Jesse

This is a continuation of Living in Santa Barbara.

Since I was young I have passed a fair amount of time looking out the window. As I practiced this art, I noticed a nice looking boy coming and going at a house across the street. One afternoon, as I was working on building a huge fish tank in the garage with Reggie, this boy came in with his older brother to see what we were doing. While Reggie was entertaining the elder, Sam, I invited the younger, Jesse, to admire my circular garden. Jesse was fourteen, part Navaho Indian, and I was sure hewas gay. I wanted to make a drawing of him and he was eager to comply, so we made a date for the next day. He was living with his father in Davis and left shortly after but Sam kept coming to the house. He wanted me to give him a tattoo and one day he brought me a crude tattoo machine that he had made. That was not to be denied. Since the machine worked with only one needle, every line had to be worked over several times and we passed long hours at it. When we had finished a butterfly on his hip he wanted a snake on the chest and then a rose on the shoulder. He was eager to be a model; we passed a lot of time together and I took many pictures that I developed in my darkroom.

But it was his brother that I was in love with.
Jesse came back at the end of the summer to stay with his grandmother in the house across the street. He always said that he had raised himself. His family did not really have time for him and he took his decisions independently and certainly knew what he wanted, so when we hooked up and he became my lover it was with his consent. The sex was not the most important part of our relationship, but for me it was the fulfillment of a dream I had had since I was a teenager and in love with my best friend.

We only had a few months together before our household broke up and I went back to Vajrapani Retreat Center in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I invited him to visit me there and all the good Buddhists seemed shaken by the thought that my fifteen years old boyfriend was coming. For me there was no confusion; I only worried if I would be pure enough and wise enough to never hurt him.
Next I visited him at his fathers place in Dixon near Sacramento and then we met again in Santa Barbara and at Vajrapani and between the visits we wrote each other. We always had a good time together, whether we were exploring in nature or being creative at home. I was often executing his commissions, making drawings for him or sewing clothes or taking photos and he also enjoyed drawing and showed aptitude for it.

Our relationship lasted till he was eighteen. He was becoming less interested in art and dreaming more the American dream of material wealth and I knew we had come to the end. He had decided to leave home and set out on his own and he asked me to take him to San Francisco and leave him on a street corner to try his luck. It was with a heavy heart that I complied with his wish.
He wrote and told me that a boy named Billy had picked him up immediately and that he was now living with him. I received a few more letters and then nothing for three years.
Then came a letter from the correctional facility in Vaccaville and our correspondence resumed. I told him that I was not in love with him any more but would always be his friend.

I will finish with some of the words he wrote in the last letter I received: “I really miss all the good times we had together & have them framed in a picture in my mind for life. You made me very happy in my childhood days. The gods must have done it. Because I was really lost and lonely and needed a good friend. You took me away from all that drama with my family. I hope I can still come and visit for a while, I would enjoy that very much.”
But he never came.

Mohammed

When I lived in Marrakesh, after I had come back from the prison, I was completely broke. This boy, Mohammed, who made his living by guiding tourists to a shop where they gave him a percentage, took me under his wing and shared his work with me. I made this drawing of him. As you can see, besides being compassionate, he was also a handsome boy:

How do you like the new look of the blog? This is due to Blogger Beta!

Doing the Dishes

This redheaded boy was visiting with a friend in Santa Barbara and I caught him in this domestic scene.

To the End of the World.

Taken this summer in Denmark.

Cat Love

African Mask

I bought this the first time I was in Guinea in 1995. It is for an initiation ceremony.

Sam

Two handcolored photos from Santa Barbara, 1980.

Living in Santa Barbara

I have previously told about how I came to stay in the house with Reggie in Santa Barbara.
Besides Reggie and Mary, Fred lived in the house. He was not an artist and was less involved in what was going on in the house, but his mind was open and I think he enjoyed the wildness even though it scared him a little.
I had only been in the house a few months when it was sold and we were forced to move. Every time we looked at a new house we were turned down and it became obvious that nobody wanted a random group like us. We had to be a family! At our next house hunt we presented ourselves as the married couple Reggie and Mary with Mary’s widowed father (me) who had come from overseas to live with his daughter. Fred was not mentioned but would be a cousin visiting if ever the landlord came around.
It worked right away. We found a house on a dead end road with a large backyard. A family Brown had been living there and everything in the house was brown and smelt strongly of wet dog. We did a thorough cleaning, got new carpeting and repainted the whole house; Reggie’s room blue, mine salmon, and the living room white with turquoise trim. In a small shed I rigged up a darkroom with equipment that a friend lent me and I became an avid photographer.


