Posted by panchmaster from pool0029.cvx24-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.210.29) on Tuesday, October 15, 2002 at 11:41AM :
Janey Golani said that their experience with me will proabaly make Assyrians never want to have anything to do with artists again...like there was a stampede before I came along. My cousin Robert DeKelaita, on whom I am waiting for a lawsuit any day, says he works with artists all the time...that I'm no artist. Jackie is also convinced that what we have in me is a scam artist only...ho hum
I recall walking the lobby of the Doubletree with Jackie deciding where we should put the sculptures I'd be displaying. She said she thought a pedestal drapped in some sort of fabric would be a good idea. I said I didn't like busy pedestals...they took attention away from the scultpure. She didn't apreciate the fact that I wasn't open to her idea...I mean I was willing to listen, but it was a lousy idea...for me, or my sculpture cause the pieces are too detailed for one thing.
Our "patrons" don't like that. The subtext always is.."I am paying you way too much to feed your grandiose notion of yourself as some sort of artist...the least you can do is take my advice." Or something like that. Of course they wouldn't dream of saying such a thing to a white German artist...or some such creature. At the base of this all among us is a screaming lack of self-worth coupled to a huge dose of self-loathing...after all...the "glory of Assyria" turned into...THIS??? Three guys and a dog in a basement kingdom?
I remember reading about a white guy artist who'd spent his life painting white...I mean white was the only color he used. Since he'd done it his whole life, and he was in his sixties...and since no one could figure out the point...or see much of anything in the paintings...he was thought to be a genius...at least that's what his agent convinced people he must be..."what a vision".
But what struck me was the fuss he made, and everyone else got into, over how his paintings HAD to be hung at the Modern Art Museum in San Francisco.
The reporter spent some time telling us how the museum staff made themselves available for the entire day to get the pictures hung JUST RIGHT. How the artist carried a tape measeure and would measure the distance of each canvas from the floor. Difference of a quarter inch had to be fixed and the thing took all day...to hang six paintings.
That's the kind of crap that kept me from ever wanting to be an "artist"...just didn't want to join this "august" profession gone rancid.
So I'm not a genius...I'm not even an artist to our people...shouldn't even deicde what kind of pedestals I want, "who does he think he is"?...never mind a fraction of an inch. I don't do drugs...I lived way too long to be credible...didn't die at a young age consumed by visions and mad impulses and all that bullshit...and worst of all, I'm raising three Assyrian kids.
George Sand was shacking up with Fredric Chopin who was a prototype for our Bohemians and Beatniks. He and his artist pals used to get together at their home to talk art, drink and do what them sorts will late into the night and early morning. After joining these geniuses for a few evenings Sand excused herself finally on the claim that while they stayed up late talking about Art...she had to get some sleep so she could get up in the morning and write.
That's what fueled the silly controversy about whether Shakespeare wrote all those plays. We looked at old Will through our 20th century, Age of Anxiety eyes...and couldn't figure how ONE guy, and such a dull and prosaic guy at that...could have done all that brilliant work. There are records of Shakespeare suing tenents...ahem....of property holdings...business deals... and he went back to Stardford, retired...spent time with his grandchildren and died after a good round of drinking with his friends at the Kiwanis lodge.
Now what we expected was a guy who drank all the time, brawled...appeared on talk shows and went into rehab before checking out at 27. That's OUR kind of artist...we expect our arftists to die for us...after they live out our fantasies for a few years...till we tire of them. But one guy writing all that beauty and "retiring"?
All I tried to do was practise...refine my skills...and use it all to present something I believed in...and few other people were willing to allow me to explore freely without trying to "buy" the right to put the work to work for them.
Court is in a couple of hours...I sure hope I get to see the rat bastards face to face...and I hope they come to see THIS rat bastard the same way.
-- panchmaster
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