticated. And so we moved to Peterborough, New Hampshire, and I met in Putney, Vermont. We moved to Putney from there, and I met Chuck Jennifer, another well-known sculptor, who became a very close friend of mine. He just passed away, but he's probably the biggest name in Vermont, or was the biggest name. And he was over in Putney, and he said, well, you know, go to Bennington. Isaac Wiccan needs some help. So we wound up in Bennington, which was another great move I made. So in those years, I was working in direct steel, and that was in heaven. And I was having show after show. And then we moved back to New York City in 1976, 75, 76. And then I really burst. I started doing these big environments. So you moved back to SoHo in 1975. Yes. And I have to ask you, as kind of a fangirl, what was SoHo like in 1975? In 1975, it was great. It was beginning to change, but not really. It began, I started showing in 1970. I was in the first one-man show. I was in a group show in what was called the 420 Building, which was the main building on Westford Way. And it had Leo Castelli, who was the heavyweight, his wife, Iliana. But they were separated, and had two separate floors. And I was in a group show that Clement Greenberg set up with Andre Emmerich, another great dealer. So all of a sudden, I was in the mainstream of the art world. And we wound up getting aloft 5,000 square feet. Don't even get me started about those things. 250,000 a month. OK, so you got a loft of 5,000 square feet in SoHo for how much? 250 a month. 250 a month. Wait, it gets better. We couldn't. I didn't know where my electricity was coming from. Had no clue. So years went by. And finally, they kind of got a con Edison came over after some, we left for 20 years. And after about 15 years, I said, you know, you've been getting free electricity. I said, well, I don't know. I don't know even where it comes from. So I said, oh, oh, we're going to have to pay a fortune. So they prorated it at $27 a month. So I didn't have to pay back. My whole loft cost me $27. So I was paying approximately $275 at that point. That's crazy. And then we got to own the loft. You did. Yeah. And that's a whole different story. Yeah. And it wasn't so great when you then all of a sudden you had maintenance that were very cheap when we moved in. But when putting in new elevators cost a fortune. Oh, yeah. Because probably you probably had to con in any of those. You have to go to CEOs and CEOs and all that stuff. And all of a sudden maintenance now, like for example, the loft I had, it was on Wusa Street, we took it over. I think we paid four and a quarter. That was maintenance. I think right now it's up to about 3,000 a month. So the artist in that building weren't any famous artists. I was more famous probably the most famous in that building. There were a lot of famous artists around there. But in my particular building, most of them were poor and struggling. And for that, they would rent their places. And if I was still living there, that's what I'd be paying. But there's one catch. The friend of mine who had the other space across the whole, I had 5,000 square feet. He had 5,000. And he sold his 5,000 for 16 million. Yeah, no, that sounds about right. So and at that point, we'd already gotten separated. And we wound up getting money. We took our shares. But in 1990, we sold the building for 500,000. Which sounds great. But that's not a lot of money by today's standards. No, by today's standards, it's terrifyingly nothing. And I had to prorate all my kids. My son first went to the University of Pennsylvania. Then he went to MIT. My daughter went to NYU. And I had to pay half of their schooling. So by the time I had my share and paid for this and that and this and that, I walked out of this office with everybody wearing these Armani suits and these lawyers and with $14,000. And my lawyer looks at me and she said, now remember, you have capital gains on that. I said, what? What? Oh, wow. That's funny. That's crazy. So anyway, you should have. Life of artists is never easy. She never moved. Love the rent control, right? She never should have gotten divorced. Yeah, well, that's valid too. That's a better way of looking at it. That's a better way of looking at it. But it happens. So how long were you in Soho? I was in Soho from 1975 to 1990. OK, so 15 years. And it changed. I'm sure it changed a lot during those 15 years. In that period, it began to change. And for example, I had a piece on two pieces on West Broadway, which is the main drag in Soho. And it was in quite a few movies, if you see, in Harry and Meets Sally. They had a big argument in front of my sculpture. OK, I'm totally, David, I'm going to take a look for that. Yeah, anyway, I had the sculpture up here. I put it up on the slides. Oh, good. And so you can see the one that they were in front of. Anyway, what I'm saying is that besides that, Soho was beginning, now today, it's just a high end. It's not even the same place. Clothing. What happened was that Soho, the artists weren't the brightest people in the world from a business standpoint. Of course, that's usually the problem. That's not where we are. So of course, light industry was what Soho is. And the business mind said, well, I'm a light industry. I'll put a sewing machine in the basement. And