Changed my major to art from engineering.
Lois dropped out of the Univ. She went to New York City. I missed her
and felt very uneasy aboug her like in an unknown city.
Bonnie (Jahanara) Beecher came into my life. Her parents didn't like Jews
either. Still had no idea what that meant. Bob Zimmerman who later turned
into Bob Dylan and Bonnie kicked around for a while. She wanted to be
an actress and went to L.A. Worked as a Playboy Bunny. I saw her once
on a Star Treck episode, but she gave up acting. She eventually traveled
with the “Hog Farm” and married Wavy Gravy their hippie leader, and
started the Babble-On answering service to support their S.F. community.
She became a Sufi, and I met her once in S.F. years later.
Won first prize for painting in Neuman Center Art Show.
Censorship of my art show. First on Mpls. Campus,
then again at the St. Paul Campus. About 1964. The director of the
campus center even took down my artist's statement. Very painful!
Freedom of speech? Where?
I bought a VW bus and built a rough living space inside. My cousin Frank
Schocket who started Insti-Prints, one of the first copy shops, had a wood
workshop in his basement, and let me use it. I recently got in touch with
his grown up son, Claude who is a math professor. I asked him if God
controlled the weather. The interchange of ideas was interesting.
Went to the east coast in my VW camper with my friend Richard Ostrin
who has since become a rabid and aggressive anti-muslim,
to visit Lois, and my watercolor teacher who was in Main.
Tried to sell art from the side of VW camper. Fastened the paintings to
chicken wire fastened to the sides of the bus. Met a lot of police who
threatened me. Freedom of speech? Where?
Back in Mpls., worked as a drafter at a telecommunications company.
First exploration trip with Barbara Saltzman in my VW camper.
Went South. New Year’s Eve in Mississippi. Ate hog maws and black-
eyed peas. Threw up in a parking lot around midnight. 1965.
Met Peter, Paul and Mary in New Orleans. They invited us to get on their
jet plane at the airport and join them. Refused. Will always wonder…..what
if?
Then on to New Orleans. Met Chris and Kit Smither. Chris has become
over the years, a noted folk singer/songwriter/performer. I wrote him
recently, after hearing him play a great concert in Pasadena, but he won't
write back.
Played “Get Back” an anti-racist Leadbelly song at Tulane University in
New Orleans. Scary.
Continued along down into Mexico to Mexico City.
Went down on the Pan American Highway, came back
into the U.S.A through San Diego. First time in a foreign country. First
time in California. Very shocking to see the difference in cultures and face
a foreign language. Visited Mexico City and San Blas a delightful small
seacoast town.
Met Bob Lane, hippie, world traveler, hitch-hiking. Met his friend Mary
Jane. Went to visit Barb’s grandmother in El Centro. She disapproved.
Bad scene. Hysteria. Maybe 1966.
Drove North in Calif., along Hwy 1, to San Francisco. On the way North
from Mexico, drove into the Los Pardre National forest and tried to get
admitted to the Zen Center, but they wouldn't let us in. Perhaps if I had cut
off my hand.....
1966-7. Discovered Berkeley campus. Signed up for art classes in
summer session, then in the fall, registered in their Master’s program. I
dont' remember why I became a student again. Nothing else to do I guess.
Barbara wanted to date other guys. Broke up and then met art student
Leah (Seja) Stevenson. We lived together in Canyon a small hippie
community over the hills from Berkeley. I loved her and she played an
important part in the Center of Conscousness we opened in Mpls.
1967. One day while I was displaying my art on the side of my bus in
Sausalito, I met Sam Klein, entrepreneur, who made stickies, name tag
buttons. He had equipment for three-D photography which attracted me
for its art-making possibilities. He later came to Mpls.to continue his
Stickies business. Stole some of my paintings. Very interesting man. Greg
called him Mr. Flim Flam. Had a son at Harvard. Wonder if he's still alive.
Exhibited my art on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley. Met local police. Some
officers didn't like a some of my anti-war art and told me to take them
down. Was I breaking another law? Were some picture illegal?
Had picture taken by some men in dark suits. FBI. (probably). Was I a
threat to national security?
Painted unauthorized mural on back wall of art building.
Got arrested. No charges, no problem.
1967. Went to see LSD, Light-Sound Dimension at Berkeley Community
Theatre. Met Bill Ham and Bob Fine. Had my first spiritual experiences
with light-sound. Beginning of interest in audio-visual art forms.
