closet by a musician who became ill and never returned. Like the guitar,
I became curious about it and started to try to tune and play it.
My girl-friend then was JoAnne Franke, daughter of a minister.
At some point, the Center and the Shalom house drama ended, and I left
the mainland for Hawaii with Julie Walker, a photography student, and her
friend Mary.
That’s another big story yet to be told and it certainly had its beautiful
side. We lived for a while in Lahaina in a house on the edge of that warm
life-filled ocean, and in the morning, I could walk into the backyard and in a
moment be swimming in the warm water with the fish, the Barracuda, little
octopi and the Moray eels. This was about 1974.
You can see two watercolors done during this period, See:Internet Art
Lessons, and originated and taught my first classes in Object-free
painting. See: Poster. The Whale Prints come from this period. See:
Whale Prints.
After about a year, Julie and I left Hawaii. We met Mary again later, in
Berkeley where I began my job at the Oakland Museum in the Department
of Ethnic and Cultural Affairs under the direction of Ben Hazard. Joined a
Gurjeiff group, visited the Unification church and was friends with Barbara
Underwood, a Moonie, i.e., (The Unificaton Church) who wrote a book
about it, after she was de-programed by her parents. See the web pages
on the Oakland Museum to get an idea of what I did there. See:Oakland
Museum.
That adventure lasted 3 ½ years. It was at the Oakland Museum that I met
Victoria Zimballati Hamilton who lived in a cabin on Echo Lake in the
Sierras near Lake Tahoe, and Mandy Sachwitz. Mandy was a great
person. About 1977.
My relationship with Victoria was passionate and turbulent and full of
creative energy, then imploded. I lived in North Berkeley with three
roomates. One of them had a cat that had fleas that tormented my body.
She didn’t care. One was practicing meditation and was trying to learn to
fly, but he only succeeded in bouncing around by flipping his knees. At this
time, I bought the Joy Tak a large tour bus that I rigged into a rough
residence. My time at the Oakland Museum ended when I took my first
teaching position at the College of Marin in Kentfied in Marin County. See:
Ben Hazard,
I taught creative engineering drawing there for one semester. Visited the
San Francisco Zen Center often and went to meditation sessions at their
center and garden near the ocean in Topanga. They had a great
restaurant in S.F. I loved being at the Zen Center and saw into the center
of the diamond.
This is when I bought my second sitar, from Wayne Moscow who made
Indian instruments and had a music store in Marin County. Search for the
Ali Akbar Khan School of Music.
Then I joined a group of businessmen who liked to ski, and together
rented a house supposedly for weekend skiing near Tahoe City on the
north side of Lake Tahoe, and near, Victoria. It was a wonderful adventure
to buy ski equipment at the Recreational Equipment Company, REI, a
great store, and take all this new stuff up to Tahoe and teach myself to
cross-country and downhill ski. The lawyers and friends could only be
there on weekends, but I was free to be there in the cold and snow all
week long. I had a good time, but I was lonely, and missed Victoria.
In Berkeley, I was living in the Joy Tak bus, and driving to Tahoe and my
multi-bedroom house in the Datsun. After the ski season, I continued to
go to North Tahoe driving my ponderous Joy Tak bus up and back.
I volunteered my time working at a mental health center there.
Eventually, I went to try to see Victoria at Echo Lake who didn’t want to
see me anymore, and that turned into emotional chaos.
Returning to Berkeley, I decided to travel to Middleton CA, and visit
Harbin Hot Springs, an alternative community that has hot springs
for bathing and play, a vegetarian restaurant and center and a huge
swimming pool. Not too expensive and clothing optional.
It was then I met Susan H. and her aquired daughter, Zhaneia.
That was another hard time when I discovered she was hooked on speed.
She was a creative person and we did a lot of artwork together. A good
time with another bad ending.
I decided to drive South to visit a friend who had just married and lived in
Santa Barbara, and that started a new adventure.
That’s when I met Carol Kustel who made stained glass picture frames
and crude kaleidoscopes. Every Sunday she loaded up her creations of
the week and drove this old station wagon down to the beach to show and
sell her picture frames. About 1980.
I joined with her, and developed my own highly refined kaleidoscopes and
called my effort the Mirror Mandala Company. See: Kaleidoscopes. She
eventually lost interest in our relationship and married her next boyfriend.
This is when I met Raul Sariputra, a little guy with a big sitar, the multi-
stringed instrument from India. He was an artist as well as a musician so
we had a lot in common and became friends. This was an important
relationship for me and lasted many years. He died recently, in India. Too
bad he never ate vegetables or took the vitamin pills I gave him. If he did,
he’d probably be alive today. See:Rahul.
I moved on to attending the S.B. Unitarian Church and met Mary Pat
Keepman. Mary Pat was a sensual erotic person and I was fully
emotionally engaged with her until she went home for the holidays,
attended a wedding and got involved with a man that was a friend of her
family, and whom she married. I had my art school, and we lived in Goleta
for a while in a nice house that had a garden backyard with a swimming
pool. Then she invited her sister to stay for the summer without talking it
over with me, and that became a big problem.