I'll have somebody stitch a couple of pieces of clothes and I can move in. And that's how I got started. That's why when Soho left, they moved to Chelsea because there were no visual store fronts. And that's how Chelsea came about. But now, a lot of the art world has moved over to Tribeca. This is kind of triangle. But the big galleries aren't giving up these spaces like the Gaussian and Pace. They can still do whatever they want to do. They can buy New York City. Exactly. And all the finance guys who now live in Soho can then buy new colors and buy everything. That's real. I mean, I have a very close friend who had a spectra photo which is on LaGuardia Place, which is right in Soho, and he owned a few buildings. And actually, he may be coming up here to see me. Very close friend. And so I go down to New York. I was seeing one of his rentals. He wasn't renting. He wasn't worried. He had so many. It was like $25,000 a month. Wow. Yeah, that's real. It's a big difference from 1975. Well, I was paying $200 a month. Yeah, at a zero, right? That's New York. That's significant, yeah. Well, it's everywhere now. So in 19. To be an artist today, put it that way, it really is. It is. That's a whole different philosophical question. But this is a very small point. I don't think it's a good idea to continue on this, but it's a good point. If I was to get oxacetylene, which is for cutting steel and so on, you rent those things. I can rent a container of oxygen about this size in 1970 for $19 a month, a container, not a month. And they deliver and take them back and refill it. That's the largest size you're allowed by law. The largest acetylene size would be about this high and about 2 and 1 half feet. That would be about $23 in 1970. If you were to get that oxygen today, one tank, $195 to $200. One tank that was settling, maybe $350. So the only people that are, art has changed. And I don't want to go too into this too deeply, but I came out of a situation where art is art. It doesn't really change that much. For example, I'm working with files now and things I didn't do when I was in 1960s and we had no computers. But the artist today going to school doesn't learn how to weld. Those things are passe. If not passe, they're certainly historical. And they learn how to work and do design. And they design on the computer. My son, who's an MIT architect, but went to University of Pennsylvania and studied urban planning for four years and then went to MIT. He, when he graduated Stuyvesant High School, which is also a very good school, high school, he was just at the age where computers were coming in. And when he arrived at Penn, oh, I'm sorry, just before he won High School of the Year Award for being the best draftsman in high school. He got to the University of Pennsylvania. I mean, to University of Pennsylvania. And he didn't draw again. He was on computers. And when I meet him all the time or see him, he's got three monitors that he's on. And that's what he is today. And he sometimes says to me, you know, Dad, I wish I kept on drawing, but I don't think that matters. I think art finds its own direction, its own way. Yeah, because art's a reflection of this. Yeah, it's a manifestation of the time. Exactly, whatever society is that creates it, it's a reflection of that. So if you're a really good designer, you'll design something great. If you're not, you won't. This is a simple word. And I know that. But what won't happen is that a lot of people won't have the opportunity to have hands-on like I did. And one of the things that a lot of other people that are very good designers will wind up going with architects that have all the money and all the buildings, and they have 1% of a few hundred million dollar building, you got a lot of money. So they got a lot of money to pay the artist to do something. So it's a different world, but art is art. It's not going to change. It hasn't ever changed since the beginning when they worked in those caves in France. Yeah, we blew the ochre around the hand, right? It's a real thing. So after you left, when you left New York in the 90s, what did you go do? After I left New York in the 90s, I moved to Amsterdam. I was kind of really torn apart by my breakup. And before that, to go on in a little bit, we broke up in 1986. And that same night, June 15, 1986, I did a little carousel that's on my website, but it's not on these films here. And it's called a clay carousel. And it was 20 inches in diameter and this high. And I did it as a catharsis. And then in 1995, I decided, I've made all these changes in my work. I've gone from total abstraction to representation with abstraction. And I really wanted to do something special, so I was going to build a carousel. And I made about 35 little plaster pieces. And it wasn't until I came up here that I was able to put this together with 3D printers and laser cutters and so forth. So I was very fortunate that I was an artist that lived long enough to span. There's really very little difference between the 60s and today as an artist, except the computer. And that makes it different in a different way. I mean, either you're going to be good or you're not going to be good. If you could sing like Paul, like John Lennon, then you're good. Well, Bob Dylan, if you can't, it won't make