Chuzo.....

as I remember him

by Paul Henrickson, Ph.D.

tm.

2012

When in the early years of the 1970s Louise Tamotzu contacted me to ask if I might be open to writing a monograph on her husband Chuzo I was complimented by the implied trust and excited by the opportunity to remold

(reformulate), into word and image, the not quite palpable profile of an earnestly

creative contemporary.

Louise K. Tamotzu

The process of art criticism, at least as I see it, is more than a process of describing the physical characteristics of the work itself. It is, additionally, and very importantly, the indication of possibly there being, from somewhere in the remote beyond, more occult and highly complex sources of creative motivation. One of the conceptions we might need to clarify at the outset is that of vocabulary. In terms of written and spoken language it seems apparent that the larger the vocabulary the better able for complex idea to be expressed and communicated. This is one of the reasons why some specialized subjects often devise specialized vocabularies where outside of the specialized subject matter the word has no meaning. If, in the area of art criticism, the critic attempts to see the marks, forms, shapes and arrangements which make up the whole of the work of art as presented by the artist as a statement or image with an intended and purposeful meaning....a response intended to be communicated...the critic has accepted the presumption that the meaning is actually there and the responsibility to re-translate the meaning he may have discovered into a language that others, somewhere, might understand.

It is a risky process filled with many kinds of pitfalls and requires the courage to fail, a virulent curiosity about failure, and the irrepressible desire to try again. Vocabulary, whether verbal or signs, symbols or graphs play and important, if not fixed, role both from the general art vocabulary of the time, but, perhaps more importantly, the unique arrangements (by the individual artist) of these vocabulary items together with whatever newly invented vocabulary items the artist may select and all of the above in what we see as the final arrangement ...the end product. The term a vocabulary item is a phrase used to identify a graphic mark, or detail, that becomes, in the eye of the perceptive observer, the equivalent of a word in a sentence. This is one of the questions being considered in this monograph, for it is the key, or one of them, this writer believes, to understanding the sources of creative behaviour...and why it may be or may not be appropriate to call it creative at all. If the agreement to write a monograph on Chuzu Tamotzu had followed a normal path this result may not have been so very complicated. But things turned out differently because the process of its evolution had been severely complicated by what appears to be a socio-politically agenda by no one directly concerned but by self-interested busybodies with their own agenda quite other than that of Chuzo, Louise or myself. It was an irrelevant interference that normally would not have occurred. Consequently, the final appearance of this monograph is now, much later than it ought to have been, much richer in its inferences and structure than it might have been and, I hope, possibly more influential in all the possible areas of interest to which it might apply, such as sociological studies, community history, art criticism, educational psychology and the sources and purposes of creative activity in general. The following photograph shows Chuzo at his most usual socially relating behaviour. Enjoying other peoples company and thrilled at sharing his vision.

It may be helpful to the reader to be aware that it had been suggested to this author that in order to clarify a complex situation for the reader that the three main topics (Chuzo as person and artist, Chuzos socio-political environment, and the larger psycho-educational implications on the art critical process be separated) because, as this person stated, most readers are distracted by what appear to be irrelevancies most of the time, as subtlety and double entendres are not their game, and feel no compulsion to make the effort to decipher possibly more discretely placed meaningful connections. The writer found that he could not follow this advice unaltered and so he made certain adjustments which, he hopes, will clarify the interplay between art criticism as an intellectual exercise and socio-political behavior as a practiced agenda. My commentator also felt it might be intellectually cleaner not to mix the topics. This is certainly an academically acceptable attitude. In fact, it is frequently a requirement. Yet, on this matter it is my contention that this sort of disciplined academic requirement which, even today, wears the cap and gown of inviolability, may be the main reason why we fail as a thinking species to break through to a more functionally valid reality.

That is to say, that while it is proper to define your research terms those same research terms, by the definition you give them, will sharply inhibit what you discover. Consequently, I reject the notion that a rigorously algorithmic approach is the final respectability. Rather I embrace the notion that any rejection of the intuitive may be a mortal sin...so to speak. Therefore, my comments are that the photograph above of Chuzo informing two adolescent girls of some quality or other in one of his works may be nothing more than his amusing self telling them an anecdote that may explain why what is there on the paper is there because of what he saw, and felt, at the time of the doing of the work. The open-mouthed wonder of the younger of the two girls seems to indicate Yes! I see what you mean. I see the connection between the marks and the situation you mention. In short, at that moment the young girl recognized the marks as language. And what is language but some quasi-intellectual interim tool that changes the chemical structure of one element so that it might better blend with another to produce a usable mutation...which is comprehension. The following link is for me a fortuitous (serendipitous) accidental (it would seem) event that someone who knows very little of my present thinking sent me because he had responded to its message on two essential levels,(although this is not his analysis it is mine) the intellectual and the intuitive...the intuitive continually sensing that there is always something beyond the limits...beyond the horizon. Please note that, at the end, this expert in structuring algorithms, freely admits that at some point algorithms are not the final answer. This sort of explanation relative to systemic failure is explained by those who use algorithms as that s the way Mickie likes it which is a subtly amusing way of admitting to the ultimate authority of intuition and aesthetics. The response as to Mickies preference suggests that Mickie had sources of information that do not fit the algorithmic structure....have not reached the psychological awareness level where codification is possible. I suggest that the pathway to the discovery of these sources is an intuitive one. It is a method which makes sense of the explanation that a little bird told me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=fKyljukBE70 The speaker in this video is Alexander Tsiaras, a user of and expert in the techniques of algorithmic methods and near the end of the video he credits a source of information that is not, as yet, identified as mathematical which is a system based on individual units of meaning but rather more wholistic?. The maturation of the ability to codify experience. Now, I must shift gears and ask the reader to join me in considering the developmental evidences of a seven year old who had just experienced a new awareness of his environment and wanted to communicate the event. Consequently, in general, one of these three suggested divisions of the topic relates to how some believe they have made a connection between how the maturing child (in this instance 6/7 years old) handles the development of the graphic symbols he devises to illustrate his new awareness of reality. In other words how does the child show that he views the world differently from how he viewed it before? For this purpose I am using two drawings done by the same child within a period of an hour as Easter gifts to me. Here they are:

