The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #19: Paula Whyman in Conversation with Tim Guthrie

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Paula: Tim Guthrie is an internationally exhibited and award-winning multimedia artist.  He is also the best movie-dialogue-reciter I have ever met, which endeared him to me immediately.  We met at an artist colony and bonded over late-night poker and blackjack and good-natured mocking.  Tim is a card shark.  Did I ever win, Tim?

Tim: Yes.

Paula: He’s being nice.  Multi- is a good description of you, yes?

Tim: I paint ambidextrously.

Paula: See?  Is there anything you can’t do?

Tim: I can’t sleep.  I have insomnia. Sometimes I only get 3 hours, and then I’m a zombie.

Paula: I’m sorry, that’s awful.  And yet, you’re able to do an incredible range of work.  Talk to me about the urinal project—a perfect combination of irreverence, political subversiveness, and frat-boy stunt.  How did you come up with the idea?

Tim: Even though I exhibited my traditional work in museums and galleries, I was also doing all sorts of subversive political work on the side, including blood droplets with the word OIL on them that fit neatly inside those yellow ribbon magnets. I would put these on nearly every car I could find with a yellow ribbon.  Few people knew about that work, however.

Paula: You did that anonymously?

Tim: Yes.  I was living in Nevada before we invaded Iraq.  One of my brothers served for decades in the military.  I have many friends who’ve served.  I was best man for a military friend’s wedding. However, the idea of going to war with Iraq baffled me, and I decided I wanted to protest the idea before we actually went to war.  I was thinking about those ubiquitous stickers on trucks with the ripped-off image of Calvin (and Hobbes) that showed Calvin urinating on whatever symbol the owner of the vehicle disliked.  I hated those stickers, but thought it would be funny to turn the idea into a piece about the imminent war.  I purchased boxes and boxes of pink urinal cakes.  I carved the word WAR in each of the cakes and placed them in urinals in as many government buildings as I could, including the state capitol and the governor’s mansion.

Paula: Did you ever get caught?

Tim: No, surprisingly.  I had to go through a lot of metal detectors, and no matter how many baggies I put the urinal cakes in, I reeked of them.  People must have been offended by my smell, but no one ever said anything.  Whenever I had to empty my pockets before I walked through security, I left the cakes in my pockets.  No one ever checked to see if I had anything else.  It would have been awkward if I had ever been patted down by a guard.

Paula: And no one knew you were doing it?

Tim: Eventually, a writer at the Reno Gazette figured out I was doing the project and interviewed me anonymously. I used a fake group name:  The Dadaist Fountainheads.  Bush still had an 80% approval rating at that time, and little dissent was tolerated.  But it was really just me doing all of it.  I had even put some in the Gazette building.  The reporter didn’t believe me about that at first.  And then he checked.

Paula: So is this the first time you’re coming clean on this…?

Tim: Yes.  I’ve mentioned it in small artist talks, but never in an open forum like this.

Paula: Do you sell the individual bars? I’m thinking of my guest powder room; you know, it needs that special something.

Tim: I could carve you a few if you want.  Or soap!

Paula: Did you scrub that thing first?  That is the cleanest urinal I’ve ever seen.

Tim: How many have you seen?

Paula: Do you believe I got through this without mentioning Tony Orlando?

Tim: I might’ve believed it, but now you HAVE mentioned Tony.

Tim and Paula as "Dawn," photoshopped by a friend. Nice hair style, Tim.

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Tim Guthrie’s work can be found at http://timguthrie.creighton.edu/.

Paula Whyman writes fiction, humor, and interviews. Her fiction is forthcoming in Gargoyle magazine, and she was recently awarded a MacDowell Colony Fellowship. For more, see www.paulawhyman.com. More from this author →