ART, GOVERNMEN T IDIOTS AND FAKES REALITY OR EMPHASIS

by Paul Hennrickson,Ph.D

tm.

2013-01-19

This document which might be considered a

part of a diary was created more than a half century after many of the incidents described took place. If nothing else it evidences the persistence of the need to create some logic out of chaos, for

memory can be chaotic. I do not know from where aesthetic inspiration may come...at least not exactly. Indeed, it may be a combination of influences of some

sort.........perhaps chemical, but as some, these days, maintain, it is vibrational sound that determines events.....suggesting that there may be some inherent power in Narcissus infatuation with his

beauty, perhaps a sigh of inexpressible appreciation....and the creation of material form. If this were so it must be only a part of the story but it is in this sense that my intuition

may be correct that an artist (in this sense an image maker, an iconist), acts in the role of a psychic therapist as he moves or manipulates material form, creating new arrangements which had never

previously been in existence. That is, reconfiguring material, symbolic as it may, in fact, be, into a more acceptable arrangement one more consistent with his ideal perceptible environment....that is,

re-ordering the structure into a more acceptable order. Something like rewriting history in order to be able to lie with it....but that is the wrong end of the stick, the one the controller uses on the victim not

the end the searcher uses to dig his own treasure. In this view the activity of art criticism can only be pertinent when the properties of the resulting work are correlated with

biographical data, including the psychological events and these last can be varied and complex. The function of art criticism, it seems, in order to be pertinent, must reflect aspects of the psychic status of

the creator. In this connection, then, it is reasonable to assume that if there seems to be little or no evidence of an effort to coalesce aesthetic perceptions one might conclude that the artist responding is either

uninvolved in his environment, perhaps insensitive to it, or his protocols of production have excluded a record of his responses which then, consistent with some contemporary definitions of creativity

would exclude him from that group. One would be justified in concluding that the performer was repeating a rehearsal and not at all performing creatively.

There is the easily understood aphorism which states that one mans trash is another mans treasure and while to some extent it appears to describe some events it is, at

the same time, too flippant a description of the relationship between the observer and the observed to be truly informative. I would rather state that an individual with a creative vision looks

at whatever, and quite immediately sees the possibilities and the meanings inherent in change. It is closer, I think, to say, he brings order (meaning) out of chaos. My life, professional and pesonal, had been

between the years 1954 and 1964 turned up-side-down and psychological survival demanded that I establish a solid basis for new behavior. Having felt discarded, unappreciated condemned and quite

thoroughly out of step with any army of martinettes. I needed a changed vision so I took trash and reassembled it. ...making it the way I thought I wanted it or needed it.

Perhaps it was only the process and not the resulting products which had value...from one point of view that idea seems possible. This material is all dealing with the concept of

redefinitions. I wasnt truly aware of that at that time I did them but upon reflection it became clearer that a new order was required...or, perhaps the concept was only beginning to be formed.

There exist the thoroughly entertaining and relatively benign reality of the marks we make as we proceed in the making of them. An artists attention is

fixed on these seemingly purposeless actions. Meaning is what is attached to the mark, or does it, actually energe from it?, The work on the left and that on the right refer to the same subject....spousal

infidelity. Even now, after not quite nearly a century I have not arrived at a truce. I still go back and forth between the objective and imagined realities.

This work, created somewhat in the psychological web of Edvard Munch

illustrated the growing estrangement between Jean Bearn and myself. The situation did, however,shed light on the psychology of the female who, generally,finds it difficult to distinguish

between urgency of her groinal desires and the interests of the male of her choice. The definition of the needs becomes blurred. I understand that the parallel to this

behaviour might be seen in that of lions where prior to mating there is a tussel and, perhaps, by design, the foot pad of the male is scratched which makes it difficult for him to hunt and, perhaps, out of

compassion or the design of inducing dependence, the female provides food, perhaps making the male feel priviledged. Even after mating, the custom is carried on where the female does

the hunting and waits to eat after her male has been satisfied. One might wonder whether the divine creator had some mischief in mind when he protocoled sexual behavior in this way. Or, maybe he just

expected us to figure it out.

The Emerald Ceylonese Lovers

Bright Black Ressurection CrossThe Bubble The above five works were executed between 1957 and 1864. It was a period of nearly non-stop stress in two

important areas of y life, the professinal and the personal. It was a period when I was apprehensive about every move, every instance, a paranoid period, but not a psychotic paranoid. The only

conclusion I can come to, at this time, because these are successfuk as works of art, is that they represent the differences in a mental focus in solving immediately pressing problems in the area

of social relations and the problems inherent in solving more aademic questions. Having said that, however, I cannot deny the still nagging possibility that these five still contain problem psychological

elements in the area of social misallignment. All our efforts, at times, seem to be attempts at solutions to whatever real or imagined problem....what would

we be like if we had no problems?

