Posted by panch from pool0068.cvx20-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.250.68) on Saturday, July 06, 2002 at 8:35AM :
Whistle blowers are annoying...people who challenge the status quo are annoying....Suffragettes were annoying...my sculptures are annoying.
Turns out I'm not the problem...it's the sculptures I make...the ones that try to honor our history.
Come to think of it, I didn't annoy the Federation people at the San Jose convention until I uncovered the sculptures Sunday night, the last night.
So long as I kept the sculptures shrouded...no one bothered me. Ten minutes after I unveiled them, and sold one, they came with their contract and forced me out. That wasn't enough...Atour had them round up the sculptures, shove them all into a corner and errect a barrier so no one could see them.
I don't think Atour believes they were ugly or dangerous in themselves...he wept tears at the foot of the Ashurbanipal Monument and was moved again when I gave them some peices...which I don't think they've hidden from view in their home.
And just this week I learn that while I am welcome to attend this year's AANF convention in Detroit...hosted by Atour and Janey and their local Assyrian club...of all the artists, I am excluded from showing my work.
I thought all along I was the problem...turns out it's the sculptures. And maybe not them directly, but the chance to what...sell any? Am I not supposed to earn any reward, any money with which to support my family and pay my expenses as I try to make new peices. Is that the idea?
I should become an amateur like them...get a real job and make sculpture on weekends and at nights...part time. I shouldn't move further along the road, get better, try new things...just work from my "heart"? Until they squeeze that dry as well?
I think I just saw what the "trouble" is that I make...it was what I suspected. I am trying to raise the standard for what has passed as "Assyrian"...for the kinds of things Assyrians are capabale of. What they've done is the equivalent of making it impossible for any Assyrian to attend Medical School to become a surgeon...a nurse's helper has to be as far as we aim.
I can come and show them all how they gelded me as well. Walk around the lobby...have a sandwich in the coffee shop...behave myself or I'll be kicked out for the third year in a row...and of course I can dance and watch" Tit's On Parade" . They know I wont come under those circumstances...and this will prove what?
Why, it will PROVE that I was out for money all along...that as soon as I can't profit financially...I have no interest in being Assyrian. And there you see their petty vanity...dancing and shaking their butts and having delegates meetings about the state of the Ladies Auxilliary and who ordered the scotch at the last convention...these are the proper concerns of the Assyian Nation...that and slipping into Canada to the casinos, and don't forget the girlie shows across the street.
This has all been one grand attempt to replace my sculptures with three pots. It's what the sculptures represent...even as Jackie and Atour and Nimrod have these sculptures themselves, and as Assyrians around the world have bought several... I pointed to a direction they don't want us to travel...an attempt to lift ourselves out of the gutter culturally. They prefer it there because it's easier for them to be Grat Assrins.
-- panch
-- signature .