I dug up one part of the lawn for a circular garden whose precious centerpiece was later stolen.


Reggie worked as a handyman and he introduced me to Frieda Huttenback, wife of the chancellor of UC Santa Barbara. She always had work for me but often kept me from doing it; what she really needed was someone to talk to. I soon became her trusted listener and helper in the big lonely house that was guarded against intrusion with lights and locks and alarm. Once she called me: “Oh, can you come please. There is a bug in the house.” Through a hole in a screen an innocent little beetle had entered the house and freaked her daughter out and I had to catch it, expel it and repair the screen. When Frieda had her migraines I drove her to a healer in Ventura and after she got to know me well she trusted me to repair the brocade frames of her treasured Tibetan tankas.
Reggie was taking classes in aikido and I joined him. I made two friends at the dojo: Art and John. Art told me he was eighteen and seemed mature for his age. Years later I found out that he had been only sixteen, but he felt that people treated him with more respect when he lied about his age. Art had a beautiful body and was not shy about being naked so he became one of my favorite photo models.
John was a black belt in aikido and assistant teacher in the dojo. We invited him to one of our wild parties and I had a fantasy played out with him that night. After he got to know us he opened up and told us that he wanted to change sex and we offered him sanctuary in our house from the time he began the transformation. I was eager to repeat the experience with him but he told me to lay off and let him decide if and when we would get together. This colored Xerox is of the woman emerging.

A Moment of Attraction

This boy passed me in the street and I could not get him out of my mind, so I painted this image of him.

Prayer

A fairly recent painting in oilpastel.

Palle

Every year there was a big costume party in the Odd Fellow Palace in Copenhagen; I was going with Ebbe and his young lover, Palle. I did have the same taste in boys as Ebbe, and I fell for Palle at first sight. He was 18, a little taller than me and well made, as I had occasion to notice when we were undressing and dressing for the costume party. After that day I started seeing him often. Starting the following spring, Ebbe had a job as dentist in Switzerland for a year, and he had promised me that I could live in his apartment while he was away. He had let Palle know that that was the end of their relationship, so Palle would be free and I asked him if he would share the apartment and live with me, and he agreed.


I had envisioned a happy monogamous life, but Palle had other ideas. We had met a gay couple, Poul Benz, who was a lawyer, and Flemming Skov, a ballet dancer. A pair of bitchy queens if ever there was. Poul Benz could not stand being alone, and nearly every day he came by and asked us to accompany him driving around in his car. Palle was always ready, and mostly I chose to come along, not because I liked to, but because I wanted to be with Palle. By nature I am jealous, but I tried to overcome it and not let it take over. This daily effort caused a lot of frustration, and after a couple of months I came down with a serious hepatitis. When Palle saw that my moodiness and impatience was caused by illness, he became very tender and thoughtful and took good care of me.
But what was cause and what effect?
My convalescence took a whole year and by the end of it Palle decided to apprentice for a year in a childcare center in Germany.

Our friend Jan had met a boy in Yugoslavia and shortly before Palle left, Zoran arrived, and there was a welcome party for him. I was dancing with Zoran and there was an immediate intense attraction between us. He was not exactly good-looking and his communist clothes were not flattering, but the chemistry was there. Jan wanted me to entertain him and take him out since I had time and spoke French. The first time he came, we took a walk around the Lakes, but we both knew what would happen as soon as we would come home and be alone. His body was perfect, boyish but muscular with skin smooth and translucent. I later took him to the gay professor Riiseby at the Royal Academy who was looking for a model. At first the professor looked doubtful, but as soon as Zoran took off his clothes he became enthusiastic - as I knew he would - and Zoran had the job. He was the sexiest boy I ever met, and he evoked lust in everyone susceptible to boyish charms.
When the time came for the next yearly costume party, Zoran wanted me to dress as a woman. I felt that I would be disgusting now, at the age of 30, and with a mustache, but Zoran insisted.
“I will do it if you promise to dance with me all evening,” I said.
“I will,” said Zoran, ”I promise.” And he kept his promise!
At Christmas I went to Germany to be with Palle. When he asked me if I had been faithful I admitted that I had not, and I think he already guessed what had happened. I had not expected that he would take that to heart; he had not exactly been faithful to me. But I could see that he did.
Back in Copenhagen, Zoran had us both, Jan and me, completely in his pocket. He arranged to have Jan ask me to let him stay three days with me. To me he complained about Jan; he told me that Jan beat him. He played it like he was unhappy with Jan, and I was his true love. After he went to Paris, Jan could not stop talking about him, and I got the story of their happy time together, very different from Zoran's version. I did not deserve better than this double play from Zoran since I myself had deceived Jan. Only, Jan was not hurt because he never knew. I was hurt, but not so much that I did not seek out Zoran the next couple of times I came to Paris.
When Palle came back from Germany Zoran was gone. I was hoping we could get our relationship back on track, but when we had to move four or five months later, Palle said he was not going to come. He had fallen in love with Henning whom I had met while I was conscientious objector in Oxbøl and introduced in our home. They moved in together, and I only saw Palle a couple of times after.

