Art School

YEAR ONE

THE BEGINNING IS THE END

It was hot. A relentless sun greeted the citizens of Albuquerque every morning and remained with them until it set. Even the shadows were hot. In the poor parts of town those foolish enough to have lawns watched as they withered into shredded wheat. The smarter ones had switched to green colored gravel years ago. But now even the gravel was looking just a little bit shabby. A baby baked to death in the cab of a pick-up truck while its parents shopped at a Piggly Wiggly Food Mart. They claimed to have stopped for some Pampers and a case of Schlitz. Apparently the check out line was too long. News stories accompanied by weather maps and temperature charts came and went on all of the local stations. That summer, the summer of 1978, brought out a craziness in everything that would have probably laid still if it weren’t being wracked about like a bag of popcorn in a forest fire. But it didn’t last.

Somewhere high and oblivious above the land, winter hovered. During the summer it didn’t seem possible. Albuquerque was in the desert, the sunny southwest, a land of lava and dunes, an illusion of permanent heat. In the summer it seemed like every other part of the state was named after the devil: The Devil’s Punchbowl, The Devil’s Golf Course, The Devil’s Knothole. But at the end of the season, in the higher elevations, it was a different story. And at five thousand feet, Albuquerque was a little on the high side. When winter grew weary of oblivion it came tumbling down fast. A million years of cold dry adobe dust whipped by the winds of autumn came after every home in town. Tumbleweeds made their rowdy way across vacant lots, darting out in front of cars, wedging tightly underneath them and then ripping loose further down the road. The rains came. To the south at lower altitudes it continued to rain. In Albuquerque the rain turned to snow, signaling the beginning of fireplace season—which was good for nothing if you had no firewood. Marvin’s pile of wood was down to just a few sticks, and the pitiful trunk of last year’s Christmas tree. All of it together looked to be good for about a three minute fire. He hadn’t done a thing about gathering firewood since early October when he ravaged a painting that had gone bad on him.

Recognizing that the painting was hopeless, and being pissed off that he’d put so much into the loser, he lost his and temper and smashed it on the front steps. The stretcher bars splintered into four large bits of kindling with an oil soaked sail awkwardly attached. Gobs of paint splattered everywhere. Frantically he wiped the whole mess up with leftovers of the Sunday paper and stuffed it into the fireplace. He shoved a box of Safety Matches into the remains of the painting and lit it. The entire wasted mess took to the fire like a sinner on his first day in Hell. The wet oil paint bubbled and flared. The images waffled and buckled as flames dissolved the lines and faces. He stared at them until they were completely gone. Ashes to ashes… However, remnants remained. Broad, messy swipes of paint streaked across the living room floor. Outside, the drab cement steps were violated with drops of blood from the grizzly murder of some multi-colored beast. There was evidence of a savage struggle that had ended badly. Inside, the corpse did not produce a long comforting fire. In fact, it stank with the foul odor of failure, and then cooled to a dismal pile of smoking regret.

Ah, but perhaps he just had the wrong approach. Maybe he should become an artist who burned all of his paintings! Winter would be his season, the Fireplace Gallery would be calling for all of his latest work, pleading for yet another exhibit to display. He would be a big dog—an art star!—at the Fireplace Gallery! Every show would be a sellout… And indeed, this Shiva-istic approach of creating and destroying did have some worldly advantages. It solved two immediate problems very neatly: A cold studio; and the ongoing struggle of the unknown artist to find storage space for finished works. The Fireplace System was exceptionally fair as well. It subtracted lesser works with the same thoroughness as masterpieces. It allowed for no wasted time in which the artist might have examined and re-examined paintings in progress. They were all slapped into the furnace with the same result. And if he could just make and burn them fast enough, he could even stay warm. It was a thought… And yet, despite the seductive totality of that approach it was drenched with a futility that he wasn’t quite ready to accept. There were financial considerations as well. The paint was not cheap. Neither were the frames. Besides, Marvin was just about out of paintings, and his art supplies paled in comparison to his wood supply. All he had left were a couple of badly squeezed tubes of Titanium White and Sap Green. He hadn’t done a thing about that situation for months, either.

(Oh, to be young and depressed. The bloom of youth is too sweet to enjoy straight up. It requires a tempering of angst to make it palatable. Straight up it can be a revoltingly wholesome drink. Blended properly though, that sweet sense of the invulnerable, the core of youth, is enhanced by depression. Danger and stupidity are your friends. Take a handful of pills and knock it back with a bottle of Old Grand Dad—you won’t die, you can’t die. Time is not of the essence, it is abundant and there for the wasting. You’ll never live to be 40, or whatever. The poor bastards who live that long are so fucked up! Never in a gazillion years will you get that fucked up! It would be better to be dead. Glare and sneer and ride the dark horse through the streets of the clueless and inept. The finish line is nowhere in sight.)

