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Re: Shamiram Sculpture

Posted by parhad (Guest) - Tuesday, June 29 2004, 16:30:43 (CEST) from - Windows XP - Internet Explorer Website: Website title:

Hello Qasrani...sure thing... In 1988 when the Ashurbanipal Monument was installed in San Francisco I plunged right into the Shumirum. Narsai David left to go raise money for ZOWAA so I had to do the fundraising myself...which consisted of selling models of the monument for $6,500. The years went slowly by...I got as far as making the eight and a half foot statue of the queen in clay first, then cast into plaster for final detail work. About then I decided to take us to Portugal where I made the seven foot long lioness that reclines at her feet. Came back from Portugal to live here in Mexico for another year...left the lioness, in plaster, in crates in Portugal and had the Queen in crates in Berkeley, California. Fund raising came to a crawl. It`s a lot harder to raise funds when you`re also the artist...people suspect you know what..that it`s just a scam, even though I`d already completed one monument. Returned to California and over the next seven years worked on the Shumirum as I could. Shifted emphasis to the Shakespeare project...thirty portraits of main characters from the plays...had a meeting with the Folger Library people in Washington D.C about having then opening in their magnificaent building..things looked good. By then I`d managed to raise almost $90,000 towards the Shumirum...but I was geting tired...it was taking way too long. Then one day in 94 I get a call from Helen Nimrod, whom I`d never heard of, asking if I could meet her in San Francisco and show her the Ashurbanipal. We meet, we chat...we visit the Ashurbanipal. She returns to Chicago and calls to ask for a casting of the head of Ashurbanipal...I comply...cast the piece for her. Next she asks me to make portraits of major Assyrian kings, all for her library. I`m thrilled and begin work. It`s 1995 and the convention is in Chicago. I crate up the queen and lioness and truck them out to Chicago where we assemble the entire monument for unveiling at the banquet. Helen is there and is dutifully impressed. At some point Helen asks what I need to finish the Shumirum...we both are convinced that part of the problem is that this is a monument of a Queen...a woman. I tell her the amount of time it will take to carve all the details, bring the lioness from Portugal, casr the two etc. I ofer to give her all the remaining models of Shumirum which I`m sure we can sell AFTER we install her, but she refuses. She pays out $60,000 herself, in two payments and tells John he either raises the other half or she`s going to take it out of their allowances..Helen pays for the whole outfit. By now he and Homer Ashurian are sweating bullets at the thought of all of Helen`s money leaving Chicago...so they try to sabotage the kings project and John raises not a dime for the Shumirum. I continue now exclusively on the monument...John`s time rolls around, he still hasn`t raised a dime, so Helen deducts it from them anyway...Helen knows her brother is a fool, as she expressed several times and playing games...and she very much wants something TANGIBLE done with her money..for all of us. As the Shumirum is being cast and finished Helen commissions me to make portraits of herself and first husband to go in a building at Northwestern University she`s giving a million bucks to...plus porriats of her two sons and John too, plus one or two other pieces. She sends a deposit as she always has. By now I`ve sent photos of the Shumirum completed in plaster to the Arts Commission of Chicago asking if they would accept this monument as a gift on behalf of all the Assyrian people everywhere. Michael Lash, the director, replies that though they are very selective and so forth, the city of Chcago would be very happy to add our monument to their collection of outdoor monuments..and anyone who knows Chicago knows they take great pride in what has to be the finest collection of monuments anywhere in America. At the 96 state convention in San Jose I announce that our monument has been accepted. That summer I take the upper torso of Shumirum, cast in bronze, to the AANF convention in Detroit where a very pleased Helen unveils it at the banquet. I`ve promised her that she will be the one to unveil the entire monument in Chicago because she was truly Shumirum`s guardian angel, putting up $120,000 to match the $90,000 raised from Assyrians around the world. I keep working on Helen`s pieces. Helen falls and goes to hospital. I get to the the point of casting all the sculptures but can`t bring myself to discuss money with Helen when we talk...so I continue on her peices anyway figuring she`ll take care of it when she gets out. She dies. I wait an appropriate time, call John and ask what to do with all the clay sculptures I have. By now John has already complained to Michael Lash and the Art`s Commission about the site they`ve chosen for the monument..OUR monument. remember, the man gave nor raised not a dime..rather he stood in the way