The Grown Boy & The Very Big 3-Way Plug One would guess the boy was no more than twenty-nine years of age in this faded photograph. Barely more than a toddler, artistically, even though his work had already been hung on the wall of the Museum of Modern Art. Perhaps he was twenty-eight. No doubt he felt he was a man. He was still, even at that age, green, just an artist on the cusp. The prior day he had carefully planned and watched, alongside Claes, as the Three-Way Plug was repositioned by riggers. Carefully, they stood back, having an awareness that straps lifting heavy sculptures may snap causing untold angst. IT HAD HAPPENED BEFORE. All went as planned. No problems this time, unlike the Roman marble elephants. He was just a kid making his way through the maze known as the Art World. He was about to leave the safe life of a museum paycheck in exchange for the uncertainty of the studio and the fickleness of the gallery network, well known as anything but a saf...

Back in the 1960s Ann Arbor was an incubator of performance Art, with my friend and mentor Milton Cohen as one of the pivotal leaders of the Once group. Milton brought visual arts into the temporal world already occupied by music, dance, and theatre. He was at home with composers, poets, actors, musicians, dancers; the world of here, then gone. Cohen, who was hired by the University of Michigan Art Department as a painter, evolved into a painter whose medium became light, color, and motion. In his studio, known as the Space Theater, above East Liberty Street, he scheduled performances of his colored light, sound, film, projections, optical manipulations, and a live dancer for a small audience who sat on cushions on the floor. I attended several performances over the years. The events were free of charge. Famously, during the early 60s Milton arranged for an entire crew along with all his Space Theater components to perform at the Venice Biennale and subsequent tour of additi...