Jay DeFeo, The Rat Bastard

The Rat Bastard Protective Association was an artist collective in San Francisco in the 1950s–1960s. Members included Bruce Conner, Wallace Berman, Joan Brown, Art Grant, David Haselwood, Alvin Light, Fred Martin, Michael McClure, Manuel Neri, Bob Branaman, Carlos Villa, and Jay DeFeo.

Jay DeFeo's signature work is a painting called The Rose, formerly titled Deathrose and The White Rose. 

It's a 128 x 92 inch monstrosity that originally weighed around 1,850 pounds. After adding steel reinforcements and supports to the framing, it now weighs around 3,050 pounds. Whoa! It took a total of seven years to complete although her process which is less painterly than sculptural included scrapping the paint down to the canvas and starting over numerous times. Along with house paint, her materials list includes wood scraps, stones, beads, wire, mica, and pearls.

Jay working on her masterpiece.

Six years into the process she was evicted from her apartment and had to have it transported to the Pasadena Art Museum for storage where she continued to work on it. The moving company had to cut a hole in her apartment wall and lift it out.

See Jay out on the ledge in black watching.

It was purchased by the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1992 after sitting in storage for nearly thirty years.

Why am I writing a post on a California artist from the 1960s?

I think working on your life's masterpiece for seven years and then sending it way must be traumatic anyway, but she became very depressed and disappeared from the art scene for three years. I read the whole time she was working on the Deathrose (aptly named), the lead (white) paint was making her very sick to the point where her teeth were falling out! She was painting it in her studio which also functioned as her apartment, breathing it day in and day out. It probably took three years for all the toxins to clear from her body and I'm sure she spent much of that time in bed sleeping or in the bathroom puking. She died from lung cancer.

I think there are far more stories about chemically-sensitive artists than we know. Entertainment that is deadly. I guess I should re-think my house paint paintings, but I've tried and I can't stop myself.

I should write a book about this...

Summer Project, or What Was I Thinking?

I had a nightmare the last room to be remodeled was peeling toxic, lead paint! As much as I dreaded diving into another poisonous project, I do want the house to look somewhat nice when I sell it. This room, the pantry, is the only one left with old "granny green" on the walls.

 

 

 

 

I left it for last because if I want to change the color, I'll also need to replace the old tiles on the counter. Although I've cleaned them thoroughly, the grout is stained and some of the backsplash tiles are loose.

No, I don't want to strip old paint, scrape and sand, chisel tiles, add new tiles with glues and grout, prime the walls with stinky primer, and paint with high VOC paint. This tiny room has eight shelving layers, six drawers, two cupboards, a counter and a window. It totally rivals all other rooms in the house. LOTS OF WORK. I'm so tired of all these toxic projects, but I don't want a prospective buyer to take one look at that room and think LEAD PAINT: DANGER! and walk away from the sale thinking the whole house is poisonous. This is the LAST room in the house to be done!

Lead paint. Oh, great. If it's lead paint, how am I going to sand and scrape off the old paint? I started researching safe methods. I kept thinking it would be so much easier if it wasn't lead, but the house was built in 1922 and this paint is old. It has to be lead.

I found a store that sold lead tests. I made a decision if it was lead, I'd leave it alone and not worry about it. (That nightmare prompted me to remove everything out of the pantry!) If by slim chance it wasn't lead paint, I'd re-do the whole room.

It was NOT lead! I tried the test several times, on different surfaces, even testing the paint underneath the green layer. NO LEAD! Even with this good news I keep thinking, maybe the paint is lead and the test is faulty! There was a tester in the packet to check to see if it was working correctly, but one can never be too trusting. Others reassuring told me if lead paint was really that toxic, many generations of professional painters would be dying from it. Supposedly it only makes children brain dead, not adults. I don't know if that's true, but it gave me courage.

I threw all caution to the wind, as I tend to do, and jumped right in. I used plastic to cover the floors and seal off the entrance. With gloves, goggles, mask and apron, I started by cleaning everything, then removing the tiles. Not fun. I can't imagine people who do this professionally every day.

It involves using a sharp tool and pounding it with the hammer until the tiles pry loose. Dust, bits of wood, cement and old grout flying in my face. I did a little each day. This wasn't as bad as re-roofing my garage, but close in terms of physical labor. I can't imagine removing a whole floor or wall of tiles!

