Posted by Parhad (64.165.200.196) on December 18, 2001 at 09:48:16:
At first I didn't want to include the Hammurabi maquette in the half off sale of my sculptures, but why not. People who paid full price are gonna be pissed...but no more than I am at having to do this. It's about the only way left to fund the monument...though it wont be going to Detroit any longer.
Over the last three years I have invested almost $90,000.00 of my own money, money made from sales of the maquettes, in the monument. After deducting for the costs of making the maquettes to date, travel and shipping and considering that the first three maquettes...all sold to non Chaldeans NOT residing in Detroit...went to fund the making of the maquette itself...$50,000.00 went directly into creating the monument...up to this point
Atour and the Federation, along with Jackie and her Association and John and his AUA's, all worked together at stopping me, at wresting control of the projects for their own mean spirited ends. When they failed, they worked among themselves spreading lies in the community to make it impossible for me to proceed...impossible to raise the funds, sell the sculptures both to feed my family and fund the monument. If you think it's a bad idea for me to cut the price of sculptures in half...talk to Atour and Jackie and John...it is the only way left to me...the way they never thought I would take because you all know how dearly I crave MONEY!!! haven't they told you all that any number of times? Wouldn't I cave in to Janey and Jackie... agree to sign contracts, keep quiet when they foist their relatives at me, so they'd send the MONEY I so crave???
It took 13 years to finish the Shumirum...I will finish the Hammurabi. But for the last five years I kept focusing on Chicago as the home of the Shumirum...I'll not make that same mistake with the Hammurabi. I can see already that there will be any number of Nimrods running round Detroit...especially as Atour and Janey want to get another artist for another Hammurabi and start all over again. Avoid the rush...I'll change cities now.
I didn't fail the community in Detroit. I'm the same artist, it's the same monument...all it needed was support in Detroit, what it DIDN'T need was Atour Golani telling me that I, and only I, could not sell my works at the convention, neither could I get any donors for the Hammurabi...a project the Federation was supposedly sponsoring.
I stand as ready as I ever did, capable of making the Hammurabi and any other monument, and getting it installed in any city. I never signed on to be censored, to be told not to talk about certain people or subjects, to allow any jackass with the degree to prove it the right to do as he thinks best to my sculpture when his time should be spent making cars that don't kill people. What has changed is the dedication and will of the community in Detroit which has allowed itself to be scared out of its wits by Atour Golani's actions in regards to this project. It's Jackie and Nimrod all over again...these people bring little to offer the community except their own claims to leadership and benefiting us...when they spy something worthwhile and lasting they want it for their own, to have and control, to associate themselves with to add lustre to whatever the hell it is they do.
Without Jackie's money and Nimrod's allowance, or Atour's ability to take off from work, these people could never be "leaders" of any kind...if they didn't bring their own money to the table no one would pay them any mind. On the contrary I had nothing, nothing except a genuine ability to create and present projects to our people for which THEY gave money. Let Atour or Jackie or John travel around the countryside and attract people, both here and from Europe, willing to give them a hundred dollars, let alone tens of thousands for any project they envision...let them try it and see how much they can inspire out of people. That's why they all wanted to control me, buy me and control me...each of them hoping to take the final product out of my hands to identify themselves with...to stand up there on that podium at the unveiling so you'd all think THEY brought this monument to you.
I am like the film person who writes his own material, Produces and Directs and Stars in it too. I am the creative force, the money person, the one who does every single part of the prodcution...and just when it comes to the Premiere showing, the unveiling, these people want to rush in and claim the glory...and that was why John and Jackie and Atour were pissed and wanted me to sign contracts or held up the actual projects...not because the projects weren't worthy or wanted or needed...but because they couldn't manage to garner some measure of notoriety for themselves from them...like a Studio who paid nothing for a film...wanting to control distribution and even the Premiere...just to glorify themselves.
The Hammurabi Monument will get done...that's all there is to it. When I was thoroughally disgusted and wanted to quit, Jeff Atto begged me to take his life savings...said he would work as long as he had to to keep me in funds so I could finish it. That was all he had to say...but it was grand of him to say it...and mean it too.
I will finish this monument for Jeff, and all the other people like him who understand, who put their own glory and ego on a back burner and allow an artist to BE an artist and not some hired servant who has to work under an Atour Golani who has so little sense he would dare to weld sculpures as he thinks they should be welded.
The Hammurabi maquette is now only $3,000.00. It will cost half of that to cast and ship it...but that still leaves $1,500 towards the monument. It might take longer, add even more work and effort to a job that's hard enough under the best of circumstances...but it WILL get done. It just wont be going to Detroit.
It will be a beautiful, a magnificent monuemnt...and the story of how it got made and then almost didn't, will be a monumental story in itself.