any difference. You're right. At least you got the writing chops. Yeah. So I'm just trying to kind of get the timeline, too. So you were in Amsterdam in Paris. And then did you come back to New York at some point? I kept on coming back and forth. I couldn't make up my mind what I was doing. And it's kind of not, I never was lost making art. I always kept on drawing, but I was really shattered over the breakup of my life. So in a sense, the carousel is really a love story. And I unabashedly say that. So we should talk about that a little bit. So I think to get into that, so you went back, you spent the 90s and you were in New York, and you got a commission in 2019 to come to Vermont. And the commission was for the carousel that you had been in. No, I didn't get a commission to come here. I came here, there's an audience, you may know him, Clark Dubas. Okay, I met Clark in Florida. And for our audience who doesn't know Clark. Yeah, but I think you were young, yeah. Who is Clark, tell me. Clark is a wonderful artist. I don't know how old he is now because, but I met him in Florida and he was here in Burlington. And he said, why don't you come up and just, you'll love it up here. And I came up and I didn't love it, but I said, I'm gonna stay a while. Don't love the winters, especially I was in Florida. Anyway, but I wound up going over to the Pond Street studio and I made a sculpture there, spent about a month and a half. And when I made a decision to work on my carousel, Clark was living here and he said, why don't you come up and, you know, Elliot Katz, who you know probably, was working at Generator. And Generator is my lifesaver. It just opened up, you know, everything. Michael Metz, a generator's been just such a real friend. Let's do a great plug here for the generator. So why is the generator such, I mean, you're somebody who comes from sort of an international background. I mean, what's so important about the generator? Well, Generator gave me the opportunity to just be, there were some really good people up here that I was able to hire to work with me. And I learned how to work on a 3D printer. I'm dyslexic, I'm not very good on a computer, but I know what I want and I've always had like three or four or five assistants. And when you have people, you have people working for you and you know that you try to get the best out of what they give you. And that's the leadership quality. And I'm very good at that. I've always had good assistants, great assistants. And I found a few up here. So I was able to start working on, first I did a couple of those big wall pieces that you saw when you came over. And then I went into the carousel doing with the 3D printer and made a model that has over 60 pieces in it now. And it's become, I call it a model, but it's a work of art. I mean, it's like no other model, you know, nobody would make a model this big. But it has all the elements of a model and a finished work. In a sense, to me it's like cold to circus. It's a centerpiece. And then when you came over, if you notice I started making pieces in wood. I never worked in wood, but the CNC, which is a router, electrified router and works on a file was able to take those plastic pieces and blow them up. So I started working in wood. And all of a sudden, another person appeared who was about as good a wood carver as you can get anywhere. And he's working with me right now. So I've been very fortunate to get the right people. But I don't wanna say that it's luck. There's no such thing as luck. Branch Rickey, who was brought in Jackie Robinson to baseball, had a great line. He would have been a great general manager anywhere. And somebody said to him, boy, you're so lucky, Mr. Rickey. And he said, look, I'm not lucky. Luck is the residue of design. And that's a famous saying. It's true. I mean, you make your luck and you find it. And I found it here and I stayed here through the pandemic. And now I'm getting to a point where the carousels getting finished. And I'm getting a lot of feedback from a lot of places now. People are really wild about it. And here I am in my golden years. Is that the right word? I don't feel it, but I'm in it. And I've completely metamorphosized into a different kind of artist than I was in the days when my work was in big steel pieces and places like Storm King Museum where there were 100 foot colders and so forth. Weigh in 80 tons and so it's very exciting to be in this position right now. It's very frightening, not frightening, and not even confusing. It's very, I don't know what the word is. It is, it's an artist's life. Well, it is also an evolution. It's an evolution. Yeah, it's an evolution of your art. So, you know, I'm glad that I'm right at the point where the carousel. So let's quickly talk about the carousel. Great. So I think that's important. So the first, and just from what I've heard just now, it sounds like the idea for the carousel came about actually during your divorce in 1990 was the first iteration. Well, no, 1990 is when I sold the loft. But we divorced in 1990, I'm sorry. We broke up in 87. And I stayed in the loft for a couple of years. She was very wealthy and could move out. And I wasn't very wealthy. I know that's a real thing. So, but when did the first germination of the carousel come into being? The