The Rape of Europa The Rape of

Europa...Santa Fe

The Rape of Europa, by Titian, the

work taken as the model. When Ken Burge, a member of the art faculty at Radford University, gently challenged me to confront the issue of an aesthetic subcutaneous level of

a skin at some undetermined depth beneath the actual surface of the canvas I found myself in violent opposition to the concept and as though taken over by the spirit of a mischievous and dangerous Loki I

chose, or at least went, if there was no choice involved, in the completely opposite direction and made of the rape of Europa ...a rape. I tore the aesthetic hymen of convention and resisted conformity.

Those works are shown above. The first of these,the one on the left has been destroyed. I cannot remember how. The second, the one on the right, was donated to the

Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico in memory of a woman who had acted as a museum docent, was alcoholic, and who took her own life, I felt, in desperation of her being having been systemtically

unacknowledged by her husband....except, I believe, her material assets ...amounting to a VERY DIFFERENT FORM OF RAPE INDEED...but frequent enough.

The artist gave the second one to the museum in honor of a very sad woman who had acted, unimpressively, as a museum docent. Her husband, suspiciously thought to have

brought on her alleged suicide. The above seven images cover a relatively long period of time ftom appproximately 1955 whsn I was in Valley City. North Dakota and

had reason to believe Jean Bearns infidelities as had he rest of that small prarie town. In 1964 when there was incontestable proof of them...even from her own lips.

When she threatened to leave me if I accepted the position in Guam I seized the opportunity and even escorted her to the bus stop the following Tuesday. Concurrently, however, and I am

certain quite independent of her behavior, was the aestheic challenge from Ken Burge described above. To a significant extent these two concerns, the private one with

my wife and the other involving an esoteric interest in aesthetics were on the paths to solution. I had previously been aware of this concern while at The Rhode Island School of Design

but had never found a documentable example of what was meant by it. On my own, I had assumed that the works of Salvador Dali were

examples

of the opposite intent, but no one ever said so. And while I could see.somewhat, the claimed observation of this ghost surface was apparent in the Titian Rape of Europa I had privately thought that Titian

had arrived at this result, if, indeed, it does exist, without realizing it was a virtue. What Burge did for me was to give me the opportunity to conider whether the field painting he

pursued was an adequate response. It was adequate, I imagine, although to my knowledge he did not produce a work specifically in response to the nature of our brief discussion. I did,

however, but it was the nature of my response which began telling things about myself I had never been aware of...an extremely passionate reaction to events which in some fashion touched me deeply

like what might be called the rape of my trust and sensibilities by my wife in her dealings with the editors of the newspaper in Radford for whom she worked and who, in turn, informed the

President of the College, Charles Knox Martin, who used, against me, what ever information she provided the editor. In this way he felt able to discredit me as a defense against my attacks on him for his

unprofessional and unethical behavior. After all, ordering faculty to agree on the use of a single text is not only unethical it is biazarre as well as unintelligent. I privately wondered whether the

economics of publishing somehow made it cheaper by the unit to publish 500 rather than 50 and a kick back to the President might have been the offer. So sacrificing academic freedom might have

seemed a fair exchange.

One of thr silliest accusations against me published in the newspaper was that I had used the Colleges franking system for

personal letters. Based on this planted falsehood and in an addtional attempt to intimidate me was that my professional responses to colleagues in other institutions were opened and returned

to my mail box. I had thought it against the law, about which an intelligent, ethical and moral University President aught to have known, to have intercepted, opened, and prohibited from being delivered any

item of the U.S. mail, even a bothersom advertisment was not permitted. But there and then at Radford having friends of color was also not permitted.

Such a concern would not have concerned the anti-Roman Catholic, racist. antiSemitic, and, in my view, anti- intellectual and anti-Jesus of Nazareth state of Virginia supported fascsim.

What I find incomprehensible is the mind set that tolerates shisms resisting resolutions in diffferences in intellectual, moral, and acceptable professional concerns. This resistance makes

reasonable discourse impossible. Retrospectively I was reminded of President Martins response during the hiring

period to my question about having friends of color. His response was You wont have any.

Baldev Raj Luthra who has also worked with E. Paul Torrance at The

Bureau of Educational Research at the University of Minnesotabu who wiukd have preferred to rais roses in

Kashmir, when he had head that I would be going to Virginia teasingly suggested he would visit me there.

