“Can you believe it? Look at this! Look at this! Look at this! It’s happening!”
Just before sunset on August 13, Petaluma artist Amy Critchett – standing alongside performance artist and inventor Mark Pauline (of the world-famous Research Survival Laboratories) – applauded effusively as Brian Goggin set about attaching the fourth and final stilt to a Victorian-style bathtub.
Critchett and Pauline represent a small portion of the local artists, community members, supporters and skeptics who, according to Goggin, had been coming by all day to finally see Fine Balance with their own eyes.
“Most people are nice,” Goggin said. “Most people have been great.”
To the likely dismay of those not so “nice,” the much-discussed public art installation commonly known as “The Bathtubs” now stands tall and camera-ready in Petaluma’s secluded H Street Pocket Park. Guarded by a Petaluma Police Department trailer with 24/7 video surveillance technology installed, the sculpture — which has surprisingly been the target of much hateful rhetoric on social media — can now be seen on the other side of a temporary fence that will remain there until construction is completed in about a week.
The structures resemble a pair of happily animated tubs that somehow joined forces to escape their domestic imprisonment and, improbably stumbling upon a supply of tall, wooden stilts, rose confidently beyond their perch and headed straight for the river, ever a symbol of freedom and release from bondage. The structures were still partially wrapped in fabric and tape that Goggin had lovingly applied to protect them during their journey from his studio in San Francisco to Petaluma.
“There’s still a lot of work to do,” Goggin admitted, feeling very proud and pleased to see his vision finally come to life. “I still need to do some structural things to make it really stable. I need to install the plumbing so it looks like it pulled itself out of the wall of the house and ran away. And of course we need to unpack the stilts, which I carefully hand-painted to look like wood, with an intricate grain – a bit in the style of Magritte.”
The comparison is hardly coincidental or even exaggerated.
Like Goggin, Belgian surrealist René Magritte was known for placing familiar, inanimate objects in unfamiliar contexts, deliberately provoking discussion about our assumptions about reality and imagination.
The day did not start so positively, said Goggin. Early in the morning he encountered some skeptics who confronted Goggin and his team of technicians.
“They said some confrontational things and filmed us in a really hostile way, but we tried to keep our healthy sense of humor,” said Brian Goggin. “The majority of people who came by to see it were really excited about ‘Fine Balance.’ I’d say ten times as many people came by to express their gratitude and appreciation for this play and all the people who made it possible.”
Goggin estimated it would take him about a week to complete the installation. Once the heavy equipment is removed, landscaping work will begin on the riverside bluffs. Each bathtub has been outfitted with colorful, solar-powered lights that will glow in the dark once all the final details of Goggin’s art installation are completed.
But don’t go kayaking down the river looking for glowing bathtubs right away. Those lights will stay dark for the next few weeks.
“The plan is to have some kind of lighting ceremony at the official opening in September,” Goggin said. “Can you imagine that? That could be a very special moment. I’ve been thinking about asking local stilt walkers to participate in the event. Just to walk around on stilts before we dedicate Fine Balance and release it into the world.”
After successfully installing the last artificial stilt leg—and the complicated task of uncoupling the second tub from the crane that had held it in the air until all the legs could be put in place and bolted securely to the concrete foundation—Goggin spent a few moments in quiet contemplation.
“I feel good,” he said finally. “After everything we’ve been through – all the dozens and dozens of people who have worked to make this possible, after years of imagining what this would look like on the Petaluma River – I have to say it looks even better than I could have ever imagined.”
Looking calmly up at the tubs, which stood out dramatically against the dusky sky, Goggin was silent for a few seconds.
“Of course, no work of art will please everyone,” he said finally. “I just hope that the majority of people will be friendly and open to this installation, these gentle works of art that I have put so much heart and soul into.”
