Leo Castelli, Ivan Karp, Andy Warhol; portrait of Ivan Karp by Andy Warhol

In 1978 I had a chance to show slides and photographs of my art work to Ivan Karp, the director of the OK Harris gallery in Soho, New York. Along with Leo Castelli, Ivan Karp was the co-discoverer and promoter of Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Rauschenberg, amongst many others. I do not recall how I was able to have this celebrity of contemporary art spend an hour with me. At the end of the hour, his comment was: This is some of the most creative art work I have ever seen.

However, there was a problem. Given that my art work had evolved into environmental installation pieces, he did not feel that he could easily sell them. This was a problem with installation art works in 1978, as it continues to be in 2013. One of the admired window/light pieces did appear on the front cover of the Mayo Clinic’s Mayo Alumnus magazine.