Quote

Sexual release is the most mysticism most people can manage.
(Hanif Kureishi, ‘Intimacy’, Scribner Paperback Fiction 2001. p. 46)

A Rose is a Rose

Forward to the Past.

I foumd this image on the net and I like it a lot. It's really bizarre, but so innocently authentic - and i love alphabets too.

The Atlas Mountains

Oxbøl

When I was drafted to three weeks of retraining in the army I declared myself conscientious objector and had to serve instead six weeks in Oxbøl camp.
Oxbøl was a camp for 10,000 people created by the German army during the occupation and was now after the war being dismantled by conscientious objectors. We had to dig up old roads and separate the stones from the gravel. We were supposed to produce a certain amount of cubic feet per day, but since we were only there for a short time the staff didn’t enforce the rules strictly on us. We did some work because it was winter and we were outdoors, but mostly we were leaning on our shovels, talking and smoking cigarettes.
Oxbøl was far away from any town and in our free time we had only the entertainment offered in the camp. I chose the pottery workshop and soon became friends with the teacher, a young objector named Henning. I passed all my free time there and was assisting when the pots were fired. This was done in an old fashioned kiln fired up with wood and it was an all night project. Every ten minutes the kiln had to be stoked and in between Henning and I sat in the candlelight and drank red wine, the only ones in the camp awake and snug in the cold night.
After such a night I slept in and coming from the shower with a towel round my waist I met one of the staff. “Why are you not at work?” he asked. “Because I don’t have any clothes on,” I said, and because my answer was confident and prompt he accepted it in spite of its absurdity.
I had a big surprise one evening on a walk with Henning. Suddenly he stopped me, turned me towards him and kissed me. “Are you happy now?” he said. I was more like stunned, I had no idea he was gay and I was not in love with him. Anyway we were friends and he was a nice boy, so I didn’t object and conveniently we had the workshop all to ourselves!

18th Dunun Village

Click to enlarge!

More Graphics

I like to design new alphabets - this is inspired by Tibetan writing.

Flyer

Another example of graphic work.

Graphics

One of the things I like to do is graphics, posters and layout for pamphlets and books. When I came to America in 1977 and hooked up with the people from Vajrapani Institute I did all their programs, prayer books etc. Here are examples of my work:


This is a sketch for a poster. The bell symbolizes the wisdom and the vajra or thunderbolt (laying under the bell) symbolizes the method or skillful means. Together they make the path to enlightenment:

Fred

Colored xerox from 1980.

Hugo and Uzi

Love or murder?

Françoise

Miles (as in Miles Davis)

In each series of pictures painted there is usually one that stands out and seems inspired and satisfying to the artist.
This is the one from my 'cubist period' that I love best. It is from 1960.

A Quote

In Buddhism, knowledge is regarded as an obstacle to understanding, like a block of ice that obstructs water from flowing. It is said that if we take one thing to be the truth and cling to it, even if truth itself comes in person and knocks at our door, we won’t open it. For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.
(Thich Nhat Hanh, ‘Being Peace’, Parallax Press, Berkeley, CA, 1987, p.42)

From an Old Letter

When I was travelling in the East I had plenty of time to write long letters and decorate them.

A House with Eyes

This painting was painted sometime in the mid sixties and I had completely forgotten it, but found it in the cellar of a friend. I got it back and cleaned it up, and another friend said he would like to have it on a wall.
His children complained and said it would give them nightmares.
What do you think?

Some Pictures from Denmark

Two Danish boys:
The lake in Sorø:
The monastery church in Sorø:
On the ferry from Hundested to Rørvig:
My friends Steen & Kirsten have transformed their old farm house into something special:
Steen & Kirsten's farm:
The bridge to Sweden: