Andrew Novick
Interview and introduction by Bree Davies
Photos by Todd Kapke
In January I sat down with my friend Andrew Novick at his store, Gimme Gimme Pillow Toast, in the neo-neighborhood of Belmar to talk about his upcoming art show, “The Astounding Problem of Andrew Novick” running through May 12th at The Lab at Belmar.
Except, “art show” may be a gross generalization of the exhibit—which acts as a visual diary of Andrew’s life, as told by his things. Lots of things. In fact, thousands of things like teeth, lunch boxes, ventriloquist dolls, and stickers of bands from long ago that Andrew has amassed over the last few decades.
Andrew’s good friend Michelle Baldwin and The Lab’s founding director Adam Lerner co-curate the wall-to-wall stacks of collected things, arranging each piece of memorabilia/junk/treasure/find in a manner they find cohesive. Andrew didn’t have anything to do with the organizing or categorizing of the collections, and that is part of what makes this current exhibition so interesting.
These objects, and the way they’re meticulously grouped by two individuals who have no immediate connection to the pop artifacts or their perceived sentimentality to the owner offer up some basic questions: What is art? And who is truly the artist? After one look at Andrew’s Barbie dolls and old records, what role does popular culture play in our lives and interests?
There’s no doubt Andrew’s collection can take on a freakish slant when a viewer is bombarded by his three-foot tall clown face jutting out of the gallery wall or as one stumbles upon his collection of dead animals in jars. As witnessed in the CBS “Assignment America” piece on Andrew (click here to see the clip), it’s obvious that much of America may see him as a weird and mildly creepy dude (Katie Couric’s gross-out face is probably a good gauge of an average soccer mom’s response.)
But on the contrary, Andrew is a kind, interesting, engaging gentleman who is happy to tell you the story of how he acquired a mannequin head wearing braces, where his talking Beatnik dolls originated from, or why he takes pictures of every BBQ grill he sees. These tangible things, along with 4,000 photographs of objects not displayed, are just the surface of a man who’s eye for the ordinary may give a viewer insight into the everyday things the rest of us miss.
Below is an excerpt from an afternoon I spent with Andrew discussing “The Astounding Problem of Andrew Novick,” and it’s just a tiny piece of my friend who never ceases to intrigue me.
Is this show a display of things you’ve collected as a kid? Or are these objects you’ve collected over the years as an adult?
Over the years…like probably over the last 25 years I started acquiring stuff. As a kid I collected a few things, Star Wars stuff, or in the 80s it was Thompson Twins stuff. I also saved personal things, like a lot of people do. I have a report I did on Animal Farm in elementary school!
It grew through high school and college. I just started amassing things, coming across something and being like “Oh! I gotta save this!” I started taking photos about that time too.
I know you have boxes and boxes of photos…
I probably have like 30,000 photos. And I think taking photos is related to my collecting, because I’ll see a person, or an outfit, or a building, or a pair of shoes and it’s something I can’t have. So I photograph it.
It could be relatable to some collection you already have.
Exactly. So I have all of these pictures of people with crazy glasses, and hairstyles, and products.
And braces!
And food, and yeah, braces! I don’t want to forget any of this stuff I see. If something is aesthetically interesting to me, I want to remember it. There are so many things. I see something and I just want to photograph it and save it and archive it so I can look at it later.
How much room is The Lab giving you for this exhibition?
There’s a 40-foot space, floor-to-ceiling. One wall will be all photographs of items. Not from my photograph collection, but photos of items I’ve collected. Over 4,000 photographs!
I was given the task of compiling and photographing everything (in the show), but didn’t get to it all because I ran out of time. Their whole idea was to display lists of things I’ve collected, with my titles for all of the photos. Because looking at a list of my own descriptions of each item, you start to see things in my collection.
Things you tend to gravitate toward? Dominant themes?
Yeah. Because they couldn’t really display all of my items…I had over 10,000 things. So their idea to have pictures of everything, to add a photographic element. So one wall is just photos. It’s dizzying to look at.