At some point in his career the State of Virginia awarded Martin a commendation for keeping the States most orderly campus...well, so much for the wisdom of the state. I suppose

there might be cause for a sort of celebration that such events as what occurred at Columbia, Kent State or Mexico City were not repeated in this small southwest Vitginia town. In Mexio Ctiy. By the

way, there were not 500 disappeared students from Mexixo City, but 5000, at least so I was informed by one who didnt disappear and one who came to my rescue at the time I was researching in

Oaxaca, when a mistakenly trusted former student from Radford, Johanna Bolton, stopped sending me my monthly funds and kept them for herself leaving me without funds in a foreign and

potentially unfriendly environment ,

A year before, or thereabouts, my

departure for Guam I produced this, among several others, which constituted and expression of my interest in accidents. It might look, in the light of the Ken Burge discussion that there had been an influence,

but I am not aware of any. It is, in its way, a very serrious expression of curiosity about the unknown. Whar happens when?....What will happen if?.... I am unable to accept the proposition that there

is a direct cause and effect relation between ones lifes experiences.and ones responses to them....certainly rare on a one to one level in the finer of the fine arts, but, rather, that there is a symbolically

processed, or a transformation of metaphore, more frequently encountered in the more elevated works. For one an example of such a difference let us look

at a Vargas and a Renoir.

Vargas

Renoir

Then, at that time, I think I thought the unknown appeared or originated on the paper or canvas...now I think that is only the key to the unknown and that the unknown is actually in the response structure of

the individual involved. The creative artist posits a question or introduces some imbalance just for the thrill of trying to bring the event back into both focus and

balance. ...and any excellence, or its absence, depends on the abiity of that particular individual to organize a multiplicity of diverse unknowns. The works which result from this induced adventure must retain

clues as to its origin and it is the responsibility of the art critic to uncover and explain what they are. During the apex of my public, private and professional

humiliations In Radford I had a relatively public defender in the character of VIc Avers , a Jewish reporter for the newspaper, who, when ever he could; would slip in a notice relative to my foreign

and exotic activities in the Western Pacific. It is this image of a casual stroll past a wrecked drone somewhere in the near east that somehow illustrates the victory of the

vanquished victim despite the odds. It does seem, sometimes, a benefit to clean the attic.

It is in the sense of a complete social cut off, alienation from ones community of fellows and a betrayal of support that I infused this photograph with

meaning. How does this fellow feel, or, how does he protect himself from feeling desperately forlorne as he strolls past this wreckage ... a symbol of his costly survival?

I found this photograph taken recently in the Near East somewhere, perhaps Syria, where in what seems a casual walk passed a downed plane, he seems not to attentively notice this disaster nor to

respond to it as though it were not a symbol of a crashed social order. He is, in effect, surviving through a personal disaster...walking through mire...and he is surviving...somehow,

at least. But what will he produce..if he feels the need to produce anything at all. I have had a few of those types of periods and what interests me about them is the manner in which I

survive and the wonder about how my psychic perceptions may have been reformulated. It has been stated that this is how one grows. That may not be the correct terminology . Perhaps we might better say

that this is how the clay gets formed, pushed around and shaped. Certainly Wifred Owens question still vibrates...was

it

for this the clay grew tall?

Is the human community so at war with its stated ideals that is sees no psychotic conflict in its willingness to sacrifice those of its group who are most defenceless?

wilfred Owen For me, however, it poses the question

what image might this person produce were he moved to bring to rest any psychic distress caused by the sight of this wreck. Some might say that he may have grown so innured to such common occurances

that they possessed no particularly urgent meaning whatsoever beyond there being yet another pile of junk to dispose of somewhere out of sight. This innurement might be considered an abnormality to the

extent that it may have suppressed the empathy some creatures feel for another. This empathy may be a very fragile experience and at its most keen may be a catalyst for the disolution of the

boundaries between the self and others...a necessary factor, it would seem, in the training of a warrior. But for me the photograph immediately brought to mind my

bewilderment when two important aspects of my life, the professional and the personal, came crashing down and I was, once again, expelled from the community of my fellows...or, more

correctly stated, I moved out. All of the above later reminded me of the similar episode with Paul Gauguin and his Danish wife. It had been reported that he had asked her to come with him to Tahiti and

that she refused. This was fotunate for everyone concerned , for Gauguin himself for he apparently needed the change n otder to develope, for his wife who might not have been able to endure the starteling

difference in attitude toward sexual behavior that exists between Denmark and Tahiti and for the rest of us who now have the tropical Gauguins to look at.

Exiting the plane in Agana and stepping diectly onto the tarmac can only be compared to walking into an invisible blanket. Stepping out from the airconditioned aircraft into the 83 degree

humidity required another 12% increase in physical effort just to push the air away. Is there any wonder that the tourist brochures describe such life as laid back?

