This article is the first in a new partnership between and Smiley Pete Publishing to highlight members of the local creative community. Creative Lexington, a new local initiative profiled in the February issue of this publication, produces high quality “snapshot bio” videos about local artists and other “creative types,” and in this series, we will collaborate with the organization to publish a coinciding print article profiling some of those artists as well.
Photo by Sara Hughes
The notion of a nude “selfie” going viral is enough to send most of us into a full blown panic attack. But to Louis Zoeller Bickett, the nude self-portrait prominently featured in the promotional materials for the current Lexington Art League exhibit represents more than just vulnerability and subjection – there’s a sense of playfulness and humor, as well.
For the Lexington artist, who was diagnosed with ALS about six months ago, the self-portraits featured in the LAL exhibit – in which he is holding a walking cane and a series of religious books – also signal a deepening awareness of mortality.
Bickett excelled in the art of the self-portrait decades before the word “selfie” was part of everyday lexicons – he once took more than 10,000 photos of himself with an iPhone over 18 months and is working on taking a selfie a day for the entirety of 2016.
As with just about everything in the artist’s life, the portraits are connected to an enormous, ongoing creative project that he calls “The Archive” – a vast collection of inventoried objects and mementos that span decades of Bickett’s life. Though he officially started the project in 1972, one could argue that he was laying the groundwork for The Archive – collecting memories and keenly observing everything around him – since he first opened his eyes.
Bickett grew up in Winchester in a family of collectors; his mother operated a furniture and antique shop, and he vividly recalls her collections adorning his childhood home, from books to bisque-fired dolls.
“There were over 500 of them,” Bickett said of the dolls. “It defined collecting for me, the idea of having so much of something.”
Self-portraits from a series Bickett calls “Every Hat I Own.” Photos by Louis Bickett
When Bickett inherited a huge cache of items from his mother in 1972, it gave his own collection a base, further encouraging his interest in archiving and preserving items as a way to illustrate his life.
“I like order, so it sort of began as a way to organize it all,” he said of The Archive. “Later I realized it is like a diary. You can trace your life experience through all the many objects we encounter through life.”
That organization process has turned into a creative outlet for Bickett, one that has transferred to nearly every aspect of his life. Even his home has become an essential component of the work – like a honeycomb, it features nooks and corners loaded with objects, each with a laminated hanging tag that explains its part in the greater collection. Near the front door, a bookcase showcases selections from “The Jar Archive” – a collection of small, labeled glass jars with contents that range from hair collected after a haircut to earth and sand gathered during favorite vacations or from more sobering locales, such as Auschwitz and Civil War battlefields. There’s litter from Graceland and New York City, and detritus from other cities near to Bickett’s heart, all gathered from his own travels or those of friends.
In his den-like office, a floor lamp, foot stool and chair each bears a laminated tag citing where it came from, its significance to “The Archive” and the story of how it came to be part of Bickett’s life. A nearby bookshelf, meticulously organized, displays a separate “sub-archive” of books that have affected Bickett’s life – if the greater work is representative of Bickett’s life, he sees the literary “sub-archive,” which features about 2,000 books, as a real peek into his mind, interests and growth as a person and an artist.
“I have read each of these books,” Bickett said. “They are meaningful and affected me in some way, or they wouldn’t be here.”
“There’s no junk,” he added.
This "snapshot bio" video was filmed by Sara Hughes and produced by Bryan Mullins for Creative Lexington.
Over time, the work of cataloging has morphed into a way to curate Bickett’s life through the objects around him – the books and the furniture, but also the smaller artifacts of life, from utility bills and receipts to invitations and take-out menus. Life mementos, such as obituaries and birth announcements, photographs, letters and postcards, all have their place in “The Archive,” each filed into black binders that are carefully noted and organized. Five hundred such binders have become a 94-volume collection known as the “Cultural Memorabilia Project.”
While the project started as a desire for order and to preserve, the collection’s potential for documenting bits of actual history, from the mundane to the monumental, soon became apparent.
