Things were just getting good for the artist who was born in 1944 and moved to New York in 1967. In 1969 his friend Robert Rauschenberg initiated a studio visit by the legendary art dealers, Leo Castelli and Ileana Sonnabend. He was making experimental, abstract, unstretched canvases which he had shown at the Douglas Gallery in Vancouver, British Columbia. She offered him a show but he was already moving away from that work. She insisted he continue to produce the series in order to be shown in her gallery. For any careerist artist it is an offer you cannot refuse. He did. It says a lot about him that he walked away from such an opportunity and its brush with fame and possible fortune. So I guess that’s what Jill Johnson means by “back.” While Bradshaw lost interest in the art world apparently it didn’t entirely loose interest in him. He continued to do experimental work but far from the mainstream.

In 1969 his girlfriend, Deborah Hay, a Merce Cunninghman connected dancer and choreographer, asked for his help to break up a log jam on the ice and lumber clogged Winooski River that threatened to flood the surrounding countryside including the property of her brother. Bradshaw purchased dynamite at a local hardware store, and never having done this before, blasted the logs some of which shot up 90 feet into the air. He broke up the log jam in more ways than one. Blasting became an art form. Initially there was no product or commodity it was purely an event or happening. Back in the city he asked Rauschenberg for the loan of his Arriflex 16 mm camera. For the next year he created art films such as “Steve Paxton Throwing Dynamite” “Shooting Shit” and “Passing By.” He showed this work to Ileana but she was not impressed. Eventually he mastered the intricacies of the medium well enough to be hired for the occasional demolition gig. He described some of this work to me. Adding that he feels comfortable with dynamite but “fireworks scare the crap out of me.”

He is also a master marksman particularly with fast draw pistols. He started by making zip guns to defend himself from street gangs growing up in DC. It was this interest that got him hooked up with the Beat writer Burroughs. They had met in 1967 when Bradshaw squatted in the studio apartment of a fellow art school dropout, David Prentice. They were living in a commercial building the Atomic Machinery Exchange on Canal Street where Burroughs also had a pad at the time. Despite some 40 years difference in age the young artists hung out drinking at Max’s Kansas City with the often laconic writer.

During a 1981 visit to Austin, Texas Bradshaw connected with Burroughs who was delivering a guest lecture at the University of Texas. He invited him to go target shooting with a custom made Smith and Wesson pistol which had been presented in recognition of his marksmanship. They both realized the potential for shooting as an art form and not just a sport. Burroughs had famously shot his wife in an absurd game of William Tell. It was judged to be a tragic accident and not manslaughter or homicide. But Burroughs continued to be fascinated by firearms and the two began to make work together. Burroughs embraced and expanded the potential of the medium in his own work. For the Kolok show there are several objects, including a metal eye based on a design by Laurie Anderson, that they shot and signed together.