Once there my greatest concern was to involve myself in my work. However, the Government of Guam following the dictates of the Department of Defence because my wife chose not to accompany me, took

away the 2 bedroom (condemned) property which I had been assigned and I was officially escorted to a long two level building about a half hour, by car, away from the campus. The campus, at that time, such as it

was, was comprised of two long concrete two level buildings When I saw what I was being led to I was disheartened but determined to see what might develop. My two escorts,

faculty members at the College came in with me and observed while the young man officiating behind a long barren counter top pushed a blanket, two sheets and a pillow toward me announced that I had

to be inside the building by 10:30 P.M., could have no visitors and there were a few other regulations announced whereupon without a word I pushed the blanket, sheets and pillow back and

walked out.. Ten feet out the door I heard voices from above and saw two men dressed in their underwear sitting on the window ledge who were animated in their communication. One of them with his

posterior hanging over the window ledge revealed a 2x15 linear brown stain on his skivvies. How great a depth of disrespect for the ends, purposes and processes of education

could the U.S. military, or governmental enterprises generally, have for thought processes, creative endeavours of many types and human mental growth and development when they cynically try to

force on an unsophisticated small town public, as a heroin, a depraved female like Lynndie England. A JudeoChristian nation would have been reminded of the warning Christ gave those who

mislead the young...and, perhaps have compared her services to those of Rahab at Jerico But this matter with the Government assigning a professor with a library of

several hundred research books to a one room, shared lavatory, timecontrolled and visitorcontrolled dormitory was something approaching insanity, it was certainly unreasonable and did

raise questions as to the means by which our government officials came to conclusions regarding the needs and definitions of education...to say nothing of the compassionate and

empathic governance of others. Yet another aspect of government hypocritical morality may have been seen in the somewhat aberrant behavior of one Marine Sergeant,

Richard Kennedy, whose records of existence the service seems unable, or unwilling, to locate, who, as a student enrolled in an art appreciation class came to me troubled by his military

assignments where, as company bar tender in the officers club, one of his undescribed responsibilities was to regulate the sexual assignations between officers and the wives of others.

On one occasion he came to my efficiency apartment uninvited in the evening and by three in the morning had shown no signs of leaving, all the while rambling, rather incoherently about his problems. My need to

attend to an 8 am class was of no concern or interest to him and my motions about going to bed were ignored..I finally had to order him to leave. Later when a friend who had married a Chamorran girl, Julia

Chuagalov, [I am unsure of the spelling of this name]

and his mother visited me when the Marine

Sergeant entered on his own...without knocking...uninvited, saw the situation, went to my small studio area, picked up a canvas and using my brushes and paints very extravagantly produced an image of

a turgid penis which he proudly displayed to my friends mother. Having experienced this behaviour from a member of our armed services in 1965 I had little right to be shocked by Lynndie Englands

behaviour...but I was. Is there something, perhaps about the military that tends to dehumanise an individual? On a considerably less obvious level but fully as revolting is the

position held by Madeleine Zeien Bordallo, as the Guam representative to Washington where, in point of fact, (despite recent election results) the representation is the reverse , that is, Washington tells

Guam what it will endure. The mindset that tolerates this subtle ethnic cleansing on the part of the American government in Guam is the same mindset that , in fact, glorified the debased behaviour at Abu

Ghraib and which there had been attempts to get a segment of the American public to hail this turdish cunt as a heroine...at least in her home town. It seems, fortunately it failed.

I could not believe, having already swallowed their public relations propaganda, that the armed services of the United States could have been so utterly without either humanity or

intelligence as to treat an academic with such insulting disregard, but my experiences with social depravity were not to end. They are all supported by and condoned, if not actually ordered, by the United States

Department of Defence. The other escort, Tidwell by name, assigned by the College Administration to assist a new arrival in adjusting to cultureshock had invited me to dinner sometime earlier and at that

dinner he and his wife offered me the opportunity to participate in an erotic threesome. I did not enquire as to how they thought such an activity might be an appropriate therapy for culture-shock. I

made no reply, in part, I imagine because I may have realized that any moral response to the offer would not have been understood. It is this same government which

promotes and depending upon the advantages offered by the circumstance, rewards successful non-controversial discovery which, I imagine, accounts for Twyla Tannehill s, [she was the wife of a Navy

Lieutenant] brazen challenge to me to either fuck her in the sea-cave or she would spread about that I was screwing the students. That sort of threat I could handle but I had no tolerance whatever for her

having swept onto the floor my art history slides neatly sorted out for the next weeks lectures.
.