 

I filled in holes where the backsplash tiles were with wood filler and smoothed the surface. Unfortunately, the backsplash was right under the window ledge so getting it smooth was a challenge.

 

The first photo above makes the room look like it's in fairly good shape, but
you really need to look closely. Evidence of years of wear. There are
even markers on the archway left by former tenants where they measured
the height of their little boys every few years!
 

Then I stripped, sanded and scraped the old paint off the removable pieces until the surfaces were paintable. I did this in the garage. For the permanent shelving and places difficult to reach, I used a deglosser as a liquid sander. That stuff is nasty toxic!

Then I primed everything.

 

I used the very toxic Zinsser Primer because it's the best. It covers and seals any surface and is much stronger than other brands. Unfortunately, even with a mask on it had a strong ammonia smell and in that tiny room I was quite worried about adequate ventilation especially while I was working up by the ceiling. The fan was running constantly pointing out the window. Again, I did just a little each day so as not to over expose myself.

Besides air quality issues, priming such a small space and a ceiling is really difficult as there is no place to stand so you aren't directly under the dripping paint. The bright light at the ceiling made it difficult to see as well. I constantly asked myself, What were you thinking? and promised, yet again, to never do another one of these poisonous projects.

 

I've never tiled in my life, but did that scare me? Well, yeah! I was terrified. It took me weeks of planning, preparing, ordering supplies before I was brave enough to venture forth. I survived. I've written a separate post on tile work for those of you who want detailed instructions.

 

Painting! Oh, I couldn't wait to get to this part! I wanted a cheerful color to match the blue kitchen. For the last eight years I've had a Claude Monet poster from Giverny, France hanging in the pantry to cover up the scrapes and gouges in the wall. I decided to use that color scheme as my source.

 

 

Love the colors!

 

The blue matches the kitchen so I went with a same blue, turquoise, and white trim.  I really, really wanted turquoise on my walls!

 

 

 

I got some free sample paints from the local hardware store. Unfortunately, they don't give out free low VOC paints so they are incredibly toxic. Still, I needed the heavy-duty chemical paints for the shelves so the surface would be rock hard and durable. Low VOC paint is NOT recommended on horizontal surfaces as anything you place on top of it will stick and pull away the paint. I learned this the hard way. The samples were for a flat finish which I find difficult to clean so I got a darker turquoise and mixed it with white glossy paint. It's more of an aqua color with the white added which is closer to the poster's color.

 

The toxic paint was awesome. It went on so smoothly and only required one coat, unlike low VOC which can require multiple coats just to cover the surface adequately. But SMELLY!  Eeewww! I used an air purifier working full time and a fan pointed out the open window. 

 

Voila!

 

I got a little crazy with the ceiling. I think Monet would have liked sunflowers:

 

 

 

 

The sunflowers are in bloom so I couldn't help myself, however, I did the ceiling first because I didn't want paint dripping down on the new countertop. If I would have saved it for last after I painted the walls I might have painted bright, tropical fish instead. The colors feel very aquatic.

 

For such a tiny room, it was hell. A quarter of the size of any other room in my house and it took four times the effort. Many times I considered hiring someone to finish it for me, but Yatna, my menopausal alter ego, would scream, "OH, NO YOU DON'T! NO BAD MEN ALLOWED IN THE HOUSE! WE CAN DO THIS ALL BY OURSELVES."

 

Even with all the protective gear I wore, I have only so much time before the chemical exposures start affecting me. First sign it's getting to be too much are the weird dreams, then inability to sleep, and pain in neck and joints followed by sinus congestion, headaches, sore throat, and lung pain. I know it's time to stop.

 

With all that toxic high VOC paint, it may take months to offgas. It took nine months for my upstairs floors to offgas fresh paint and during that time I lived in the downstairs rooms. That's OK. I'm so enjoying the new colors I think I'd rather use it as some kind of shrine. Maybe I'll put some religious paraphernalia in there and use it only for display. For now the fan is running constantly and I still have it sealed off. I'm considering covering everything with an acrylic coat to protect the paint from scratches, but that will have to wait.

 

I'm so glad it's finished. It's the satisfaction of completion and gazing upon those lovely colors that makes it all worthwhile.