In the second half of my interview with the amazing Lance Henriksen he spoke about pottery, Art, what is life, and women (see part 1 of the interview here). I didn't say much but merely hung on to the adventure of our conversation so that I didn't get lost.
Did you take time off from the pottery making because you didn't have the correct setup to create it?
That's right. When I'm not working, I need a studio. Now I have that and I'm working everyday down there. I was down there three-quarters of today. I have a love and respect of labor. I need labor. I can't live just in my brain. I have to labor. Something happens to me. I feel really good.
The accomplishment? The satisfaction of completing something?
That's to put it mildly. There's a whole culture of potters in America that have been devastated or made...Well, wait a minute. The Chinese are making sets of dishes for twenty dollars. They've put most of the potteries in England and America out of business. So the only ones who are really surviving are studio potters. But that's not the real issue. The real issue is unless it's Duck Dynasty or some stupid reality show about logging or swamp killing all the wildlife...all the species on the planet are getting slaughtered for reality shows. I wanted to do one about waking people up to what they're missing about the studio potters of America. We have an incredible heritage of that. I want to do it by embarrassing them, which is a good way to reach them. Just shock them into waking up.
You don't think that may be a lost cause?
No. I don't think people are a lost cause. I really don't, especially Americans. The American mind, when it catches on… we're very agile and very smart.
Very adaptable.
Very, very adaptable. It's where I live. This is the country I love. I know we'll travel the world introducing people to all kinds of people, potters all over the world. I know, first hand, that if I'm sitting with a beautiful chick and she knows I'm an actor and she's having dinner with me because she's interested on some level and she might say, "Well, what do you do in your spare time?"
"I actually make pottery."
You'll hear, "Check please! Taxi!"
Hahaha. "I build fences."
"I knit Christmas sweaters." But no, seriously, there's a lot of life out there. I demand that we see it. I have a terrible fear that we are going to extinguish all other species but us. Inevitably.
Which will extinguish us.
We're last rung on the ladder. We'll go down. We'll be taken out by little tiny microscopic things probably. It's not the fear of dying. It's the fear of having not lived and given dignity to everything around me.
Do you have a fear of dying?
No. No matter what happens it's going to be quick.
Do clowns scare you?
They don't scare me I just want to punch them in the nose. I hate them. I hate mimes, clowns and ventriloquists. Those three things, they drive me nuts. I'll literally get up and leave.
At this point, what is still on your bucket list?
Oh I've got some major stuff. I want to meet a woman that I can honestly say I understand what a woman is. I've never met one that I really understand, that she reveals and I reveal, and you find out who a woman is.
What makes them tick?
What makes this thing happen. I know it sounds very generic but that's the way it ought to be. But that and I really want to have a show, a pottery show, an exhibit.
You mean a gallery show?
Oh yeah, yeah even if I have to build the gallery to do it. I'd like it to be in New York. I'd like to do work that is startlingly interesting and will wake people up.
Wake people up to...?
Just wake them up. My presentation will wake them up, more than somebody zoning out. You know what I mean. The Art World is a very fickle thing. Art is a process of discovery. Now where you find that artist on his road to discovering what he's pursuing is what separates the men from the boys. If you look at Picasso's early stuff it was as mundane as you can get. But he had a journey. We all have a journey. They can write on a tombstone, "I told you I was sick," or, "Here lies the greatest painter that ever lived." I mean the effigy of an artist is ongoing. It depends on where you meet them.
Is the idea of Art, for you, to have something that lasts after you're gone?
Lasts on its own whether I'm gone or not. Whether I'm here or not. I remember, I think I was about fifteen or sixteen, in that range, I was in New York and (H. R.) Giger was actually having a show in New York of those Alien creatures. But they were paintings. He was a young man. I remember him. I walked into the gallery and I saw them. I made no connection. I just liked them because they were so creepy. Wonderful.
That was a combination of mechanical and flesh.
Yes, but it was Necromancia. But I never knew that in another twenty years that I'd be playing in one of those movies that those creatures were in. How can you know that? I've been blessed. My whole life I've been blessed. Equal parts insanity that the world can deliver and also the gifts. Who knows what's going to transpire in the next twenty years? I figure I'll make it until about ninety-five and then that will be it. But I'm not going to be a slow-down ninety-five.
Like Neil Young sang, "It's better to burn out than to fade away"?
Yeah, yeah. That's not going to happen. A psychiatrist once said to me, "Double your age, whatever it is right now, double it. You think you're going to live to be whatever?" It was shocking. I remember when my first child was born, I had forgotten I was born. I thought I had created myself. You know, you see this little pink...
Talk about waking somebody up.
Yeah, Exactly, there you go. That's a good example. That's what Art should do. What greater Art than a woman creating a baby? But I want to compete. I've got things to say.
Regrets?
None. No, no I don't. I don't live that way. It's a waste of everything, energy, everything else. If, professionally, I don't get a role, I never look back. I don't even think about it again. I may have an idle thought if I saw it. I may think, "Awww, what was all the hype about that role?"
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Del Howison is a journalist, writer and Bram Stoker Award-winning editor. He is also the co-founder and owner of Dark Delicacies “The Home of Horror” in Burbank, CA. He can be reached at Del@darkdel.com