We recently connected with Stephen Dubov and have shared our conversation below.

Stephen, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I recreated myself while sequestered: creating Bookshrines to hide essential essays that revitalized my life. It began while living in a San Francisco converted warehouse-studio in the 70’s and needing to augment my artist/teacher income. As a sculptor/craftsman, I began building secret spaces to hide and protect illicit substances. In that way, I became involved in the drug trade, which led me to being arrested and sentenced to prison. While incarcerated, reading Walter Benjamin’s “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” it struck me that he was correct that Art must be hidden to keep it from becoming appropriated by commercial interests, as has happened all too often. Therefore, I began using those skills/ideas in this series, creating the Bookshrines which are homages to the artists/Ideas that created the 20th c. artworld. These are hand-sculpted idea-containers in ceramics.

Each container has a concealed door/lid or drawer that is difficult to see, much as the Tabernacle, Ark
or Rehal holds and hides a holy text. Technically, they are Cumdachs (book-boxes), each referencing a
particular author’s essay that is hidden within the shrine.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m 80 and have been in the counterculture all my life: from Beatnik, to Hippy, to Punk, a tenured college art professor, a drug dealer, prisoner, and freed man. Now an instructor/co-owner of a sculpture studio, and always a Sculptor/Artist. I’ve switched lives like a snake sheds its skin, been so poor I raided hotel hallways to pick up discarded food scraps and ate beans until I contracted scurvy. I’ve been so rich that I owned 4 San Francisco properties, 67 classic cars, and 5 business fronts to wash the damn money. Was an award-winning sculptor, a Life-Without-Parole prisoner, an unfaithful husband, a world traveler, a dutiful son, and moved from CA to TX to start another new life.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

So there I was, waking up every morning on a small speck of an island aptly named Terminal Island, a Federal Prison, and I’m there for life. Back-in-the-day, 40yrs ago, after retiring from teaching college, I got involved in the international drug trade, having gotten there (needing money) with my sculpture skills in building hidden compartments, then arranging deliveries, becoming a mid-sized organization. By then, I had a home and 4 properties in San Fransico, a car-parts house and body shop, a large collection of classic cars, a bookstore, and a parking lot, a sailboat, horses, etc. I was rocking, except I was an addict.

Then, at 7:30am, the Feds arrived, life changed, I’d been set up. By 10:00am, I had nothing except a pair of handcuffs, Everything I’d had was confiscated, and any funds went for lawyers, until the money was gone… and so went the lawyers. I opted for a trial, and, when no defense was presented, the judge said, ‘Life without Parole.” I had to look around, as I thought he was talking about someone else. It was as if, drunk, I’d crashed into a telephone pole, then waking up with a doc saying, “you’re lucky to be alive, but we had to cut your legs off.” I was off to prison, with severely restricted freedoms. Pivoting was all I could do… and did.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Bio: From then to now: Born WW2, NYC, KCAI, Stanford, SFCA, L.A, ATX (and a few points between). Raised in a bookstore, Art school educated, mostly sculpture then taught it too (more points between). From clay to steel to paper to video, back to clay then busted glass (less points yet sharp) and back to clay. Along the way, built studio/homes, drug stashes, collected ex-wives, cars and problems. Prison, there reading and writing aesthetic philosophy, as I sculpted my way out, figuratively and actually (as has been my salvation all along). What began with promise, flowed into noteworthy then notorious and busted; today rehabilitated (pointedly still sharp). Started hiding books about ideas, like drugs, in clay containers. When my ideas superseded my vision it receded, even when visions, bereft of ideas, grew stale, I continued. I still don’t know what I’m doing and like it (with a few points between).

While I was in the joint, still being a sculptor, I started going to the Hobby Shop, rather than the weight-pile or watching TV, to see what I could do there. They had a kind of clay, and I started making abstracted figurative pieces at the suggestion of my friend who owned a SF gallery (he thought they’d be most saleable, and they were), sending them to him. I sent one-a-month, for 12yrs, and every 2 yrs. he had a show, selling my sculpture and drawings, sending the money to lawyers… who took the funds and did nada… until one actually took my case seriously, and was able to get me resentenced and then released. Of course, I always hoped I’d get out, but the chance was nil, still making the sculpture was, in itself, rewarding, and there was no chance if I couldn’t afford a lawyer… so I persisted, burning on hope.

Contact Info:

• Website: stevedubov.com
• Instagram: @stevedubov
• Facebook: Steve Dubov Sculpture
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-dubov-26985618

Image Credits
John Langford Photography Heather Tolleson