Nick Barbie

Nick Barbie lives in Virginia where he paints and occasionally coaches lacrosse teams.  But really, it's nature and The Civil War that gets him off.


Chief Magazine: Tell me a little bit about where you grew up and how you think it shaped you. Did it make you bitter, latently violent… or maybe even a well-rounded, fully developed adult, who knows?

Nick Barbee: I grew up in Arlington, Virginia.  That's where Robert E. Lee is from. It’s just outside DC. DC is a strange city; it definitely had an effect on me. Growing up around monuments and memorials made me very aware of history. It’s like a giant city sized museum of hero worship. It’s full of mausoleums

It’s a DisneyLand of dead people.

And lawyers, a shit ton of lawyers.

---

Have they had an influence on your art?

Lawyers? I wish they had more of an effect. Court room drawings, two-martini lunches. Have you ever had a martini right before you go to sleep? Some very vivid dreams.

Can you remember any?
 
No, I've tried to forget.

I understand. Has your awareness of history had an effect on your art?
 
It most certainly has had an effect on my art.  I'm always trying to place myself in an historical context. For my 24th birthday someone gave me a lock of Robert E. Lee’s hair
 
Was it the infamous beard-hair?

Yeah, certified and everything.  It is only about an eighth of an inch long, but its real.
 
How does it smell, like a swarthy, gusty general, or the sulfurous odor of canon fire?

It's sealed in plastic, but I bet it would smell pretty awful. Something manly like that, sure.
 
How do you place yourself in a historical context when you work, do you dress in civil war garb and drink moonshine from a clay jug?

In the fifth grade I dressed as Stonewall Jackson for an oral book report. I still have the costume; I wear that every now and again. Mostly it is a starting off point, considering history, where it starts and stops. Like, what sort of traditions have we continued and which ones have we left behind. I would say we are generally part of a larger historical community then we realize. We distinguish between past and present where there isn't a distinction to be made. That applies all over. Artistically as well as culturally

Does your interest in history only come from growing up in Arlington, or from somewhere else as well?

Growing up I went to a lot of civil war battlefields. They're all over the place. I think that has had an effect. Also I grew up in a large family, that might have contributed… actually probably not
 
Tell me a little bit about your childhood, actually. It's OK, you can cry if you need to.

I've learned how not to cry

So it's that kind of childhood, eh?
 
I was the fourth out of five children.  We lived right next door to my grandparents.

That's always convenient. Did you learn a lot of oral history from ol' grand pappy?

No he's a grumpy sonuvabitch.

---

Who did he say won the Civil War?

He's the child of Irish immigrants; he has no ties to the civil war. My dad's family in North Carolina has a lot of oral history. Any identity I have with the south comes from my dad's side, and whatever I make up.

Most history is made up anyway.
 
Yeah most history is made up, or selectively patched together. That is a main focus in my work.

Are you trying to continue that in your work, or trying to show a more realistic side of it?

Well, That's one reason I like the south. It has more for me to work with. I like to continue that; creating a narrative out of a patchwork reading of history.  Who cares if it's realistic or not, so long as it is consciously done. There are certain historical figures that stand out. Using them and the past to define something fictional, that is inherently historical.

Any particulars that come to mind?

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ann Lee, John Smith, Eric Rudolph, Francis Parkman, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Alexander Hamilton...

Do you use them as subjects for your art, or just as inspiration?

Well I use them but they aren't subjects. It’s a place to start from.
 
Where are you living now?

I split my time between Arlington and The Shenandoah Valley. I like the Valley. It's pretty solitary though. I get a lot of work done and spend a lot of time in the mountains, but there ain’t nobody around.

All the more conducive to art.

I got about forty pieces done this past year which is more then the past three years combined.

Do you owe that to a nature high?

Well there isn't anybody around to bother me. I knew a lot of people when I was in New York and most of them weren't worth knowing.  Down here there are fewer people who take up my time.  I couldn't continue this for very long without getting out every so often.

---

---

Any artists working today that you'd like to let us know about?

Adam Helms is one, and Chris Burden's recent work seems to be overlooked. And if you don't know Dennis McNett, you're a fool.

Chief just did an article on him.

He's the Man.

Does art put food in your mouth, or in anyone else’s mouth for that matter?
 
I can't speak for anyone else but it doesn't put very much on my table. 

Do you have other ways of making a living?

Yeah I pick up money here and there, I coached high school lacrosse this Past spring at a military academy… and I'm going to run for president.
 
What's your campaign platform?

I plan on being a persuadable candidate. I want to take power away from the executive, and give it all to the courts. I have till 2016 to work out the details.

More than enough time.

I'd hope so.

Being this time you year, you have any good holiday stories?
 
I got in a fight with a guy dressed up as Jesus, but that was at Mardi Gras. I can't think of any holiday stories.

Mardi Gras is a holiday of sorts.
 
I guess it is.  I was like 15 and my older brother and I followed this Jesus guy around for a while giving him religious literature we had picked up.  All the sudden he lost his cool and started swinging.  It wasn't much of a fight.  This isn't much of a story. Another time a prostitute tried to pick my pocket when we were in Budapest. That was on Christmas Eve.

There you go.

She came up and asked me something in whatever language they speak, like Magyar or something, and when I didn't answer she asked in German, then English.  She was asking for the time. When I looked at my watch she opened her coat to reveal she wasn't wearing anything under it, in December. She grabbed me and started going to work. I kept trying to pull away but she kept going. When I finally got her to let go she reached for my wallet. I didn't owe her shit so I grabbed her wrist and kind of twisted it. She shrieked and some dude who had been hanging out on the corner chased me a few blocks. The weird thing is that the exact same thing happened two weeks later in Prague.

Those Eastern Bloc prostitutes have a lot of goddamned nerve. One last question: has there ever been a time where you thought you might die?

There was the time the hooked lady attacked J and me. I really thought I was going to die that night.

Hooked lady? Do tell.

I went over to J, the Goddamn Rattlesnake's house to drink some whiskey. It was January, and it seemed appropriate. We went through two fifths and got pretty deep into the third, then decided to go to the bar. We got back to his place at like three and started to do some more drinking. There was a knock on the door; it was Julie, the hooked woman who lived one floor up.  She wanted to hang out, which was strange because J had never talked with her much less hung out at three in the morning.

---

Anyway, she came in and started drinking with us. After a few minutes it became clear that she wasn't used to drinking that much. She started getting loud and kind of mean, the way people do when they drink whiskey. We were doing fine for about an hour, but then shit started to get weird. I started falling asleep so she started pushing me with the hook. She started yelling about nothing in particular. All the sudden, J kind of sobers up and tells her to get the fuck out. She started punching shit with her hook, like frying pans and wooden furniture, and leaving some nasty dents. At some point we both push her out the door and lock it. She starts banging on the door, leaving dents in that. At this point J's neighbor fat jimmy wakes up and calls the cops. Julie goes running up stairs and barricades herself in her apartment. The cops and the fire department come. It takes both forces to bring her down, she smashed open a few heads. I thought I would die that night or at least get seriously fucked up. Anyway, it turned out that she had stopped taking her medication and had been acting up. The day before she lit her own feces on fire in the hallway. She didn't remember any of it.  
 
That's absolutely terrifying.

It was.

---