The other 40-foot-wall will be floor-to-ceiling shelves of stuff. It’s up to them (Baldwin and Lerner) to figure out where things go…like, here’s some clowns! Or there’s a category called “gross stuff,” like animals in jars.
I read that about the animals, in another interview. That doesn’t seem like you, but then again I haven’t ever seen all of your stuff!
I have interests in a lot of things that really creep me out. Like ventriloquist dummies and midgets and dead animals. To me something like a dead animal is gross but also very interesting. In the jar, you get to look at it up close.
I have a squirrel in a jar. I found it on the bike path in Boulder years ago. It was totally pristine. Just laying on the bike path all dried out, not all gooey and gross, so I put it in a bag and later in a jar. I named it “Crispy.” (We laugh.) In the jar you can really look at it, stare it in the eye, see its bones and fur. It’s fascinating from a forensic perspective.
I also have tons of wacky food products. Like, tons of crazy international things.
Ah, yes. From your travels?
Yeah, well more just weird things that you wouldn’t even believe. I have this thing called “Cereal Helper” which I got at MacFrugals! Remember MacFrugals?
Oh, gosh! Yes! Before Big Lots came around.
It was taken over by Big Lots, but Big Lots isn’t quite like MacFrugals. It used to be where all the good stuff would go before its demise. The food section there was awesome, and you could find food products that you never knew existed. It was like the last place they would go before they died.
I bought these fashion model drinks that were really weird looking. And with the Cereal Helper, it was called “Charmers,” and it has this magician guy on the front. It’s basically a bag of cereal marshmallows, and you can add it to any cereal you want, so it could be like Lucky Charms! I bought like ten bags of those.
What about things that you’ve done? Is there any documentation of the trips you’ve taken, like when you were crowned Bubble Gum King, or your trips to the Magic Castle? Is there any way to catalogue that stuff?
No, not really? I do keep all of the fliers for events and stuff (Andrew hosts yearly events like his infamous “Peeps-BQ” where Peeps are barbequed and made into all kinds of dishes, and also does various performance art projects and one-off events.)
And any of the parties like a birthday BBQ or a kickball party, those fliers you will actually be able to flip through. There will also be all kinds of postcards and a bin full of buttons I’ve collected.
You can also see all of my IDs, and other people’s IDs I’ve collected. You’ll be able to sort through this mess, as like a tangible part of the show.
What about documentation of your performance art or personal projects/accomplishments or your own history?
Not really. But my goal is to get all of that stuff online eventually. A couple of years ago I bought the domain name isaveeverything.com, and my idea was to catalog all of my stuff and all of the things that I’ve done. I have old school papers I wrote that I thought were really funny, and letters I used to write to my school newspaper about anarchy. I was the like 3.9 (GPA) student who was a punk rocker who hated “the establishment.”
I even have letters I wrote arguing with the National Honor Society after they invited me to join. With me telling them why I won’t join! (Laughs)
I started a blog where I published my diaries from high school and every note I got from my friends. I even included character descriptions of the note passers. It reads like a 90s teen drama. It’s taken forever, so of course I started it and didn’t finish.
It’s a slice of the time period in the world! It’s just yours, in this microcosm. It puts it in perspective for anybody at that time.
This whole project has forced me to go through everything, and get rid of some stuff that I didn’t really care about. Now that everything’s gone (out of his house, garage, and storage space and on display at The Lab), I’ve organized the garage and the shelves, and as things come back once the show’s over, I can look through my stuff and keep what I really want.
Maybe display some new stuff at your house?
Yeah, kind of curate it how I would do it. That way I can sort of have this museum of my life in my house.
How does Janene (Andrew’s Wife) feel about all of this?
She’s really excited about it! She’s hoping I’ll get rid of some stuff. She’s like (in a super happy voice) “You don’t really need all of this stuff! You should bring back less than you took out!”