But Marvin didn’t feel so young anymore. At twenty-four, the pace of aging had already begun to accelerate and showed no signs of slowing. He was renting part of a house in Albuquerque where he lived and tried to paint. His landlady, Marie La Portier, also lived there. She was a divorcee who’d moved from Chicago to recover from a failed marriage. Along with her questionable sanity, she occupied the central and largest part of the home. Almost all of her friends in town were also divorced, and most of them crazy as well. It seemed like a lot of divorcees were coming to Albuquerque. Maybe it was becoming the rebound capital of America. And while watching him smash a painting on the front steps disturbed Marie, it was not enough to cause her to step in. After all, she had problems of her own… Her success with rebounding was not doing well at all.

The Christmas tree lying in the depleted pile of wood was hers. She had a separation problem with Christmas. In fact, the tree had stood in her living room until mid June. All of its needles had long since fallen off, leaving only a misguided string of lights draped around the faded skeleton. She then developed an allergy to the tree. It caused her to scratch herself so savagely that she had to wear gloves in her sleep. This was to keep her hands from doing bad. All of which seemed to have a connection to her divorce, which finalized over the holidays a few years ago… Finally, she agreed with herself that the tree had to go. He helped her take it down on the solstice, June 21, and in return she let him keep it as firewood… So, let him smash stuff if he wanted. As long as it was his stuff. Crazy kid. But the crazy kid didn’t feel so kid-like. His memory of high school was failing. The where’s and when’s were rubbed away. Not that there was much from that time he wanted to remember. For him it was not the pinnacle of youth and life that many take it for. It was a tedious and degrading experience. For him life began after high school. But then in the summer of 1978, in Albuquerque, it ended.

When his girlfriend, Cathy used to live with him at crazy Marie’s house they had plenty of firewood. Real firewood. They used to yank the back seat out of his Maverick and drive to the Sandia Mountains before every winter. There, pinion branches were snapped and logs hacked until the back of the car was filled like a Prussian kindling wagon. Gorged with wood, they would coast down the winding mountain road with the load shifting from side to side, threatening to topple the car and send it flying up the Devil’s Butt Crack. It was a twenty five mile drive on the Interstate back to the northwest side of town, but it was Albuquerque, and a car full of branches and logs didn’t turn any heads. It was the wild west… Still, the tramping, hacking and mountain driving were just the preliminaries. The goal was Heaven.

Once the car was emptied of its load they would drag their mattress into the living room and park it on the hardwood floor in front of a brass fireplace. There they would slowly feed the logs into the fire while lolling about in the primitive light of burning wood. They read, they drank, they fucked. And the Lord saw it, and said that it was good—certainly better than the brutal end of a bad painting. The winter nights, dark and vast, were kept at bay by the French doors with their tiny panes of black violet glass and white trim. Inside, the love nest and fireplace challenged winter to do its worst. Firelight reflected in the panes of the doors as darkness moved in and out. A sudden wind from the desert might whip up and do its worst, but it couldn’t touch them. Warm in bed and dazed by the flames, they stared deep into a fantastic kingdom of fire, a place where everything burned all of the time, and time burned everything  . . .

And while they enjoyed the health of youth, both were small and thin and their flat chests vulnerable to the cold. Like many people in Albuquerque, they still had the hippie look and lifestyle of the 60’s even though the 70’s were nearly over. Both of them had long, straight brown hair parted down the middle. Marvin could pull his into a pony tail that was a good twenty inches long – and growing. Their wardrobes were heavy on denim and tennis shoes, and somewhere in the closet hung a brown suede jacket with fringe on the arms… There was also a bag of pot lingering about the living room/studio where the fireplace waited. For them it was much closer to 1968 than 1978, and in New Mexico you could get away with that.