every chance he got. Now that Helen is gone John takes over as president of her foundation, which had sponsored the Shumirum under Helen`s leadership and with her money. The Art`s Commission chose a site a block and a half from the Oriental Institute, which will soon undergo a 4 year retrofit and expansion. Michael Lash himself is a big fan of Assyrian sculpture and promised to provide us with free publicity all over the city for our unveiling. John tells me in private there are too many "niggers" at that site...like there are none at his slum headquarters..he says students will play football and frisbee and picnic nearby..I tell him it`s a world class university, there are bound to be students and they play around statues of Abe Lincoln too. We go back and forth...John wants another site...I tell him a major university campus is ideal..that there are students and professors from all over the world who over the decades will see the statue and read our history written on the base as it is on the Ashurbanipal, returning to their countries as sort of "ambassadors" for us. Finally a meeting is scheduled with John and Michael and myself and a few others. I fly back and attend. John won`t admit his real reasons but keeps talking about how the site is all wrong. Michael patiently explains how its right...and tells John further that the University of Chicago purchased ten square blocks around the statue that will be turned intio a new campus etc. John won`t budge...threatens to talk directly to the mayor (a threat he kept making but never followed through on, because he couldn`t anyway). Michael finally agrees to allow John to suggest some alternate sites and they`ll consider them...they only have jurisdiction over certain parts of the city directly...you have to get the Commissions approval wherever a statue goes, but if you want federal or parks lands you also have to clear it with those responsible. I go back to California...three years go by and John hasn`t called Michael ONCE to offer any alternate sites. By now Helen is getting discouraged and angry too. John has convinced her he can find a better site and she`s not as fiesty and vigorous as she was. As 2000 approaches I call Michael and say enough is enough..it`s been four years since I announced the acceptance of the monuement and people are wondering what happened. He agrees and says they`ll go ahead with the installation, that Nimrod has been given enough time etc. I fly back to Chicago to go over installtion plans and the unveiling ceremony which Michael plans to have coincide with the convention to be in Chicago that year. In Chicago I meet with John, who`s been informed by the city of its decision. By now I`ve had to sue John personally. When Helen died, she and I were planning an indoor unveiling of the monument as well as her entire collection of Assyrian bronzes. The city of Chicago has a magnificent gallery with a waiting list of artists a mile long. With Helen in a private bungalow on the hospital grounds and not much improvment, I decide to have a ceremony where she can finally unveil the monument and get the appreciation she well earned. When she died I suggested to John that we go ahead anyway and make it in her honor. He denies there was ever any commission for portraits..says I made the whole thing up as a scheme to get money out of her estate...and he tells this to her sons. The sculptures are falling apart...I get pissed, more at his lies and his abuse of his sister when she`s gone, not to mention having blocked the installation all those years...so I sue the son of a bitch for the remainder of the commission. He gets his nephews international law firm, one of the biggest, and they send me a letter saying the $20,000 deposit Helen sent was a gift, becasue she was a "generous" person, and if I don`t behave they`ll demand I return it...bullshit all. This is going on when I meet with John to plan his part in the unveiling ceremnoy. I tell him, with Homer Ashurian and Lincoln Malek in attendance, who will both later lie about what was said..that he can`t use the unveiling to push any of his AUA crap..that we`re there to honor Helen`s memory and present a gift to America and the focus will be on our children. I tell HIM how much time he`s going to have to speak and when...and I tell HIM he`s not the one to unveil the monument..that will be done by as many young Assyrian children as step forward..all tugging on the long rope attached to the cover over the monument. His lips are turning white as he listens and Lincoln excuses himself to the toilet several times. The city has also generously offered to build the pedestal for us and pay all installation costs, provide chairs, loudspeakers plus all advertising on billboards, radio and print. I get back to California and set about final final plans for shipping the bronzes when I get a letter from Michael saying they`ve been forced to shelve the whole thing because of a letter from Nimrod threatening to sue them if they install HIS monument anywhere. Letters and calls go back and forth with John offering to drop his threat if I`ll drop my lawsuit..I tell