David Lynch: The Art Life Page #2

introduced me to his father.

And I saw his studio.

And it was the classic studio.

I mean, it was so beautiful.

Bushnell could really set up a studio.

Um, many areas set up

for, like, drawing and for painting

and for different kind of experiments.

And, uh, it was just

what you would call, you know,

the art life,

you know, right before your eyes.

I don't know when I started

using the term 'The art life',

but one of the things Bushnell did

besides, uh, just being a painter

and living it...

Living life as a painter.

He gave me the Robert Henri book,

The Art Spirit.

And I loved that book.

I can't remember much of it now,

but I... we used to carry it around

and The Art Spirit

sort of became the art life

and I had this idea that you drink coffee,

you smoke cigarettes and you paint.

And that's it.

Maybe girls come into a little bit

but basically,

it's the incredible happiness

of working and living that life.

The reason we moved to Virginia

in the first place

is my dad got, uh, promoted,

um, basically to a desk job

in Washington, DC.

So we lived in Alexandria, Virginia,

and my father...

instead of taking a bus

or driving to work,

would, many days,

wear his forest service uniform

and a ten-gallon cowboy hat...

and walk out the front door

and walk into DC.

It was so uncool to me...

uh, to see him going off in this, uh,

cowboy hat and this uniform.

But then later,

as it always happens with kids,

uh, now it seems, uh, supercool.

And he was his own guy, you know.

He didn't give a sh*t

about what was going on.

This was what he was.

Since my father grew up on a ranch,

and you had to...

if something's broke, you have to fix it.

And we were always building things.

Always projects.

Always, you know, working

on one thing or another on the weekends.

So this kind of goes into your brain

that you can do these things,

and they're fun.

It made all this work really fun.

And he was, uh, a research scientist.

Meaning, he was, uh, looking into things.

There's a lot of... things,

like when you punch a pin into a bug,

there's incredible textures

just to a little bug.

Incredible legs on insects,

and wings

and innards.

It's unbelievable.

I wanted to get a studio

in Bushnell's studio,

a room he was renting me.

I think it was 40 bucks a month.

And my father, bless his heart,

said he would pay half if I paid half.

So I got a job at Hurley's Drugstore

delivering prescriptions at night.

One time I came in during the daytime,

and I went to the soda fountain

to get a Coke.

And Jack Fisk was the soda jerk.

And so he said,

'I hear you have a studio."

And I said, "Yeah."

He said, "Uh, you want somebody else

to share the rent with that?"

Then pretty soon, Jack was painting

all the time down there with me,

and it was too small.

So then Jack and I got

three more different studios.

And I knew, uh, my stuff sucked.

But I needed to burn through...

I needed to find what was mine.

And the only way to find it

is just to keep painting and keep painting

and keep painting

and see if you catch something.

My father wanted me home

at 11:
00 on school nights.

I didn't wanna come home at 11:00.

All I wanted to do was paint.

So we had a big fight.

And we never had fights.

But this particular time,

it was really bad.

And I remember, like, you know,

it was terrible.

And I said I wanted

to stay out later than 11:00,

and I might have said something like,

'well, I'm going to stay out later than 11:00."

And my father said, "fine,

you are no longer a member

of this family."

And he just left the room.

And this hit me like

a, you know, sucker punch.

You know, just really.

And I went up to my room.

And I remember I just was,

like, you know, devastated.

But then Bushnell called my father.

'Cause I explained to him,

you know, what it was.

And he said to my father...

He said, "I don't wanna interfere

with any of your business,

but I would like to let you know

that every day,

David comes down here and is painting.

He's not goofing around.

And I wish my son

had something that he loved to do

and, you know, was working like this.

I just think it's important that you know

he's real serious about this

and he's really working."

And so this went a long way with my dad.

And I think after that,

I could come home any time I wanted,

and it was totally cool.

You really couldn't ask

for a better father.

He didn't have

any kind of deviousness in him.

He was really pure

and he was super fair,

just naturally honest and fair.

Whenever I wanted anything,

his first thing was,

"meet me halfway."

I'd have to do something,

and he would do something.

And I just, um, saw that

as a super good, you know, thing.

I would be able to get

what I wanted with his help,

but I had to do something too.

Are you ready?

Oh, sh*t.

Oh, f***.

Oh, you motherf***er.

In the tenth grade,

the sunshine starts coming back.

Then I made a whole bunch

of different friends,

and that started a good turn.

Now, all those new friends,

we would go into DC all the time,

but it wasn't the same dark vibe,

so I still was living,

like, maybe three lives now

because I had those friends

and I would do stuff with them,

I had my home life

and would do stuff there,

and then I had the, uh, studio.

So you act and speak and think one way

in this environment,

then you act and speak and think

in this other environment totally different.

And then another way of acting

and speaking and thinking in the other one.

For instance, my girlfriend,

who was a beautiful, wholesome,

wonderful person,

I never brought her home.

I never brought any friends home,

if I could help it.

And I kept things very separate.

And I did not want my parents

to go to my graduation,

but they went anyway.

I just, um, was afraid

of what would come out

if everybody got together.

For some reason,

I always liked the idea

of going to Boston.

And it just sounded

like, uh, a good place.

And my father helped me

move everything in,

and then he took me to the supermarket,

and we stocked up on a lot of stuff

and brought it back to the apartment.

And then I walked out with my dad

and said good-bye to him on the street

and watched him drive off.

Then I went back in my apartment.

And I never left.

It was two weeks before school.

I had a transistor radio,

so I sometimes listened to music,

but I ended up sitting in a chair.

And the only time I got out of the chair

was to, uh, pee or eat.

And the batteries

went down and down on the radio,

so I had to hold it to my ear to hear it,

and then it went dead.

And so I was just basically

really unable to do anything

and definitely unable

to leave the apartment.

And I say it took all my strength

to go to school the first day.

So, it was something

I needed to go through, I guess.

But I still, um, would

much rather stay at home.

And there is, uh, always, um,

nervousness of going out.

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