I looked at my academic companions, Tidwell and Wilson, and returned, without

comment, to the car. Scott Wilson, a professor of anthropology quickly offered to rent me one of his two bedrooms in some newly constructed faculty housing. For the short time I was able to stay

there I absorbed as much of the kindness Eleanor Wilson the Kusaien wife of Scott was able to extend. I knew my wounds were healing under her observant and sympathetic care.

By way of a sharp contrast the occupied. colonialized native population had surprisingly, after hundreds of years of abuse by Spanish German, Japanese and American forces, still been able to exhibit a

dignified and considerate social behaviour. In my experience it was Joseph Sablan who was the most outstanding example of Chamorran good manners. Not only that but he had an

excellent singing voice which ultimately brought him to the attention of the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

. Joseph was a 19 year-

old student at the College of Guam when I first met him, or rather, saw him as a member of a local choir when I met him. When the Government of Guam allowed me to live in a structurally condemned house at

Harmon Village. Joseph somewhat brazenly came to visit me and to insert himself into my life, organizing his small church choir to sing, in Norwegian, a greeting song for my father when he came to visit

me....wearing a multicolored yarmulke. My father, initially oblivious to what language was being sung forced me to sternly tell him to listen. listen to the words!, I told him.

He did, and his eyes filled with tears which was only the second of the three times I had ever seen him show emotion of that sort. He did realize the enormity of the gesture that a half a world away a group of

dark-skinned natives had thoughtfully paid a tribute to him in this way and Joseph, following his custom when greeting my father took his hand and brought it to his lips to kiss...a gesture very foreign to my

father who, at first, resisted the movement, but then understanding what was happening allowed it to happen. I am certain that my father for whom racial mixing was anathema found the social

environment of Guam most challenging. He ended up being most fond of him.

The Chamoran family of a half century ago may have been a more cohesive unit than it is today.

My home in Merizo

and after tropical jungle growth

the shore

Me storm outside my house

the

water

Madeleine now

a politician Governor Leon-Guererro

Latti stones

2 lovers leap

The Dragon Lady

Dr. Antonio C. Yamashita

Dragon lady

The four personalities, Manuel LeonGuererro, Antonio C. Yamashita, Madeleine Zeien Bordallo and myself and their interactions have not been explored. In its way they all played a

role in a very quiet trajedy. In their various ways they were all victimized primarily as a result of the position Guam found itself in as a territory of the United States which like Puerto Rico and

Hawaii became the raison detres of Federal self-pride and a braided interpretion of righteousness. How Madeleine had been able to secure the influential and fearsom power she has I do not fully

understand. I can only suspect that she had been selected as Americas dragon lady [after Milton Caniffs invention] with sufficient rewards that would have allowed her to support, or engineered, the

sacrifice of her husband for what may have been described as the national good. The ancient observation that birds of a feather flock together is being put to a severe

test as one might judge from the published accounts of Madeleines political career. Significant credit is due her abiities in avoiding fates similar to her political companions, both former governors

of Guam, on which matter Meyling de la Cruz who functioned as the political advisor to her nephew, the Philippine dictator Marcos. may have advised her. lt would seem shed been able to avoid detection or,

more probably shed been seen as more talented in achieving the effects that position was designed to achieve, that is, a quiescent civilian population sufficiently under control so that the Department of

Defense could achieve with as litle effort as possible what it felt necessary to achieve. It may have been that aim that acconts for the recent elections where, at least, there was an opponant who achieved an

impressive vote count, that is, an official vote count. It is not difficult to imagine the Bordallo table talk referencing who could, among those available, be trusted to do what and

when and who could not and Madeleine subscribing more ardently to the influences of Meyling de la Cruz, the aunt and poitical advisor to the Philippine dictator, Marcos, who was married to the lady

with a thousand pair of shoes secured through the efforts of the Philippine coolie. At this point, it seems, to be appropriate to underscore some of the personality structures that found

themselves focusing in on one tragic period wherein learned social behaviors, some civilized, most intensly self aggrandizing and rooted in deceit played roles in the failure of an educational ideal at

the hands and intent of government. From my point of view only Antonio Yamashita was the most severely victimized as a result of the political manoeverings of Madeleine Bordallo. Being Guamanian, he

could not truly wish to leave Guam and being married to the niece of the then Governor could only serve to secure him to whatever the ties may be that have kept Guam from developing. It is very

difficult and emotionally traumatizing having to defend the ideal gainst the threats and pressures of power. In all of my dealings with Dr. Yamashita, even in those that

might have invited him to behave brutally he consistently behaved as one expects of a civilized human being even when the normal pressures to join the gang were offered by his academic VicePresident, Al

Hendricks, unhesitently rejected the opportunity. For some reason which I no longer remember I was being picked up by Hendricks and Yamashita to be driven some where. Hendricks was driving

as I recall and burst out laughing in the middle of a comment which had bypassed my understanding and he clearly expected to be joined in the joke by Dr. Yamashita. But that was not to be the case. Much later I

came to understand that Yamashitas code of civil behavior excluded the peurility of the mainland American which Hendrix exhibited so well.

