Real-Life Stories #6. From fry-Cook to taking art classes at CCA, Oakland, CA (1964), and almost dropping out there too. (See: "The Funny Sticks," etc.) .

Art school days in Oakland, CA, when, as a young married guy (22) I was self-pressured to learn "a profession." After floundering, two teachers saved me, got me on-course to succeed.

Flash-forward to 21-years-old, having dropped out of engineering classes at U. of Arizona, getting married, and now responsible for two daughters from my first wife’s earlier marriage.

IT’S OWN REWARD (1965)

The pressures of family life, joining the work force of low-paying jobs, became another cross to bear. I found myself getting more and more frustrated with the menial job that had replaced my college education . The stupid boss at the Big Boy restaurant where I worked gave me nothing but petty complaints, even though I knew I was fast and efficient, at one point during a midnight shift having juggled the cooking of fifteen hamburgers, deep frying trout, poaching eggs, preparing salads, delivering other orders without any help or backup. But all the boss had done was complain the next day when I created my own dinner while on duty, spotting me loading a plate with burger, cottage cheese, toast, an egg, instead of selecting a precise meal straight from the menu.

Later that month, when I asked for a raise, he looked at me in disbelief, stunned as if I’d hit him with a punch. Basically laughing in my face he said that he “could always get another Indian” to do what I did. But finally he relented, agreeing to raise my salary from $1.00 an hour to a still- measly $1.25 – not exactly a living wage, even for Tucson, AZ of 1965.

Sitting in the kitchen at home one morning, after working until 2 AM the night before, feeling groggy and generally pissed off at the world, I was handed a piece of paper by my first wife, who explained that she had done some research about art schools and had located one called The California College of Arts and Crafts (now called, California College of the Arts) and that I might want to attend. I hardly understood what she was talking about. She continued, saying that she thought since I liked to build things with my hands, and was also good at math, I might want to become an industrial designer. I hardly even glanced at the photocopied page before I crumpled it up, tossing the ball into a far corner of the room (I was a lot of fun to be around in those days!). She and the kids left the room shortly thereafter, to escape my obvious negativity.

Only later, after about an hour of stewing, did I get up out of my seat, walk over and retrieve the discarded scrap. When I unfolded it and read about the school, about their philosophy of learning, I was surprised to find myself getting interested. Calling up the Oakland, California campus I was happy to learn from the registrar, Rose Rothchild, that even with my poor C- grade point average at U. of A. I could be admitted, “on probation,” until my grade point average came up to an acceptable level.

In a total reversal, I exclaimed that I was going to California, with or without her! She, of course, agreed. (I’ve properly thanked her in each of the 100,000 copies in print of my book, FEATURE FILMMAKING AT USED-CAR PRICES (Viking Penguin Books ©1988, 1995, 2000), about being instrumental in changing/saving my life)

A month later we moved the family to Oakland, California. Tuition was affordable––$387 per semester, rents were cheap (we got an apartment for $80 per month), and I was back in college (and probably, unknowingly, avoiding a draft call to Vietnam!).

While hardly any of the credits from my junior status in engineering in Arizona transferred over, beyond a few basic math and English courses, that was fine with me. I liked the idea of starting over fresh. For once I wanted to do it right.

THE FUNNY STICKS (1966)

The first moments of art school were disorienting, to say the least. Suddenly I was sitting in a large classroom with kids much younger than myself, who were fresh out of high school, while I was the older guy (now 22), with a wife and a couple kids. One teacher, Mrs. Murelius, a woman of about sixty, explained to the class that she was tough and didn’t tolerate any “funny business,” so we’d better pay attention or she would flunk the whole lot of us! Hearing this was especially frightening, considering that I had half of my Freshman units (9 units) tied up with her studio classes.

So I had just jumped into the fray, and without having come through the usual ranks of high school art education I floundered. While all the other art students in the class nodded their heads as the teacher spoke about Space, Texture, Form, Line, Content, I sat there stiffly, not understanding, but not wanting to reveal my ignorance. I was scared that once again I would prove to be the dumbbell I knew so well from a lifetime of screwing up academically. So it was nerve-wracking. To compensate, I studied hard, spent long hours on even the simplest assignments, trying to be a good student. But by the end of the first month it appeared that no amount of commitment would help.

After assigning an art exercise, Mrs. Murelius would roam the classroom, chatting with each of the twenty or so students individually, to comment on their progress (or lack of such), finally arriving where I was seated. I dreaded her repeated focus on my work, still not understanding the positive impact a great teacher could exert on a hard-working student such as myself. The breakthrough moment for me occurred sometime during the second month at CCAC, when she assigned us a project consisting of honeycomb boxes filled with some kind of repeating icon. For homework, each student constructed a framework and brought them to class the following week. Mrs. Murelius explained that we should use the three hours of studio time to fill each little cubbyhole with some creation – a circle, a figure, something that could be varied, repeated in each small environment – and then turn in the results for grading. But I wasn’t getting any ideas!