During the summers, Marvin and Cathy took to the sun. A slow tan built solidly day by day. By August they were able to withstand several hours of direct sunlight high in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains. Above them, the sheer pink granite walls of the Sandias stood up above 10,000 feet. In the deep folds of the mountains, facing northwest to the lunar planes beyond Albuquerque, they went hunting for springs and pine shaded waterfalls. The dizzy openness of the wilderness demanded their nakedness. Flared jeans and psychedelically stitched cowboy shirts were tossed aside as they went back to the garden. When the good life was good, it was indeed very good. As good as it gets in many respects. But when it wasn’t… Cathy, whose sunny side was sunnier than anyone he’d ever met, had a dark side that was darker as well. When depression hit it overwhelmed her so badly that she was practically unrecognizable. Although they had lived through many bad episodes of such depression, there was always the threat of another one on the horizon. And then finally, there was one too many.

When Cathy killed herself that hot July in 1978, Marvin got a taste of real depression. No more dabbling with the moody black clouds of disenfranchised youth—that silliness left him wholly unprepared for the suddenness of death. All feeling and hope were violently sucked away, creating a vacuum followed by the stunning thunder clap of permanence. Awareness of this permanence drenched him, folding heavily, blanket after blanket, bringing about an unbearable physical weight. There was nothing to add to the story to change the outcome. There was nothing anywhere that could have changed any part of what had happened. He forced himself back in time to the moment before death, before her last breath, to do something—anything. Somehow it would have been all right if she were just going to be dead for just a few months, or even a few years. But the permanence… Marvin wept until he couldn’t. Everything had gone wrong. He was alone, he was fucked up, and the aura of youth was going the way of his firewood. They had traveled and lived together for five years—since he was nineteen! They were in love, weren’t they? Now what?

Cathy left behind a suicide journal filled with writings and drawings. Her final act had collapsed in the flood colored reeds on the banks of the Rio Grande River. Above her, the blue skies of New Mexico called with the peace of infinity. And while this was only a few blocks from where they lived at the time it was three days before Marvin knew for certain what had become of her. She had run off before. They had broken up before. She had even tried to kill herself before. This time was different. Beyond the final notes and sketches remained an image from the journal that he would not soon forget: A page of scribbling, fierce scribbling that finally assumed the form of a tornado. The tornado, a harsh black whirlpool, twirled in a sad orbit around the page. It lay next to her swollen, fly licked body. Empty pill bottles littered the reeds.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’

January, 1979. He left Albuquerque for Southern California. In front of him lay the vast openness of western New Mexico followed by the full measure of Arizona. Most of the trip was through a desert bleak and spectacular, through a landscape that he and Cathy had both loved. During this long drive the border of the Golden State became his goal, but once there, he vowed to go all the way to the ocean. The Maverick hummed down the road. All he brought with him was his paint box, a couple of books and a duffel bag full of clothes. What little furniture he left behind was just crap anyway. There was no point in hauling it anywhere, not even to the dump. His landlady picked through it with disinterest, finally keeping one of the chairs.

Marvin’s trip to Los Angeles was not sudden. Back in May he had been accepted at an art school there. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, in fact, it was joke between he and Cathy. But the toll of petty jobs, a dead end art scene and the grind of low end life had Marvin thinking long and hard about a return to the ivory tower. Life there was more lively, and in the late 1970’s there was still financial aid available for almost anyone who could spell their name. And while Cathy had no interest in returning to school they had to have some kind of change. Their life in old Albuquerque had turned into a campfire in the rain. The coals hissed and sputtered as they were smacked about by fat drops of rain.

It rained as Marvin drove through the Mojave desert. And it continued to rain all the way through Barstow and Victorville. But it didn’t really come down hard until he dropped into the Los Angeles basin. The city was a dark blurry wash kept alive by billions of streetlights. Above him green glowing freeway signs gave direction to different parts of the storm. He wound through hours of headlights, taillights, taillights, and headlights from the desert all the way to the beach. Finally the desert was gone. It was not only far away, but physically receding into the past. A vicious surf pounded the beach as a thick charging front urged it on. The churning saltwater drowned out the ringing in his ears from the road. It seemed as though he’d left Albuquerque a week ago, a week of driving that led him to land’s edge and a tormented Pacific Ocean. As there was no hope of camping he spent the night in the car and slept fitfully between squalls of rain that slapped a wild rhythm on the roof and windshield.

In the morning a gray mushy surf called him out for a walk. The wet sand was cold and troubling to his bare feet. The surf offered no peace and the ocean threatened to kill him if he came in over ankle deep. Ah, but a deep breath of the saltwater air, the gusto of an ocean storm, it was all so, so—fuck it, it was really just cold. He couldn’t face that wide gray horizon of trouble, endless cold undulating trouble. As big and beautiful as the ocean is supposed to be he took more comfort back inside of the red Maverick. At least there he had some measure of control. And so he left the beach and drove up and out of the Los Angeles basin toward the hills of Newhall and the campus of his new home, California Contemporary Arts. Repeatedly on the trip he had wanted to turn to Cathy and share whatever thought was crossing his mind. He spoke instead to the empty car, Man alive, where are we now, where are we now? Where indeed.