I did a lot of art during this period, held quite a few concerts in the local
community center and developed the light-sound work from the Center of
Consciousness into Visions: Inner Space Artform when I got two micro-
processor dissolve units to control three slide projectors from Pacific
Micro Systems.
My teaching job at Santa Barbara Community college was the
springboard to another teaching job at El Camino College in Torrance,
CA. See: Santa Barbara City College. I was known as Laurence from
Torrance, and had an impossible assignment to teach three new classes
from three new books. The Asian students who were used to making
complex copies of machine drawings from books were very unhappy that
I asked them to think for themselves to design equipment.
1983
See:
ElCaminoCollege.
That’s when I bought my Mercedes Benz from another teacher. So I
junked my Datsun and upgraded. I still lived in my Joy Tak bus and parked
near a hospital that had a 24 hour cafeteria and 24-Hour Fitness in
Torrance, my first and new health club.
I performed Visions Inner Space Artform at the college for both the Art
Department and the Music Department. See: Art Department.
See: Music Department. See: Psychology Department.
In 1989, I was hired by the Museum at Redlands to be their in-house artist
on probation. There were some very unpleasant people there, and some
great ones as well. See:Museum at Redlands.
After that experience, in 1989, I met Aileen Goodson, moved to Laguna
Beach and got a temporary drafting job with the Dinamation Company
that made robot dinosaurs. Worked as a mental health counselor helping
mentally disabled homeless for a year with the ESA, Episcopal Service
Alliance. See: Friendship Shelter. That was in San Clemente, CA. See:
Dr. Kempler.
Opened the Epston-Rosen Gallery in Laguna Beach. Taught art.
Aileen and I are still best friends in 2005, and she lives in this great
retirement community that has a wood workshop, computer clubs, art
classes and at least five swimming pools. During the years of our
friendship, I have made a lot of artworks and continued using the
computer to make art. I also continued some spatial abstraction work in
watercolor, and made a whole series of collages. Recently, I did the
Biological Abstractions and the black & white collages you will find in the
Art pages. I’ve continued to improve my piano playing in the small arena
of boogie/blues, and have written many songs and poems. See:Unitarian
Fellowship 1.2.05.
About 1997, I saw an ad in the newspaper advertising a job teaching
English in Korea. Answering that ad and going to Korea was a really great
adventure that still impacts me today. I taught at two universities, one in
Masan, and the other in Yosu. I also had teaching jobs in Suwon, Seoul
and one other city. I suffered, I learned, I enjoyed so many people and
experiences, and it expanded my view of the world.
See: Jeffery Lane.
See: Kyungnam University One.
See: Kyungnam University Two.
See: Kyungman University Three.
See: Yosu University
Aileen came to Korea to visit me twice and we had a great time. Once we
traveled to Hong Kong, Macau, and went to the border gate of China. She
loved the hot roasted potatoes sold by the street vendors in the winter,
and wants me to teach there again so she can have some more potatoes.
Perhaps I will. There’s some people I’d love to see again. Being in Korea
was such a great adventure, and filled me with vision and enthusiasm.
Now, and for the last many years, I still work as a substitute teacher and
usually have good experiences, especially with elementary students, but
I’ve also had some terribly painful experiences. Sometimes someone will
give me a surprise gift of an artwork. You can see some of them at:
Students Who Like Me.
Since some of my school districts are far away from home, I take my
R.V. and stay away for a few days at a time. I get to live in a variety of
places and use my health club memberships to swim, exercise and relax.
Six months ago I bought another R.V. See: R.V. The previous one sort of
fell apart. Unfortunately, the engine malfunctioned and I had to replace it,
and am still having problems getting it to run right. Very expensive, and
now I am carrying a big debt with the Teacher’s Credit Union. I hope this
website will attract an offer for an art teaching job. I need a large studio to
create some large artworks, and having a good health and dental plan will
be great. See: My present art room. And the terrace. Here is my living
room.
To get my teeth fixed, I have to go to Tijuana, Mexico to afford it. And
that’s been another adventure.
But I am a member of an HMO, Kaiser, so I can get high quality medical
help when I need it. Meanwhile there’s a lot of art to create, books to
write, concerts to perform, and songs and poems to write. It’s endless,
and that’s one of the things I love about it. December 25, 2004. 3:00AM.
To be continued,
Larry Epston
P.S.
I just want to thank the girls/women who have shared my life and feelings
as I have shared theirs. Thank you for the pleasure and pain, and the
closeness and concern, and the affection and love. I am sorry for
whatever I did to hurt you, and forgive you for those things you did to me.
THE PATH TO INNER VISION:
If my life journey interests you, try going to the following websites.
I won't give you any advance notice about where you will find yourself, but
take a chance and check them out:
http://www.aacm.org/aacm/
http://deoxy.org/watts.htm
http://www.nonduality.com/iam.htm
http://www.nonduality.com/asmi.htm
http://www.ramatirtha.org/vol1/iamthat.htm