Self Portrait With Hat
Self Portrait With Hat
1971 (London Period)
Self Portrait (after not being able to afford to continue at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland during an economic recession, hitch hiking across the USA to New York City, driving a taxi, living in a slum, totaling one cab on a dangerous elevated highway, moving three times, finally saving enough to fly Icelandic airlines to France via Iceland and Belgium, being accepted to L'Ecole Des Beaux Arts, denied the GI Bill at the US Embassy in Paris, ending up in London near Finsbury Park at a student's hostel looking for affordable art schools). That's probably why I look kind of angry in the drawing.
After loosing my first chance at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and not being able to afford California College of Arts and Crafts without loans I'd have problems paying back as an artist, I finally had my chance at L'Ecole Des Beaux Arts in Paris. It was a great school, but whereas the GI Bill for college wouldn't have paid but a fraction of my tuition back in the states, it would have paid my living expenses at Beaux Arts which was free. So there I was in England trying to look for an art school quickly.
Fortunately I found the Ruskin School of Drawing and of Fine Art which was a part of Oxford University. The GI bill covered both tuition and living expenses there. After being accepted, all I had to do was wait till classes started in the Autumn of '71, sever months away. I had enough saved up for the hostel where I was staying which also, thankfully, provided one meal. Later that summer I worked as a migrant laborer in the Vale of Evesham, earning only enough for lodgings and minimum food and then later I worked for six weeks at a summer camp for mentally handicapped children in Bushmills, Ireland, as a volunteer, staying in a dorm and eating with the kids we took care of.
Just before school, I camped out in a farmer's field and then found digs (lodgings) in a small village immediately south of Oxford, along the Thames, called Iffley Village. It still had a few houses with thatched roofs. While it was still warm I used to go swimming in the river with my goggles on and hang on to a willow root under water to watch the racing skulls whisper overhead.
These few paintings and drawings survive in my care. Most of them were lost or given away. Quite a lot of work did get done in that 1971-72 period. It was my last great effort before hitting the road, the next time I'd get to do anything was in Caracas, Venezuela in 1987, except for a few drawings along the way. I'm afraid the 20th century hadn't been so kind to me. My misfortune was multiplied in 1998 when I dislocated my arm at the Half Moon Café in Claremont, New Hampshire. It only partially healed and to this day it's still quite painful to do any works of art such as painting or drawing.
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