Although a clue had been given that I was somehow involved in the joke its significance had escaped me until later when other events clarified it. A certain very high level government official

and succeessful business man had failed to understand that Henrickson was not the son of Hendricks and that in his haste to make contact had unwisely telephoned Al Hendricks to find out

where Henrickson was, thus alerting the university administration to a budding scandalous situation even before the object of the search had known anything about it.

Later public events involving the wife of the official indicated that she, at least, and presumably a host of others, believed the rumor, and my alleged role in it as well, as my being complicit in an affair.

Although it could have done it never did develop but that did not keep Madeleine who had her own agenda to follow from attempting to rid herself of some competitor in the arean of cultural and

educational achievment by using the rumor to engage the services of government in an investigation of my sexual behavior and the questioning, I was informed by the rumors, of 150

individuals (mostly students). Since there were no charges I assume nothing interesting was discovered...nor should there have been. One of the very distinct tragedies that resulted from the

selfishly motivated and pernicious Bordallo behavior was that had I remained in Guam and secured the cooperation of Tony Yamashita the University would have been remarkably different from what it

is at present and quite likely the civilian residents of the island more content. I also believe that had Madeleine been able to understand my character, motivations and talents and worked with them her

reputation would have been enviable....as St. Madeleine of Guam...the holy leader of a suppressed group. As Governot Guererro pointed out he believed the entire

incident to have been motivated by the jealousy of those whom I considered to be friends. He later named then as Meyling de la Cruz, Madeleine Bordallo and his (the Governors) wife. I did

not know them as friends, but then, it was hardly a requirement that he make that distinction. If there is anything I might criticisze Tony Yamashita for it would be for not coming to

my defense. I did not know what was going on at the beginning of all this...he did. Yet, I fully understand his reluctance, as a gentleman, to bring such a matter up with someone whose lifestyle he knew very

little about. As I view that perplexing period at that time, I cannot help but believe that if there were really tragic victims involved as a result of Bordallos political interference in educational matters it

was the disillusionment Tony must have felt at watching his ideal take one first and one last gasp at a life of fulfillment. Multiply this tragedy by two or three generations of students and their

immediate families and you have a massive assult on human rights. Granted, as some maintine, that we make our own movie, both Tony and I, out of, I suspect, a misplaced sense of

propriety, had made of ourselves willing victims ...but only because we hadnt believed in the real dimensions of the enemy...to the unexpected and unbelievable machinations of The

Dragon Lady....after all, comic strips are not expected to encarnate. In a sense Ricky Bordallo and I were closer than Madeleine and her husband might ever have been. After all, she knew all of what

she advised him to do including events leading to his conviction and suicide....ofcourse she was heir and he was out of the way. Had Madeleine not been there and

enthusiastically made decisions based solely on her personal requirements for high profile identity one of the results of educational achievment in Guam might not have been the 2006 SAT scores

which undicated that the longer children stayed in that system the dumber they got. This, for me, is only one of the clues, that pointed to Madeleines pernicious agency on behalf of a Federal

Government that accepted the concept that the easiest people to govern are the least educated. As a result of all this, however, while I personally suffered inconvenience and

disillusionment had I remained to fight the problem I sensed I would have been mired in the rather uintelligent and prejudicial mindsets of a military government. Guam is the home of institutional failure

instrumented by the Federal government and executed by the Department of Defense and carried out, by Madeleine Zeien Bordallo. In this important sense she is an unrepentant enemy of the people of

Guam. With Yamashitas support he and I could have raised the level of scholarly and creative achievment far beyond that of the drag which characterized that of Al Hendricks. At the time I had no such

ambitions...I was much too busy.