In other interviews, I’ve been asked “What if people see what you’ve collected, and they bring you things they think fit into your collections?” I’m thinking, that sounds great! Janene is like, “No!” (Laughs)
That’s actually how I met this girl from the “bacon” party (We spoke earlier about a party he attended recently where everything was made out of bacon.) I saw this girl at a Slim Cessna show, and I recognized her from a film at the 48-Hour Film Festival. I started talking to her and I was like, “Hey! Were you in a movie with a duck?” and she was. It’s a film called "Single White Fowl" .
Later I found her on Facebook and invited her to the art show. She was like, “So you’re a collector of things? Give me your address.” I don’t really know her, but she sent me this box of a lot of Simpsons stuff, like taped episodes she edited out the commercials from and gave each their own name!
There was also pink hair dye and a bulb of garlic in the box. Totally random. Then she tells me about a vintage Barbie estate sale she found on Craig’s list and I’m thinking, I obviously have a problem and you’re an enabler! (Laughs)
Because of the art show, I got a random box of stuff from a really cool person!
I bet that’s just going to escalate once people come and see the show.
Yeah! The whole thing with The Lab is that they’re trying to bridge the gap between art and society, making it for everyday people, not some highbrow art space. Art is about culture, and culture is about everybody. And it should be accessible to everyone.
So, your friend (Michelle Baldwin) was asked by The Lab to put an exhibit together with a curator (Adam Lerner), and she sort of picked you? So, there’s not necessarily an artist here.
Well, I think the idea was that the curator was the artist? And the curator may not think he’s an artist, but they (The Lab) might think he is. And he (Lerner) may think I’m an artist because I’ve selected my aesthetic, and I chose to show it to who ever might come to my house (where some of Andrew’s collections are displayed year-round.)
So, I have sort of curated a collection, and so maybe I’m an artist of the pop culture of my life. That’s really the question. Is there any art? Or is it just something cool? What is art? Is art just something that not just artist thinks is cool, but somebody else thinks it’s cool too? Does it only take one other person to appreciate it to make it art?
Its kind of asking questions as much as it’s answering them.
We talked previously about his collection of answering machine tapes, and Andrew’s fascination with taping phone conversations with telemarketers, etc. Colorado law states that a conversation between two people can be recorded as long as one is aware that this is occurring.
There’s also going to be an audio element to the show, with a listening station where you can actually hear me arguing with credit card companies.
Do you record every conversation you have with sales people?
No, but I’ve been doing it randomly for years. I record conversations with cell phone companies where I just harangue them left and right. I have (recorded) a half-hour call with a guy trying to sell me life insurance. When you get a Discover Card, there are all of these extra programs and plans where you can buy things like life insurance.
The guy calls and tries to sell me life insurance. And I’m like, “Well, does that cover suicide?”
And he’s like, “No! No, man. This covers accidental death.”
So I ask him, what if I decided to step off a cliff just to see what it was like? The guy starts counseling me about suicide and all kinds of other stuff. He tells me I’m lucky I’m not married (at the time) and all of this crazy stuff! He was funny.
In all of these conversations you’ve had, do you feel like you’ve made any friends? I’ve met people that way before. I met a guy in person who sold me concert tickets over the phone once.
Most of the cell phone solicitors are out of state, I think. But I have had very friendship-like conversations with them. But I’ve never met anyone. I talked to a girl once who was in Austin, a place I’ve been many times. So we started talking about our favorite places in Austin.
And on top of these taped phone conversations, I have a lot of incoming messages on my answering machine saved too. Like, anything that was interesting, I would save it. I found that when you have a goofball outgoing message, people leave funny incoming messages.
For a while I had an outgoing message of me quoting something like, “If you had a burrito-bomb, how would you make it?” Then people would leave messages in response.
Or I have tapes of me complaining to the Denver Post about where they would throw my newspaper. In Boulder, I used to live in this place and my entrance was on the side of the house. Well, the Sunday paper would get thrown on the front porch, and my neighbors would take it.
