Chrissy Williams
A Vatican artist buried a time capsule at Pierce College, but forgot exactly where he put it.
“If you can find it, you can dig it up,” said Jeffrey Vallance, an American artist who attended Pierce from 1974 to 1976.
At that time in his life, other than burying “close to 100” time capsules (one a week in many locations), “I was immature, getting into trouble, and doing a heck of a lot of art,” he said.
While he attended Pierce, Vallance played “pranks.”
For instance, he took pictures of promotional figures (Ronald McDonald, Jack in the Box, Little Oscar, etc.) at supermarkets and then wrote senators letters as if they were from the character: “You’re my favorite Senator,” he would say in the letters.
He often received personal return mail from the senators.
“I didn’t have a name for what I was doing,” he said.
But art professor Howell Pinkston, who retired in 2001, labeled his art as conceptual art that is based in idea.
“With conceptual art,” said Pinkston, “you don’t have a normal product, like a sculpture or painting. It’s more about the idea.”
“And there are a lot of ideas,” said Vallance.
“As time goes on, the ideas become more elaborate.”
He has been doing artwork since childhood.
His grandfather, Karl Reese, was a folk artist from Norway.
“When I was a kid, everyone was doing art on some level,” he said.
In 1978, while still a student at CSUN, he showed “Drawings and Statements by U.S. Senators,” at the now-defunct Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art.
“It was empowering,” said Vallance.
“There I was, a kid, and I felt like I had no effect on the world.
Through this, I realized I could get people to do stuff.”
But what he didn’t know is that it could also get him into trouble.
Vallance wrote the Soviet Union for paraphernalia and opened an international exchange with the Communist Party in Moscow.
“They would send me MOW badges and books, and I would send them American things.”
Because of these contacts, he claimed was placed on an FBI “Watch List.”
He never suffered any consequences from being on the list.
In fact, the same FBI file has become his most current piece of art, now touring England in an exhibition called “Secret Service.”
His most effective piece is close – at the Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park in Calabasas.
Never heard of the place? Many haven’t: it is featured in “L.A. Bizzaro! The Insider’s Guide to the Obscure, the Absurd and the Perverse in Los Angeles,” by Anthony Lovett and Matt Maraniantells.
Included is the story of Blinky. In 1978, Vallance bought a chicken at a Ralph’s Supermarket in Canoga Park.
He then went to the pet memorial park, bought a powder blue coffin with pink satin lining and a headstone and had a funeral service, complete with pallbearers.
“The chickens are just dismissed!” said Pinkston.
“This shows the difference in the way we treat some creatures compared to others.”
Vallance wrote “Blinky: The Friendly Hen” a year later, which gave the piece even more attention.
Patricia Nichols, Amazon.com book reviewer, called ‘Blinky’ “the story of animal compassion gone bizarre.”
In Paris, Blinky was an instant hit – not so much at the memorial park.
Sandy Dunaway, manager of the park, was hesitant to say anything about Blinky, her once-comforting countenance visibly stiffening at the mention.
She would not point out the grave for “celebrity privacy,” adding that she would also not point out where the MGM Lion and its counterpart, the meowing kitten or the Little Rascals’ dog Petey were, either.
“You have to find it yourself.”
When asked about people doing weird things around the grave, Dunaway said, “It was on a Sunday afternoon about eight or nine years ago and I was not here when it happened.”
“Apparently there was a group of people dancing around the grave. I heard about it because it upset families,” she added.
She had no more details to provide.
“Nothing has made an impact quite like [Blinky] has,” said Vallance.
Vallance is writing senators again, this time lobbying for a bill called “Preserving America’s Cultural Heritage,” which would put a 1 percent tax on all art sold in America that would then go to individual artists.
Gravemarker of Blinky. The beginning of a piece written by Jeffery Vallance which grew in infamy. ()