"Oh, during the 60's......I quit (got myself fired) a good job in engineering in 1964 and turned to photography and taught myself. Sort of turned on, tuned in and dropped out. I had friends in the Haight and came to the conclusion that the Hippie thing was pretty much started by English, creative writing, poetry majors from various schools, mainly San Francisco State. With Korea "over", President Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinated, and soon Malcolm X, The Black Panthers and....you know....it felt good to be progressive. It was really truly American. Somehow there seemed to be a way of straightening everything out and the social energy provided by the Mime Troupe, Rock 'n Roll, and the idea of living on less money and love was very enticing. I wanted to be a part of it and got deeply involved with happenings (Alan Kaprow) and film and art, all the while doing my photography. Bill Graham had hired a film maker, Robert Nelson, to create a film for the mime Troupe and it was called "Oh Dem Watermelons." When Bill started the Fillmore, he gave a night of time for Robert (Bob) to 'advertise' his new film made w/W.T. Wiley called "Blondino", for which I was location director. Our presentation in the Fillmore went on along with a guy whose name I forget that squeezed the colors into the bowl of water that was projected onto the room and in one swell foop we had going a number of projectors w/slides and film loops and the swirling colors and we created the Fillmore's first multi-media light show. Later did it in Sausalito where we blew all the power in a large portion of downtown.
I became an art director of the not-to-be "Wild West" Festival, a happening prior to Woodstock that was to take place in Golden Gate Park from the DeYoung to the ocean. I still have the layout for the music to be played from the Dead down by the stables, to the Oakland Postmen's Marching Band, the Opera and Symphony ... everybody was to get into the act ... for free. I feel today that dopers pulled the plug on it because they didn't think it was 'free' enough. Suffice it to say, I placed ads in the Rolling Stone which Jann donated, and had Robert Fried create a Billboard, which I still have parts of. I helped coordinate a weird radio happening atop Twin Peaks thought up by Paul Crowley with Margaret Fabrizio (the excellent classical harpsichordist) playing a Moog synthesizer over KSAN in stereo hooked up via AT&T and PG&E where each note "played" a building downtown. The vast audio radiance was enthralled and tuned in and played their houses. A giant city-wide gathering. Things like that cannot happen any more. The vibes ain't there.
After the demise of the Festival I couldn't have anything to do with more extravagant motivations and hence refused to participate or attend the Altamont Festival and my feeling turned out right. However, in my meandering I photographed my art shtick and had my first one-person show at the DeYoung in 1968, including a shot of a marijuana plant growing in the window of the Haight Police Station. I did some photography for the Airplane and helped shoot some film w/Bob Nelson for the Dead, photographed the Quick and the Sons and had a lot of fun and stayed poor. All along I was married to Diane and am still married with two wonderful girls who are now on their own interesting track in life doing good for humankind.
I was asked to give lectures at the San Francisco Art Institute and UC Extension and then got a portion of a class at the Institute where I became part of the wallpaper, so to speak. Maybe because I was so into being a hippie, Oracle-eyzed, stoned or whatever, I introduced Color to the curriculum... oh yes, don't forget color TV was pretty new. Since then I have brought (I feel) more new and exciting types of classes to our department. Suffice it to say that I am still there, now a Professor and still self-taught at that.
I've had a book of my photographs on hiking in the Sierra wilderness, with the images surrounded by text and drawings, published by Pencil Press, entitled, "2 Saunters: Summer & Winter" ISBN #9615565-0-7 $20, hardbound, 48 pages, color & black and white duo-tone available through Pencil Press, Box 9011, San Rafael, CA, 94912. A new book, "Suite Nevada" should be out in 18 months. I have won three NEA awards and various others from as varied places as my home of Marin County (where I was born) to the city of Paris, France.
