Steven Garen at Around the Block, Oakland, CA Sept 29, 2018

Stephen Garen stands next to his creation.

I went to Oakland Museum's event, Around the Block, in Oakland and ran into the male artist, Steven Garen.  He was a featured artist at the event partly held on the Lake Merritt BART plaza. His artwork was a big musical instrument he made. It was a stringed instrument, a rainstick instrument and a gong.  The kids liked it and spent good time having fun, making noise, hitting, plucking and tipping the created object.

I asked him how his creation was art, and he responded that the A-frame structure created five fields and that these fields are like frames in art and that whatever was contained in these frames became art because of their being framed.

I asked him what art was. I said to him, "What is art?" and he responded that it is standing around for hours, that art is exercise. He laughed because he thought his response was humorous.

I asked him what he was going to do with his contraption after the exhibition, and he told me he reassembles it in his house, that it doubles as a hammock frame which he uses to sleep in.