him those are two diferent issues and to go fuck himself. I`ll eventually win the suit when he`s forced to pay out of court because we come up with a letter written to me by his own wife in which she tells me John knows about the surprise portrait Helen asked me to make...the bastard knew the truth all along only now we have evidence he did and he decides to pay up. Instead of being able to install the Shumirum for everyone to participate in the unveiling...I`m left with the last chance of getting a petition signed at the convention asking the city to ignore one man and go ahead with the installation of OUR monument. It`s at this convention that John`s Chicago goons threaten to put me in a hospital, in front of my children..to break all the scultptures I have on display, including the upper torso, in plaster, of Hammurabi..my next moneument, for Detroit..but as no one ever had to fear an Assyrian so long as you didn`t turn your back..I turn the tables on them and they go running upstairs, the little heroes, to hide with the police looking for them...but, the AANF president Sargon Lewie of porn fame, refuses to allow me to gather signatures...so that goes nowhere. ...that was in 2000. The next year Jackie Bejan says we should put the monument in San Jose at least. I`m getting ready to move to Mexico for good and don`t know what to do with the statues anyway so I agree. She proceeds to dick around trying to get as much attention and exposure for herself in San Jose and she too turns around and screws the monument as time approaches to install it, also to coincide with the San Jose convention. I`d agreed to the whole thing on condition we could install it in time for the convention...to which she`d agreed and there was plenty of time if Jackie had proceeded normally. I`d already done this twice with two cities a lot tougher than San Jose..but she assured me she knew best, that we had to have ther mayor on board first, then the borad of supervsiors then..all she was doign was hauling the monument around on her back saying, "LOOK WHAT I DID"..I finally tell her to forget it..that I see what she`s doing..stalling deliberately, first to squeeze as much as she can and second to make sure I`m gone so she can proceed unhindered with an unveiling that`s meant to honor her. That`s a whole other story...but my feeling was I didn`t battle Nimrod to cave in to Bejan that NONE of them were going to use the monument and us for their own purposes..it was not going to be business as usual in Assria any longer...that there was a spirit to these monuments these people didn`t understand..they weren`t just bronze metal and a chance for personal glory etc...don`t get me started..you said keep it short. It was at that San Jose convention that Jackie called the police who said I either left or they`d carry me out. My sculptures, which for 23 years I`d always been welcome to display were hustled out of sight and covered over. Such is the leadershit in Assria. Shumirum sits in that fenced off area in Monterey for four years now, face down...as she belongs..hiding in shame at what "her" people have done with her...when she took such care of them during her time on earth. If there is a god in heaven, John would have died first. We`ll just have to wait till he dies anyway..though I`m sure he`ll leave instructions with the next turkey to keep the threat going. Even Narsai David got involved a couple of years ago, offering to broker a deal between John and I. The only site John would approve of was a small park in the wealthy neighborhood he lives in...I`d rejected that because the monument was OURS not his and was meant to be shared with the greatest number of people..to tell people we were alive and trying. Narsai convinced me that somewhere was better than nowhere and with John dead the city could always move the statue, since it was all their land anyway. I agreed provided the monument went there. Narsai and John decided it would be okay to place it instead at the "proposed" new site of the AUA building...and in the meantime that the monument should be sent to Chicago, "for storage" with John. I told Narsai what he could do with those plans. What would have happened would have been the monument winding up in John`s yard...which is what he wanted all along. Now that I agreed to the park..the plan shifted again. ...so there she sits and waits. I no longer think it was a tragedy..rather I think Shumirum`s spirit in a way has helped us again...the monument has been a device through which these people have exposed themselves to our gaze...and with these sorts of "leaders" we`re going to the toilet. Shumirum will rise one day and it will be in triumph and over the graves of the reputations of these puny people who sought to use HER. was that short enough? --------------------- - BACK TO INDEX - REPLY - QUOTE - EDIT - DELETE -

The full topic: Shamiram Sculpture Qasrani - Tuesday, June 29 2004, 14:54:47 (CEST) Re: Shamiram Sculpture parhad - 06/29 16:30 Re: Shamiram Sculpture Qasrani - 06/30 02:09 Re: Shamiram Sculpture parhad - 06/30 03:16

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