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Mark Shetabi
Artist
Associate Professor, Tyler School of Art


During my freshman year of high school, I was a bit of a slacker with lousy grades. I spent most of my time in the basement, playing guitar and trying to figure out Iron Maiden and AC/DC guitar solos. My parents sent me to a therapist who had me draw a van upside down. He suggested that a change of authority figures might be in order. It came down to a choice between a Scientologist school in Oregon called Delphi and an iffy survivalist school located on an island. Very few people, including my parents, knew anything about Scientology at the time, and in any case, we were assured that I wouldn’t be pressured into taking any of the religious courses except for “The Way to Happiness,” which was free. This turned out to be a watered down “Ten Commandments” kind of deal. It included the usual rules, plus such gems as “wash your hands,” “respect all religions,” and “don’t litter.”

Once in a while, there was a visit from superstar Scientologists from Los Angeles. One guy had contributed about two seconds of graphics in a Peter Gabriel video. We had to watch that video six times because the headmaster kept missing the part. The school had hardly any staff, and the food was lousy and low in protein. Most of the laundry, maintenance, cooking, and cleaning were done by the students. I think that this was meant to teach us a work ethic.

I remember eating a lot of peanut butter.

The school was a very strange place. The day always started with all the students from 1st through 12th grade playing a rousing game of Simon Says. These creepy twin brothers from San Diego always seemed to be the last ones standing.

You had to be careful about yawning, as yawning was considered a sign that you were in need of an audit. Teachers (also called “cramming officers”) could pounce on you at any time for an audit. During an audit, the subject holds two metal cans that are hooked up to a device called an E-meter, which measures some kind of response, sweat or something -- it was all very secretive. The auditor then asks for such things as “the definition of the word ‘be’,” “the definition of the word ‘a’,” “the definition of the word ‘the’,” and so on. Your response to this line of questioning was monitored, and presumably revealed blockages. During my time at the school I had to memorize the definitions of hundreds of simple words such as “it.” I can still remember most of these definitions, and when I do I start to sweat a little.

Another teaching tool was called the Clay Table. Using lumps of non-drying clay, the student illustrated an abstract concept using lassoes of clay, which signified thought, around lumps that signified things being thought of. Usually these lumps were little more than Gumby-like forms. Most students spent maybe 20 minutes working with the clay. I tried to stretch out my time spent at the Clay Table. My demos were always much more detailed, with articulated limbs, clothing, and the like. It never helped me understand a concept any better, but it did show me that I liked making stuff.

One day during an audit, I was told that my understanding of Collective Farming was a bit shaky, and was sent on to the clay table. I spent a day and half working, and by the end, I had created a whole society of little clay people doing their thing. There were wheelbarrows, commissars, goats, kulaks, farmers, factory workers, tools of various sorts – there must have been 40 figures involved, mostly pretty detailed. They had clothes and hats. Stalin had a mustache. Everything was labeled. The teacher, Bruce, would come around to see if I was done, and I’d feign confusion over the role of the serfs or commissars. When I was finished, I didn’t want to just mush the clay back together, so instead I carefully stacked the figures and animals I had made back in the clay box, where they showed up in other students’ Clay Table demos for weeks. This really bugged me.

I was having a pretty lousy time at the place, and was only taking courses that would actually transfer when I went back to a regular high school. I avoided taking any of the other Scientology indoctrination courses. My refusal to do so caused some tension among the faculty, and eventually led to me, along with my friends Terry, Shelby, and Louis, being shunned by the whole student body. Really. We went to sit at our usual table in the cafeteria one day, and everyone else got up and sat somewhere else.

My parents finally pulled me out of the school. The proximate cause was this: I had been injured while wrestling, and I had damaged one of my kidneys. The Scientologist doctor gave me a bag of charcoal powder and instructed me to mix it with water and drink it. I told my father, who is a doctor, about this treatment, and he was shocked. Two days later he called back telling me to pack my stuff – he was coming to take me home.

The thing is, I still make models. When I was a kid I used to assemble plastic models, something that I still do to relax. I like the grey color of the plastic and the smell of the glue. These models usually find their way into my sculpture. I recently built a 34-foot-long model of a parking garage that is partly based on a structure in the video game “Grand Theft Auto.” Trying to understand a complex idea via a model, such as an equation or structure, seems very natural to me.

I keep thinking about the collective farming setup. I’m waiting for an opportunity to remake the whole thing, as an installation. But I really want to do it right.


Jeff Bailey Gallery
White Columns
Pew Fellowships in the Arts