When she arrived at my desk and asked how I was doing, “Not well” must have been my answer––I was fiddling with two pieces of balsa wood and not getting anywhere. She encouraged me to just place them into one of the compartments and play around. While she stood there (more pressure) I placed the two pieces together, one in the foreground, one behind, then kind of fanned them out, wedging them against the top and bottom so they held their places. Then I made some subtle adjustments in the sticks while both of us eyed the little 3” square compartment. Suddenly and unexpectedly we both broke out laughing. The pieces had momentarily come alive! Just two sticks, one thin, one thicker – think Laurel and Hardy – had taken on some funny qualities, to which the two of us responded simultaneously.

I’m sure that everyone in the class looked over at us, but I just remember her beaming face. That gruff old teacher had melted before a couple of little wooden sticks stuck in a box. We recovered, exchanged knowing glances, and she moved on to the next student down the way. She had worked her magic. And for the first time in my life I had a mentor, someone who would help me keep on course.

Since I was new to being a successful student––getting “A” suddenly for my projects––I worked extra hard to maintain that high grade. It was with that positive backwind that I hit another (fortunately temporary) stumbling block––a foundry class with a teacher in charge who demanded the highest level of artwork from us scraggly, wet-behind-the-ears art students. Suddenly “hard work” at art didn’t count for jack.

TYPICAL TWENTIETH CENTURY (1967)

Up until my second year at CCAC, when I first signed up for a foundry class taught by sculptor Charlie (C.G.) Simonds, I had become accustomed to creating artworks that Mrs. Murelius respected, which had accounted for a good grade point average, almost solid “A.” But Charlie didn’t give a shit about grades or hard work. He wanted to see good, world-class sculptures, that’s all. A recent graduate of University of California’s MFA program, he was a hot-shot disciple of legendary sculptor-ceramicist Peter Voulkos, ready to make a name for himself and also hopefully survive teaching a bunch of weenies at CCAC. And he had the talent to back it up. But he really didn’t belong teaching undergraduate art – his standards were much too high! Actually, I’m being facetious here. Charlie was, in my estimation, the exact right kind of teacher for art schools at any level. Any school would have been fortunate to have such a devoted professional on their payroll, who demanded excellence from students as much as from himself. His website: <https://www.cgsimondssculpture.com/>)

At any rate, if the art itself wasn’t good in Charley’s opinion, no matter how long the student had taken to create the piece, he would verbally decimate it (them!) during the bi-monthly critiques. He didn’t suffer bad art gracefully. And there was rarely a critique in which tears weren’t shed by some poor art student.

When I showed Charlie the first wax sculpture I planned to cast he blurted out, “Typical Twentieth Century,” and told me to try again (he meant, before committing it to cast metal). I spent the next week melting wax, sticking pieces together, cutting and molding, scraping and finishing until my sculpture was, I believed, “perfect.” But he shot it down again, saying, “It’s been done.” I left school that day confused, defeated, vowing never to return. Because his class was nine units, half the entire load of credits I carried that semester, I knew a failure here would surely mean academic disaster.

Reverting back to my failure-based modus operandi, a routine I knew all too well, (probably a traditional dyslexic defense), I unofficially dropped out of school, which means stayed completely off campus––mostly just hung around the house. I have no idea what my then wife thought was happening during this time. Perhaps I made up some excuse. I would have done my best to conceal the truth for as long as possible, not unlike the husband who is fired from his job, but continues to “go to work each morning,” sitting out those 8-hours at a cafe or something.

After a few weeks, I converted an unused children’s playhouse in my back yard into a viable art studio. Iit accommodated a six-foot-high person with its peaked roof and 7’ square interior, and already had handy waist-high wraparound counters. There I started playing with an old, half-circle wooden mold that I had purchased at a recent garage sale. I filled it with hot molten wax and let the material cool and coagulate to about a 3/16" thickness, creating some half-tube shapes. Then connecting them by melting the surfaces together, I made two identical undulating forms, wiggly like a snake, that I thought could be poured as aluminum. I figured that I could connect the two metal pieces to similar sized half-round wooden sticks, two inches in diameter. I could then finish those surfaces with spray paint, to create some sort of trapezoidal wallhanging or floor piece.

Returning to the foundry one day, I proceeded to start ramming up the half-round forms of my tube sculpture, compacting special metal-casting sand against the hollow wax forms. By ramming sand against both sides, then removing the tube pattern, I’d have an exact cavity for replication in metal. In the midst of this activity, teacher Charlie Simonds, happened by. He asked what I was doing and I explained. Slowly he got a twinkle in his eye, exclaiming, “Not bad!” Within moments he said, “Want to be my TA? My mind was spinning. He had just offered me a paid assistantship at the foundry. I was suddenly transported from future dropout to becoming a salaried assistant at the school.

Charlie had inadvertently pushed me through another ring of fire, made me see that hard work in art wasn’t enough. You had to understand the true worth of your effort, be knowledgeable enough to not repeat what had already been accomplished (and accomplished well) in the history of art.

Here’s some examples of the art I produced, during those few years as an active sculptor: <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BBDNQV2T>.