The Hippy | Part 1

People call me Bill Koochin. I carved this piece of sculpture in 1967. It's called "The Hippie", and it's the spirit of the '60s.

Well, the summer of 1967 I was in Toronto for the Toronto International Sculpture Symposium. I was teaching sculpture at the Vancouver School of Art in Vancouver, and in the '60s, progressively, I was getting more and more students from United States and elsewhere, and they came in with long hair and odd clothes. And so, I was inspired by them and I felt that this was really the event of the '60s.

The hippies were not accepted by the society at that point. A lot of them had the idea of dropping out of the - what at that time was called "the rat race" and going back to the land. And they were interested in alternative energy, they were interested in organic farming, a lot of them were actually vegetarian. They also participated in all sorts of civil rights marches, nuclear disarmament marches, anti-Vietnam war demonstrations. And I think the results of the hippie movement was they had the full culture with them, they brought the culture with them, with the music, with the politics, with their demonstrations were eventually taken up by all sorts of other people. And this to me was a relevant expression of our times.

Want to hear more, check out part 2.

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