Precedent: The Kienholz House in Beyond Hope, Idaho

Ed Kienholz died in June 1994 from a heart attack while hiking near his Northern Idaho home. One year later, my friend John and I drove by the Northern Idaho house he shared with Nancy Reddin Kienholz. I still have the photographs I took nineteen years ago of the mailbox with their name on it and the airplane in the front yard.

I unexpectedly stumbled upon the house again last week. It was easy to recognize the airplane: the mannequin still resides in the pilot's seat and more rust has accumulated in the years since then. A simple thought occurred shortly after: this was my first artist stalking experience. Despite the fact that Ed was no longer alive, Nancy resided there in the summer months. I would see her in Houston in the winter at various gallery openings in the Heights, never revealing I knew anything about her Northern Idaho home. This experience of driving around Beyond Hope in search of anything that looked like a famous artist's home and finding this was ingrained in me years before the series Artist Stalking: In Search of Home began. If ever I do anything with this series beyond the essay in Art Review and posts on this blog, I need to include it in the discussion.