Scott Wilson Elenora Wilson Students from Kosraie

When the Governor called me to his office together with Tony Yamashita he opened the questioning about a letter. I asked him with some note of irritation What is this letter Ive heard mention of? He

replied, dismissing the matter nevermind, that now so I never have known what this letter was, or was supposed to have been, that seemed to be in the minds of some others, important evidence of

my alleged guilt....of what ? I wonder. Reflectively, I thought it might be another fake claim on Madeleins part some what like the interview on KUAM her agent the then news caster (whose name

I have forgotten) arranged

for and provided me, some days prior to the interview, with a script of questions he would ask and answers I would answer. This, of course, I found more than a little silly. I learned later he had

tred to set me up for embarassment for as we walked through the door into the interview studio he casually announced that he had discarded the script....which meant that I was on my own and from his

point of view, frightened, defenceless and vulnerable. I no longer remember the question with which he bagan this interview but I do remember that it was

mildly accusative....so I laughed and replied.You should know better than to ask a question like that! and the interview deteriorated. At that time I should have known he had been

put up to the deed...but I was naive and gave it little thought thereafter...except for years later. The seond mysterious statement from the Governor was that

those whom I thought were my friends...were not. I had no idea whom he meant so I replied. You have an advabtage over me. This comment Yamashita tried to cut off but the Governor stopped him and so he

named then, Mey Ling de la Cruz, Maldeleine Bordallo and his own wife... and he added They are jealous of the people you know By which he meant accomlished performing artists such as the Contiguglia

brothers (pianists), Isaac Stern (violinist) and others. The most bizarre performer was Theodore Ullmann who came with appropriately strong agency

recomenadations which I dpended upon for I had no personal knowledge of his work, He sent me his scheduled time of arrival at the Guam International airport and I was there to

receive him, but he never arrived. As I had , as always, a full schedule of requirements to attend to with practically no flexibility possible, I returned to my work and took that

opportunity to try to figure out what must be done now that a performer failed to arrive. Should I cancel the performancxe, call the agency , or what? Some time the next morning I was called to the Presidents

office and there stood a stranger whom I barely recognized from his publicity folders. I cast a glance at Yamashita who was now staring at the floor while Ullman started an indignant

tirade of my not having met him. I corrected his statement by telling him it was he who was not at the place he said he would be at the appointed time. He then said with

unconvincing superiority that he expected me to wait until he arrived. I looked at him in some shock thinking, perhaps, that here was a real nut and told him. I dont do that for anybody....tuned

around and walked out. Later at a reception dinner where Dr. Patty Jo Hoff, my escort and I were present, he suddenly started to speak French to me. Madeleine did not

speak French, neither did Patty Jo and there was no reason for any well-bred social guest to suddenly speak in a foreign language in the presence of others who dont which, normally, is considered the height

of rudness. Guessing that he had been put up to this by Madeleine I replied, in French, that I thought him a kind of fool. That retort had its desired effect.

Later. after his performance he kept me and Patty-Jo waiting while he spent 45 minues complaining about his father who insisted on his becoming a pianist while he wanted to be a mathematician. This

was not a conversation it sounded rather like an overflow from a confessional of other peoples, abuses of his rights. Finally had a brief pause in this monilogue I told him that those problems were of no concern to

ne. I told him I was satisfide that he had given an adequate perfomance and that, now, I had to leave.

Yet another example of Madeleins manuevering to eliminate all evidence of my efforts on Guam is seen, at least at one point , in the rewriting of the History of the Guam Symphony where mention of my

role had been excluded and the woman in charge of this rewrite had been unaware of that role. One wonders why she hadnt been provided with all the appropriate information. One

might wonder, for a bit, but not for long, if one grasps the dimensions of Madeleines ego. On the issue of competition it is never appropriate to see it as person A against

person B but only with the elements inherent in the single individual. It is the development of that person that is of prime importance not the superficialities of one sports team against another.

Certainly one of the more treasured and productivally beneficial and socially rewarding experiences I had had been with one of my students who learning of my interest in primitive art took it upon himself to

volunteer to bring me to a small, very small indeed, cave in Inarahan (see the above photo: Boy with Candle) where the local legend of two men battling is depicted (lower right hand corner). This act

was an example of the truthfulness of the unsophisticated and the generosity of youth and, believe it or not, I thought I was still able to detect some of that openness in Ricky Bordallo before some one or,

perhaps, several, alien types got to him. Sometime in this four year period between 1964 and 1968 some psychic healing may have taken place for the focus of my creative work changed

from those examples above to these below which exhibit a move from the arena of psychological turmoil to that of objective observation. I, as yet, do not have an explanation for the differences in the

approach to graphic composition for certainly the character of the Guam milieu was fully as disturbing as that at Radford, Virginia and what differences there were amounted to climate the tropical as

opposed to the temperate, The University administration differed in that where Radford was dictatorial Guam was disrupted by political concerns and in Virginia I had a wife

and in Guam a divorce wthout alimony. While any correlation between psychic states and product may be there I do not feel that I have been sucessful in identifying it. Perhaps I am not the one to do it.