first one was a small one that, it happened the very night that we broke up. I just picked up some clay in an edge-ride clay. And it's on my website, it's called the Clay Carousel. And it's very childlike. And it's 20 inches in diameter and 20 inches high. And I started making that not for any reason other than just the catharsis. And once I did that, I went around in a couple of dealers, but the time we broke up in 87 was the worst time for the art world, because that's when the stock market crashed. So that was a big problem that set in. And that's why I drifted a little bit and then wound up in Europe and worked on bigger commissions. And when I came back to New York in 95 permanently, I made about, oh, maybe 30 small characters in plaster. And even then, it was just still going from germination to assimilation to completion. And I was in the assimilation for a long time because I couldn't figure how I'm gonna get the money to blow these up. Ideally, I would have liked to put it in bronze. Yeah, it was about 25 years ago. Right, I mean it's real. It's astronomically expensive to build anything today. Yeah, so yeah, I mean, that's another good point. So is it a lot more expensive to actually craft the work that you used to craft now comparatively? It's the one most, yeah. Oh yeah. Prices have skyrocketed. I mean, I- That might give you the example of the oxygen settling. Yeah, yeah, the gas. Oxygen and the settling is appropriate. It's not the only thing, but I gave that example as one of it. And so you've seen a huge amount of inflation. I don't think many people could afford to go to art school today in the sense of the way I went to art school. If you're a trust fund baby and you got a family that can give you help, you can do it, but most people can't do that. Yeah, and that's a real, I think a huge stepping stone problem for a lot of people who do wanna become artists. So, you know, artists find ways and that's the beauty of art. Artists, if it's in you to be an artist, that's it, you're an artist. Yeah. If it's not in you, and you try to be an artist, that's a very sad person in a lot of ways. I know a lot of people like that. When I was at Scabie Hegan, I had a very close friend, John Ventimiglia, and I always admired him because he was a virtuoso. We were young, we were 20 years old, and we stayed close. He moved to Portland, Maine, and I got married in Portland. Louise, my ex-wife's family lived in Portland. And so John and I were very close for many years. John decided one day that he had nothing to really say as an artist other than his virtuoso manifestations. So he became a first rate professor of art. And he really made the Portland art school. Oh, that's wonderful. And he's very happy, and I talked to him quite a bit. But that's a rarity. Most people don't do that. You can kind of pivot and go. I mean, that's the other thing too that I've always said. If you don't necessarily have maybe the driver, the talent, the art community always needs people in business. And maybe that's just my perspective, but I've always said that that's a real thing if you've got the head for it. So I want to get back to the carousel. Great. So you've been doing this work at the generator. And are you done with the model at this point? Am I done with it? It has to be painted. I've started painting it. Yep. And it still needs a good month's worth of painting and cleaning up, and then it's finished. Okay. And at that point, I don't want to send it out to, I'm still pretty connected to some major galleries. I've showed in major galleries, I still have connections to some. But I don't think it's a very good idea to send anything out piecemeal. It's much better to have it finished. Yep, of course. And so that's the point I'm at right now. But in between that, I'm making all these smaller pieces. And then I decide a piece. I send that to you, I think, in Wichita, Kansas. Yeah, so if one of our viewers, if any of our viewers are interested, I would definitely recommend checking out David's website, seeing the work that he's done. And on your website, does it have the contact information? Yeah, everything's on my website. So everything's on David's website. And I would really recommend contacting David, reaching out to him, checking out the website because a lot of his work's on there. And if you're interested in any of his remarkable work, some of the images you've seen today, please contact David and let him know because most of his art is for sale and it is remarkable. Thank you. There aren't many artists in Vermont who create kind of the caliber of work that David does. And no, I mean, it's true. It's great. And so I really recommend that you do that. Also, if you wanna reach out and hear more of David's remarkable and amazing life, which is utterly fascinating, please feel free. I'm sure he'd love to talk to you. David, thank you so much for coming on the program today. It's been a real treat. Oh, thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it. It was fun. It's been a lot of fun. And thank you guys for coming here. And we'll see you right back here. I will not be here next month. Next month, I will be on summer vacation, but I will see you back here in September. So thank you very much and I'll see you then. Take care. Bye bye, thank you.