NARRATOR:

You’re standing in front of Robert Arneson’s California Artist. Made in 1982, this life-size ceramic sculpture shows a scruffy, bearded Caucasian man wearing sunglasses, with his arms folded across his chest. The top half of the sculpture is just his torso and head. The bottom half is a rectangular pedestal decorated with marijuana plants and littered with beer bottles and cigarette butts. The sculpture stands over 5 ½ feet high – so the average height of an adult woman. In both width and depth, it measures 2 feet across.

The man’s posture is relaxed and self-assured. His head is cocked slightly to his right, as if he were the one taking us in. He is shirtless, but wears a rumpled, unbuttoned denim jacket, exposing his chest and hairy belly. He gazes straight at us with a faint smile. He is bald, with shaggy gray hair ringing his head and curling up over his ears. His beard is neat and trim. His sunglasses have silver frames, but there are no lenses, and there are gaping, dark blue holes where the eyes would normally be. His head is hollow.

The man’s torso is mounted on a gray pedestal that appears weathered and worn. The lower right side of the pedestal looks like it’s been chipped away, revealing bricks imprinted with the artist’s name, Arneson. Below the bricks, a small ledge juts out, about 12 inches off the ground. A stubbed-out, ceramic cigarette butt sits on that ledge at the center of the pedestal.

Around the back are the words “California Artist” printed in black letters on the back of the man’s jacket. At the bottom of the pedestal, a squirrel sits holding a nut. He looks up at a cracked hole, just a few inches above his head. Another small nut rests in the hole, and behind it, the first three letters of the artist’s name, A – R – N, can be seen.