Graduated 1967 with a Master’s Degree in Art.
Leah and I left Berkeley, in my V.W., headed for Tulsa to visit my sister
Carol and her husband Mike. Learned to sew, and made a pull-over velvet
shirt with a turtleneck collar.
1968. Arrived in Minneapolis. Stayed with Barb Saltzman at her art studio.
Leah and I got hired as apartment managers by Mort Gouston, and made
a deal to use the two vacant stores on the ground floor of
the building in return for caretaker services.
Thus began the Center of Consciousness.
Had our art on the walls. Began development of light-sound medium.
Used live music at first, and had a jazz group come in to make music to
go with the visuals projected on a huge screen we make by sewing bed
sheets together. That didn't work out because the musician created self-
contained sound structures that excluded responding to the visual changes
on the screen. Then I got a Farfisa(?) electronic organ and used a tape
recorder to make sound tracks to combine with organ sounds. We put
mylar, a reflective material on floor and ceiling to give infinite reflections.
Practiced many hours and gave performances three time a week for two
years. Had many kinds of classes and events. See: Schedule.
Then Leah went home to visit her parents and seemed to disappear. I felt
shaken and my world started to collapse and change. I discovered that
she went to visit a old girlfried who lived in a commune on an island in
British Columbia. I left my fulfilling life to search for her, and my former
life dissolved as I was plunged into the unknown and got lost on Lasqueti
Island off the coast of B.C., Canada, and met the leader of their group,
Ted Sideras.
The idea was to talk with God. After a few painful months, I escaped
without Leah and hung around Vancouver for awhile, enjoyed the
hospitality of the Hari Krishna group, discovered the literature of Science
of Mind and other spiritual dimensions, had a few romantic encounters
and met Janice McKinnon, who had visited the Sideris community on
Lasquiti Island.
Janice and I eventually left Canada together as I returned to the United
States. Then she met someone special and disappeared from my life.
It’s about 1970.
After Janice left, I returned to Berkeley and got involved with The One
World Family, a communal group whose leader claimed to have been
contacted by Aliens from space to bring humanity to a higher level. They
had a big natural food restaurant on Telegraph Ave., and were involved in
music performance and unfortunately, lots of marijuana.
I wasn’t interested in drugs and really didn’t fit in very well. The leader was
named Alan Noonen.
I went to San Francisco, and living in the Dodge Supervan van I bought to
search for Leah, met Gail Chiarello, a poet who worked at the famous City
Lights Bookstore and was staying at Mr. Ferlingetti’s apartment in S.F.
Discovered Gurjeiff and Ospensky. I left my van somewhere, and she and
I hitch-hiked across the U.S.
Stopped in Minneapolis to visit my mother, and my companions at the
Center of Consciousness, which still continued. They were, Greg Ruud
and Richard Tatge. Then we continued on to New York and then visited
her friends at Martha’s Vineyard. We Continued up into Canada through
Niagera and then back across Canada to Lasqueti Island. I stood at the
wooden gate of Sideras' commune full of fear and trembling and they
wouldn’t let me in or see Leah. The leader, Ted, was angry that I had
visited his brother in Medford Oregon on my trip south with Janice.
Terrible feelings of despair.
Gail and I continued down the road and back to San Francisco.
It’s all rather blurry, but somehow Gail and I went back to Minneapolis and
I started a new, second Center of Consciousness on Lake Street. She
was very difficult to get along with, so she soon left to return to the Bay
area. I tried to organize a high-school newspaper called The Captive.
In the midst of this, I rented a 12 bedroom mansion near Loring Park and
start a live-in transformation environment I called Shalom House. I saw it
as an urban monastery so I set-up rules of prohibition. Of course, no
alcohol or drugs, natural foods, no talking at mealtime, don’t serve
yourself food, no telephone in the house, no radio or TV, and I taught a
yoga and meditation class each morning. And of course, where there are
rules, there are those who will break them, so a constant struggle ensued
where those who enjoyed the communal life wanted no rules, and those
who respected my leadership like Richard Holcomb who went along with
the monastic program. Started a bakery project producing whole wheat
sesame crackers, and a natural foods restaurant called Earth Kitchen in
the Catholic Neuman campus center.
I started to paint with flat colors so I could make them into silkscreens.
Which I did. This was an important change in my artistic expression