“As the archives grew, I started to see all the history,” Bickett said. “I realized then I had something preserved, and I had to keep going.”
Over the years, Bickett’s work has taken on subjects as diverse as inequality, sexual identity and racial violence. An early archive featured a collection of 25 lawn jockeys, each with a tag observing a story of a lynching or other incidence of racial violence. While he initially tried to avoid the label of being a “political artist,” Bickett said he reached a point where he finally had to embrace the label.
“The work does illustrate many of the things we encounter in life, and we are all affected by politics every day,” Bickett explained. “The art is about how I view the world and my place in it – it became apparent the work was political.”
Various people Bickett has known also have their place in “The Archive.”
“I have files on a lot of people,” says Bickett. “When I would get 10 or so communications in with someone, I would start a file. Some people have died, and their obituary is the last entry in their individual file.”
A separate obituary archive, 25 volumes deep, contains the obits of people Bickett has known or who have influenced or inspired him in some way, from relatives to presidents, writers and other public figures. And 30 years of working at the popular downtown restaurant a la Lucie, which recently closed, helped Bickett compile what is arguably the largest archive of artifacts from a Lexington restaurant, contained in 10 volumes and consisting of menus, thank-you notes, complaints, reviews and receipts.
Of course, every expansive collection needs an inventory – a process that has changed and evolved for Bickett as word-processing capabilities have developed over the past 40-plus years.
“There weren’t computers in those days – I wrote everything out or typed it on a typewriter,” said Bickett of the early decades of the creative process. The process of creating the inventory has helped him weave the archives together, giving them continuity and ultimately giving birth to the greater work.
Bickett’s overarching Archive features various “sub-archives,” including a collection of more than 2,000 books that he considers a significant peek into his mind. Photo by Sara Hughes
Today, much of Bickett’s time is spent editing the massive inventory of The Archive into an accurate digital file detailing descriptions of all the objects included – where he got them, how much he paid for them, etc. The project is currently at 700 pages and counting.
“It’s the thrust of my life’s work... a daily reckoning of my life,” he said.
Such a life’s work has not gone unnoticed – Bickett is a three-time recpient of the Al Smith Artist Award, a prestigious cash award granted to Kentucky artists, and his work has been exhibited many times throughout the United States. And this fall, several Lexington arts organizations will partner to present a collaborative, multi-venue retrospective exhibition celebrating the artist. The University of Kentucky Arts in Healthcare program has commissioned Bickett to install a work containing jars of dirt from all 120 Kentucky counties, which will go on view in the Albert B. Chandler Hospital cafeteria in August, and the UK Art Museum will host an exhibit that looks back at Bickett’s entire Archival works. Other arts organizations, from the non-profit gallery Institute 193 to the new contemporary exhibition space at 21C Hotel and Museum, will also pay homage to Bickett with special exhibits.
Institute 193 gallery director Philip March Jones, who lovingly re-created Bickett’s home and studio in that gallery’s first exhibition in 2009, says it will be a citywide testament to the power and reach of Bickett’s work.
“I don’t know of another artist in Lexington who has seen such widespread local institutional commitment,” said Jones, who once wrote that the “strength of Bickett’s work is plainly hidden in its volume and breadth – attesting to the tireless work and profound vision of its disciplined creator.”
Despite its highly personal nature, Bickett likes to think he is not attached to this work.
“I don’t go back and look at the archives,” he said. “I value that they are preserved for future engagement.”
Bickett’s ALS diagnosis has given him a greater sense of urgency in finishing the inventory and preserving The Archive. But while the disease has slowed him a bit, Bickett’s indomitable spirit is dominant – he plans to continue to make entries in the inventory and archive as he can.
“I hope people look at the archive and can engage with the work – the final entry will be my obituary and I think that’s kind of cool,” he said. “I’m not sad about such things. I hope people get that this archive is proof of a life well-lived – I was here.
“All good art is about that,” he added.