So I called and told the guy, “If you can get the driver to throw the paper within four feet of the ‘The Denver Post Sucks!’ sign, I’ll continue my subscription.” The guy on the phone was not going to do that.
Oh, and T-Mobile hates me. I have a bunch of tapes with T-Mobile too.
Oh my gosh. I hate T-Mobile. They are awful.
I know! Now, every time I call T-Mobile, they ask me if I’m recording it. Because one time, they were disputing something they said to me. And I was like, you said that. Do you want me to play you the tape? Or should I just bring it to court?
And T-Mobile was probably like, make a note. This guy records conversations.
And so T-Mobile was like, “Are you recording this call? Because if you are we have to hang up.” And I’m like, yeah, I’m recording it. You’re probably recording it too! And they hung up on me.
So now, five years later, they still ask every time I call, if I’m recording our conversation. I have tapes of me saying, “No, I’m not recording this call.” (Laughs)
Amazing. Any video elements to the show?
I was going to have some videos, but it was just another thing they just didn’t have time or space for in the show.
Do you have a lot of videos of all of the things you’ve done? I found a couple Warlock Pinchers (Andrew’s Band) videos online, but more interviews than performance.
Oh, yeah. I’ve got videos of pretty much everything I’ve done. But yeah, it’s mostly interviews (of Warlock Pinchers) that are floating around. I have tapes of me calling talk radio because, to me, it’s not worth calling talk radio unless I’m going to have a tape of it, right?
Sometimes it’s like I do things just for the archive. Like, oh I want to call Tom Martino! Just so I have a tape of me calling Tom Martino.
Are you hoping to do something more physical with your stuff, beyond the website? Would you consider curating your house?
I’ll for sure do a thing at my house. But a lot of people have said, you should have a museum. There are people who have by-appointment museums in their house, and that would be cool. I have a book of “wacky museums,” like there’s one in Austin that’s only open Saturdays from 3-5pm and they actually curate shows about different things like they have one about ghosts. And it all goes on inside their house.
You can get non-profit (status) and grant money to have your own museum.
Have you thought about doing that, doing the non-profit thing?
Oh yeah! I’ve totally thought about doing that for like ten years. I would love to have a time where people can just come and look at stuff. I collect stuff, not just so I can say, “Oh, I have this thing. It’s in a box in my storage space.” That’s never my intention.
You probably don’t even know half of what is in there!
I save stuff because I want people to see it. Not everybody likes the same stuff as me, but if someone comes over to my house, they’re undoubtedly going to find something that is interesting to them.
People pick out stuff in my house that I haven’t even seen in years, even though it’s in plain sight. Because it’s my landscape. To me, I find interesting what people find interesting in my house. So, the more people who can see it, the better.
And, with this show, they’re (The Lab) trying to get to the bottom of something. Sort of like, is this just some crazy guy who can’t edit? He just has to have everything? Or what is the aesthetic between these various themes?
We’re trying to figure out how to have some public times for Q&A-like things where people could come and talk about a section of the show.
That’s a great idea. I bet as people come through, they will see things that remind them of something they own, and will want to share that with you, or find out why you were attracted to certain things.
Totally. (Andrew then shows me some images from the website of items in the exhibit.) I have this can Turducken pet food, a Michael Jackson candy bar, James Brown cookies called “Feel Goodies!” Longmont police trading cards, old credit cards, a Gem concert stage!
“The Astounding Problem of Andrew Novick” runs through April 24th at The Lab at Belmar and ends with a closing party that includes cereal, coffee, beer and an auction of Andrew's collected stuff. Also, if you stop by Andrew’s store Gimmie Gimmie Pillow Toast (located in the Belmar shopping area as well at 445 Salsbury St.), you most likely catch Andrew (or his lovely wife Janene!) if you want to talk to him about Barbies or give him your retainer.