The city such as it was, packed the valleys and the flatlands and worked its way up into every crevasse and canyon, every hill and mountain top. A massive arbor of concrete gracefully curved overhead sending cars up and away from the lanes below. The plants and patches of burnt hillside showed signs of battle. Tiny slivers of fresh grass began poking hopefully through the rubble and remains as he crested the pass and dropped into the Santa Clarita Valley. In the light of day as the rain paused, he first saw the school. It was a conglomeration of boxy, futuristic buildings—a huge white laboratory of sorts. To the east, golden hills sprouted more fresh grass for the summer fires to come. Suddenly, the sky dimmed and then darkened. The rain came again. Huge California oaks stood watch and accepted the downpour with quiet gratitude. The dark ponds of a golf course sprouted rain drops like a fountain. To the south and west civilization had already made its indelible mark. Condos and golf courses were the beachhead of the ever expanding rim of Southern California life with the malls to follow as the main guard. It startled Marvin to realize that someday civilization could replicate itself in this fashion all the way across the desert, from Newhall to Albuquerque.

He spotted the exit, took it, and drove right onto the campus. Suddenly it all seemed so very easy. Nothing compared to the hours of desert driving and the storming basin. The lush landscaping gave a resort feeling to the institute. Eucalyptus and Oleanders punctuated by Sea Oats and other dark bushes melded with acres of grass. A slow drive around the peaceful campus revealed very simple logistics. Despite the image of a cluster of boxes there was actually only one large main building and a dormitory, each of which had their own parking lots. Marvin finally stopped in front of the main building. He slowly left the car, the driver’s door squawking on its hinges as he closed it. In a light rain he walked to his destination.

THIS IS THE WAY, STEP INSIDE

He had been accepted at C.C.A. with one year’s credit toward a degree—a B.F.A. Could there have been anything more absurd or worthless than a degree in art? No, surely he had come for something else. Something important, something urgent, like the possibility of starting over. A clean slate. A new name, a new address, a new personality. An attempt to break away from the relentless building of life—that spiraling, crumbling Old Testament city that grew higher and weirder on the way to the Kingdom of God, or wherever the hell it was going. Art school. And why not? It sure sounded better than joining the Marines, or the Foreign Legion. He wanted to live for awhile, to escape the stultifying pointlessness of low level employment. Breaking away from the indentured servitude of a job inspired this change as much as anything. And if that wasn’t reason enough, the plague of death was after him as well. He walked up the steps and across a long covered walkway that led to four glass doors.

In the main foyer things looked normal enough: hardwood floors, a reception desk, a wall sized case full of announcements for events to come. But once inside this laboratory of a building the practical logistics of the campus gave way to a cruel maze. The main building had four floors and a sub-level for the Film School. The construction was mainly white cinder block, drywall and ornamental mahogany. Distant wide hallways bent and turned without leaving a sense of direction. Floor to ceiling windows popped up at odd junctures revealing glimpses of the outside world that left the viewer more bewildered than before. The building felt vast and claustrophobic all at once. But the architecture was no match for the befuddlement of Registration Day, where Marvin was rejected at the first table he approached. His papers were not in order.

Sorry, hon, you’ll have to start at Table 7. You see that table over there by the foyer? That’s the place. Let them get you signed in, and then come back.

He hadn’t paid in full. To his amazement he found himself almost $3000 short of the necessary tuition, and he couldn’t register without that money. The disorientation turned up a notch. He had about $300. He could sell the Maverick. Forget about it. His mother had no money, and he had no other family to speak of. How had this deafening miscalculation occurred? Then, through the despair a position of hope called out: Table 7. Table 7 was staffed with friendly middle aged women who provided a comfort zone in the battle of registration. Marvin faced the nightmare prospect of trying to find a place to live in L.A. for $300, returning to Albuquerque, or ? Or what? He was too fucked up to think beyond it all. Table 7 and a counselor named June, beckoned.

A lot of kids find it necessary to borrow for their education. Your future is worth investing in. A talent like yours is a terrible thing to waste. Was she serious? What did she know about his talent? Had she seen his slides? Did she understand his work? But it’s actually quite easy. I’d say from your package that you’ll need at least $4500. That will cover tuition and leave you a $1500 to get settled. How’s that sound? Would you like some coffee? She was serious. At least about the money.