While there may be some observers accustomed to seeing graphic realism in terms of an exact outline and a few perhaps acquainted with the goals of impressionism it is from among the latter

that some may see these efforts as demonstrably more placid. From this observation I would judge that that four year period of time had ben one when I had been able to repair myself.

I would hope that this observation would not indicate that for an artist to perform creatively he had to be exposed to psychic disturbance. The only conclusion I think justified is that there is some correlation

between how the artist reacts to cicumstances and the nature of the work he produces and that this correlation is inseparable from the nature of the work unless. of course, ones major, and

perhaps only, criteria is technical competence...narrow wly defined technical competence.

work by Walter Hannula

Walter Hannula

Evan Montvel-Cohen

work by Terry Taggart

Terry

Taggart

Madonna and Child, Walter Hannula. whose 1963 work Mother and Child

had attracted a great deal of attention from among the greeting card lets have luncheon set and had to a great extent sponsored my hope in his being an effective translator from the primitive and the

naieve to the sophisticated and to the subtle. I was wrong tragically wrong..wrong to an unbelievable extent for even after a half century there is no record of another work from the hand of

Walter Hannula but from this one piece there continues the adulation comparable to that given the crucifixion. Even those companies which continue to make profits from sales of reproductions seem

unable to identify anything else he may have done. Even after some set Evan Montvel-Cohen the most evident accomplishment of Marvin MontvelCohen and internationally

famouse for having scammed Jewish charities; and a work by Terry Taggart; Terry Taggart himself. Through out his 69 years of life he, apparently, cutivated the attitude of cynical sarcasm which he

demonstrates in this published biography: Terry Taggart, Biography

Terry Taggart was born in 1942 but was abandoned at an early age and raised in an orphanage, The St. Righteousness School for Children. It was here that he developed an early

interest in art. The Nuns had cheap copies of all the paintings of the Virgin Mary by Raphael and the Fat Ladies by Peter Paul Rubins. These paintings glowed with the glorious color of soft flesh and heavenly pink in an otherwise dreary existence. He knew at

an early age he wanted to be an artist His first formal art education was at the University of Oklahoma. He was awarded a BFA in 1964 with a concentration in drinking. The next three years was spent in Columbus, Ohio freezing to death while earning an MFA in

1967. The school got cheap labor from his teaching and he got his MFA meal ticket. His first official job was as an Associate Art Professor at The University of Guam. As Terry tells it, he spent two years there trying to explain the Renaissance. Guam at the time was not

known as the center of the art world. He relocated to New Your City in 1969 and secured a studio in a cheap, run down building in the art district of SOHO. The following year he became famous and had his first retrospective show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His

paintings are still cheap masterpieces but upon his death will be worth millions. His works may be found in all the major collections but most of his pieces are under his bed.

It is sad that he and all those I hired never exhibited those characteristics of

creative thinkers or of honest members of society. My hope that the changed enviornmental circumstances might have been seriously taken as a second chance was effectively killed.

Basically, who else but a half-baked incompetant in the 1960s would have accepted a position at the College of Guam? ...I had, and like all the rest I was halfbaked...but not

incompetant and that might have made all the difference. It was then even before the Libertarian party had been formed that my own philosophical instincts were beginning to flower.

On the other side of this coin I might mention that my most spectacular failure on Guam was my inability to interest individuals in posession of both character and creative talent to come to a

place which had had placed upon it most recently by the events of World War II a most represhensible reputation from among the thoroughly stressed and disadvantaged military conscripts who were

largely, either through experience or education or both, incapable of intelligent judgment. It was largely though this sort of influence that my wife had been convinced by others, who really were

already ill-informed, that Guam was not the place she wanted to be. That was one aspect of this adventure that worked to my advantage. It might added, justfiably, that the

continuing influence, political, cultural and ethnic of the Philippine community on this island is not in the best interests of Chamorro development. My experiences in other parts of the

Pacific Islands were rich, varied and dream-like. They were the romantic adventures of Treasure Island and The Jubgle Book come alive. I saw Mowgli, or his cousin, in every row of smiling

white teeth in a brown face I came across and not one ever came across as an enemy.

Lelu

Nan Modal

000000

http

Re .msg

A photographic collage using images taken while on Guam and in Micronesia and

geographically elsewhere as well. While this collection of some 60 photographic collages do, in their construction, involve a change from the original form of a straight forward, somewhat documentary, photograph of what was initially an object resident in the material world as we generally perceive it, that change, on its own, may be insufficient to explain the

final look.

it to a more subjectively resolved , that is more

aesthetically determined nonobjective composition drained of subject matter references What seems to have remained from this greatly involved process of data gathering (everyday impressions and experiences) are the rearranged nano-particles