––My first major ARTWORK/the first important sculpture to begin an art career––(didn't realize how crucial a 'mentor' was!). And a tribute to dear friend & collaborator Willie Boy Walker.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BBDNQV2T

Here's some history about the Oakland, California CCAC foundry (California College of Arts and Crafts, now simply called California College For the Arts/CCA), when the foundry was still on campus and I was a student there, 1967-70. My cast aluminum, bronzes and painted wood sculptures contained in this book, including the one pictured ahead, originaled during a class I attended, taught by sculptor Charles Simonds. In any case, without the events that I describe below, none of the art contained here would have ever been made, not to mention getting enough confidence from these works to give video a try, later film, and eventually writing my how-to book, "Feature Filmmaking at Used-Car Prices" (Viking Penguin Books). It almost didn't happen. If I hadn’t gone to a garage sale while I was in the process of quitting art school, staying absent for three weeks after teacher Charlie Simonds had discouraged my early attempts at sculpture, there would have been no further art from me, because I was ready to hang it all up. And I had some extra pressure, being married as I was (1968), with two small adopted kids and a newborn daughter.

At the garage sale I had found a curved, wooden half-round pattern, obviously used for some kind of plastic tube production. I paid the cost ($5), brought it home and got some ideas. After checking in out, I decided to use it as pattern for a mold I had in mind. My then (first) wife had no idea why I was spending so much time “doing something” in the little playhouse that I used for a studio, situated behind our apartment on Russell Street in Berkeley.

I took the curved wood, lightly dusted it with dry plaster (may have greased it too!), and covered it with a wet plaster mix. Next, I separated the plaster from the piece, filled the plaster mold's cavity with melted wax, and let it harden to about a 1/4" thick walls. Finally, I joined several of the wax curves together with a hot knife, forming the longer undulating shapes you see here.

Once the wax patterns were smooth and finished I decided to drop back into the CCAC foundry (oblivious to any class schedule), hoping to cast the curley things in aluminum. I envisioned adding painted wood straights later, to connect it all up––they would ultimately be sprayed with 50+ coats of day-glow lacquer/hot-rod car paint. And amazingly, when teacher-Charlie spied me ramming the patterns into resin sand for casting he, fortunately for me, liked what he saw.

Within seconds of Charlie's favorable response (“Looks pretty good!”), he offered me a TA position in the foundry (Teacher's Assistant). What a crazy development. I instantly went from becoming a college dropout to being hired as an assistant! And that was when my life turned around. We all need a “confidence-building” moment like this, and here was mine.

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The sculpture hung high on a wall in the Oakland, California house of my long-time friend and actor/writer/co- director Willie Boy Walker. He surprised me one day in 2018 by saying, out of the blue, that he was returning it to me (I hadn’t requested it), along with my bronze "Wings on a pole," which I'd used in my movie "What Flirting Cost Me," in which Willie had had the starring role (see enlarged film-strip below, from the movie).

And next thing I knew, he was making a duplicate of my “Curly Cue” sculpture, full size, plus a second “mini-Curley Cue” too. It does seem to have a sort of cheerful effect on me now, and helps me to remember this special and dear friend, a major collaborator throughout my entire filmmaking career.

Willie Boy Walker, 1945-2019.

Willie Boy Walker gifted me with his great acting and ideas, in the following movies all currently available on Cinedigm/Fandor/Amazon Prime/Vimeo: What Flirting Cost Me (30 min., ©1972). FEATURES": (Showboat)1988-The Remake, Emerald Cities, Morgan's Cake, American Orpheus, Crash My Funeral, The Fifth Wall, and Bear Dance.

BEAR DANCE (72 min., ©2004) A Film by Rick Schmidt & Willie Boy Walker, was shot in Portugal during the 2002 Figueira da Foz International Film Festival, and discusses the sanity and insanity of daily life, cultures colliding, young and old meshing in a common stew of modern humanity in new-millennium turmoil. We are introduced to a cast of interesting characters who entertain us with various real-life stories of surfing accidents, knife threats, chocolate addition, bricks being thrown at babies, confessing Catholic sins, safaris with blue people, a past life as a castrated eunuch, etc. In the end, it hopefully becomes clear that we need to express tolerance for differing views of existence.

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THE SCULPTURES OF FILMMAKER RICK SCHMIDT 1967-1971.

by Rick Schmidt (Author) Format: Kindle Edition. Also paperback and hardcover.

In THE SCULPTURES OF FILMMAKER RICK SCHMIDT 1967-1971, we get to experience his artistic life hanging in the balance, during his years of education at the CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF ARTS AND CRAFTS (CCAC), Oakland, CA (now California College of the Arts). Without a few critical moments of assistance and mentorship, there would have been none of the inventive and elegant lacquer-sprayed, cast aluminum, "white" and silicon bronze works displayed in the pages. Schmidt's commentary, about both "the making of" his artworks and recollections excerpted from his 2017 memoir, "12 Dead Frogs and Other Stories," are a fast and fascinating read. He straightforwardly reveals the highs and lows of being an artist in the turbulent 1960s, early '70s.
It's interesting to contemplate exactly how he transitioned from casting metal and creating kinetic art pieces––many are based on the dissolution of his first marriage––to feature filmmaking. (For more in depth answers see his memoir, also available on Kindle). From sculpting Schmidt goes on to co-direct his first feature, A MAN, A WOMAN, AND A KILLER, with then-roommate Wayne Wang (future director of JOY LUCK CLUB, SMOKE, etc.), later pens a best-seller that many call "the bible" of independent film. His "how-to," FEATURE FILMMAKING AT USED-CAR PRICES (Viking Penguin, 1988, 1995, 2000), gIves start to several important Hollywood careers, including Kevin Smith (CLERKS), and Vin Diesel.