The Eye Of A Clown

Steve Austin is a really good friend of mine. We used to hang out quite a bit and I’m a huge, huge fan of his mentality and artistic vision. He’s a very, very detached person, and I love and respect that and require that a lot of myself as well. He came out to visit me and it was a great night that began with Ozzy being unable to perform on an Ozzfest, and Rob Halford had to stand up and sing some Black Sabbath songs.

It was incredible we were just in the moment, riding around golf carts all night and expanding our brains with art and the things we got to witness. At the very end of the evening, we were riding a golf cart around in circles on this mess of cops, and in my mind I was like, “This is perfect.” It reminded me of the Jonestown massacre and I decided to create a scenario.

I had Steve sit down and I shot him with a medium format Polaroid, which I deconstructed. People in this business want things to be so perfect, but if you’re human you realize that there is nothing perfect in this world. So, I demanufacture my Polaroids by ruining the integrity of them, and that becomes the integrity of them. They’re 100 percent original. When you shoot with a Polaroid, there are all these chemicals that need time to develop the picture. So what I do is study interrupting the time and the process that was built for the world’s efficiency. And, to most, you’re left with something incomplete, but to me, this is the most complete thing of all.

So, here Steve is. He’s the only one left. And as you can see on his face, he’s slowly disappearing, too, and he’s fine with leaving this reality and completely disappearing. That was the concept. You’ve got all these cups that thousands of people used, and they all disappeared into the darkness, and he’s the last one and he’s very fine and very comfortable and very calm with his decision. And I think that suits Steve well because he’s a very out there person. He’s one of the most intense artists I’ve ever met in my life. He is the real deal. Period.