Marvin looked around. He was not alone at Table 7. Having company somehow made it easier. There were at least forty other kids in the same boat. Oddly, the school did not require a co-signer or collateral—and so he signed, and signed, and signed again. Lucky day! $4500 was a lot of money. A regular bonanza. And according to June, the repayment of the loan money would be easy. Besides, it was far into the unseen future. Who could guarantee him a life that long? A lot of people didn’t live that long. He had to take action! And so with a stroke of the pen, Marvin Wilkie, and a boat load of other students assigned themselves to a lifetime of debt and poverty for the privilege of attending an exclusive art institute.

After the ink dried he went directly from Table 7, around the corner, and into a huge open hall called The Main Gallery. There he gazed up into the distant black ceiling like a farm boy just off the bus in Chicago. It was tall in there, real tall. The floors of the Main Gallery were polished hardwood, enough for the deck of an aircraft carrier. Like a giant hangar, it could have easily garaged the Space Shuttle. Flat white walls stood ready to receive art on the first floor. Recessed lighting mounted underneath the second floor balcony illuminated these walls with a tasteful, indirect glow. The second floor was a gallery space as well. A regal, wishbone stairway formed one end of the Main Gallery and connected the two levels. Wood railing wrapped around the second floor twenty feet above the hall where Marvin stood. Above that, a cavernous space rose yet another story into blackness. From even higher, impossible lights hung down on dark fixtures from an unseen distance giving the ceiling an illusion of an endless cavern.

Back on the floor, activity flourished around tables and teachers where students sought out the classes they needed to complete their credits and degrees. He had barely noticed the other kids whose wealthy parents and trust funds allowed them to skip merrily through the rigors of registration. They enjoyed the ease of playing with someone else’s money and escaped Table 7 altogether. The range of students, however, did catch his attention. There were kids fresh out of high school, but there were others even older than himself—hell, they were in their thirties already! C.C.A. had evolved into a sort of graduate school for undergraduates. The environment called for a maturity, an investment of life experience to make it worthwhile. It was inappropriate for kids straight out of high school. (But if students of such tender experience had the money no one was going to advise them otherwise. To the administrators it was for anyone who could pay, a practice which became more obvious as the school grew in popularity.)

Marvin had no idea what classes to take and his assigned mentor, Bon Jorofsky, did little to illuminate the situation. So he selected classes like an amateur betting on race horses—by the sound of their names. Once his registration card was full he interrupted his new mentor long enough to get a validating scribble. His documentation, papers, and money all in order, Marvin wandered off to find his studio and open the next chapter. As he did, a tremendous relief lifted him from the edge of disaster. It was as close to starting over as one could get—not just another level in the Old Testament Tower, but a new tower altogether. There on the desert plains the foundation of a new city was being laid. Years afterward, he would wonder if he had seen Nicole on that first day of his new life.

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS

In the late 1970’s the surrounding town of Newhall was still more of a rural hamlet than a stretch of modern urbanity. There was a quaint sense to the main street of the town with its western wear stores, bars and pool hall. The town clung stubbornly to its bit of the old west. A central park was dotted with plaques of cowboy lore and featured a museum dedicated to the town’s image of its western roots. The long term residents of Newhall openly viewed Los Angeles as a festering pit of degradation. They prayed daily for the mountain range separating Newhall from the city to grow higher and wider until there was a world between them. They held similar views about the art school on the hill amidst their community. It was Kook Island to them and they kept their eyes peeled for strays wandering away from the compound.

It didn’t matter how many layers of white stitched blue denim an art student might wear, or with what kind of cowboy boots, once off the hill they stood out sorely and were viewed with suspicion. Among other activities it was unwise to drink in the locals only taverns, or to go mouthing off in the lumber yard. But the other side of this latent hostility was the camaraderie it created back up at the institute. Complimented by the physical distance from Los Angeles, California Contemporary Arts provided a setting for bonding much stronger than just the promise of becoming an alumni. It was the students against the rest of the world, and that world began in Newhall.

California Contemporary Arts entertained all of the disciplines of art: Music, Dance, Film & Video, Fine Art, Design, Acting and Animation. C.C.A. was hot! It was a school of destiny and recognition. It was prestige in the making. And although Marvin didn’t realize it at first, even with a loan he couldn’t afford it, not the rent in town, not the rent in the dorm. Fortunately, the fine art students were issued studios. The