Mark Finger, aged 6/7

It is the traditional and academic view of a base line in any drawn representation that it represents the, in general, the idea that the relationship of most things on earth is a right angle to that earth, that is the ground is horizontal and items resting on the ground are at a 90 degree position to it and upright, such as houses, trees, people and animals. In the drawing to the left

we have what is called a base line, that is, a symbolic horizontal line made and used to identify the ground upon which we stand. In the drawing to the right, made by the same child within an hour of the first. shows the childs new awareness that the ground is really not a line upon which we stand but a plane that extends in all directions and has variations, differing populations all of which new experiential data has entered the consciousness of the 7 year old. This new information he dealt with reveals to us. I contend, in extrapolation, that it is only within the content of ones experiences is creativity possible. If one accepts this idea then at least two very important questions arise. One of these questions (which may appear at some point to be an irrelevant or nonsense question) is certainly how does one, then, judge the level of artistic creativity at a time such as Europe in the 16th century when, it would appear, that one of the areas of admired achievement was how well an artist might approximate the representation of reality. Of course, it might be helpful to consider that creativity, as we understand it, may not even have been a valid 16th century conception. For example in the works below:

Consensual agreement as a social requirement.

Above are four 16th century European drawings. The top three are German, the first one is anonymous, the next are by Albrecht Durer, the bottom drawing is Italian by Calibri. Consequently, it would seem, the existence of a style whether in a specific locality or a defined period of time would limit the perceived opportunities to be inventive. Style can be seen as a form of social pressure to conform and creativity in the arts does not appear when there is conformance. Logically then differences in style between periods and or localities may not demonstrate creative work, but merely a different approach. It does seem that judgments regarding levels of creative behaviour must be considered only within the context in which they appear. While it might be expected that work from a particular period of time might bear characteristics in common. It is also that works from the same period of time but from a different locality might possibly share characteristics but as well might exhibit differences in what may be called Style. These two characteristics are demonstrated in the above. In the German we note an arduous attachment to detail that seems quite absent from the Italian. In the German, as well, there is a marked diminution of the separate acting role of the technique (the actual use of the medium and tools of execution...the way the marks are made) in a marked subjection of the technique to the textural characteristics of the subject, (in other words the graphic marks made must serve the appearance of the subject and NOT take on a life of their own as they do in the Italian. For example, the short-haired hound with stretched skin over a meagre skeleton performing a very mundane operation...scratching her ear, A hedgehog with a very spiny covering over most of its body and smooth hairs covering its face and paws and remarkably sharp claws. The clump of turf details every imaginable vegetation that might be found in such an example and can be seen not unlike a very scientific listing of all types of vegetable matter that are there. The entire focus seems to be upon reproducing, with as much exactness as possible, the visual characteristics of the subject...but only the visual aspects. On the other hand the emphasis in the Italian work is quite different. What is detailed is not texture, but muscular movement and rather than textural detail

of the subject the Italian work describes the musculature of the subject and the subtle play of light and reflected light that is used to reveal the structural aspect of the anatomy. There, however, an even more important distinction to be made. Look at the line in the hound that defines the right hind leg and visually separates it from the torso. It is, after all, a drawn line on a flat surface, but then so are all the line drawn in the Calibri. The Calibri lines, however, lack the decorum of the German which cautiously restricts its function to description while the Calibri line seems, of a sudden, to understand that even as just a line it can have a life of its own and so, it begins a dance all over the page. Another characteristic difference between the German and Italian examples here is that emotion is a part of the subject matter in the Italian work and not at all in the German. This observation points up yet another important consideration. If verisimilitude to visual characteristics is the goal this would seem to point to a very pre-determined and fixed goal which, ideally, should not vary from the purpose of revealing the

physical character of the object.

T T

If the expression of human emotion is the goal (as it seems, somewhat, to be in the Italian piece) and as there are several emotions one might select there are, as well, multiple technical ways of achieving it. Therein lies, certainly, a broader range of possible selections and consequently a wider opportunity for creative expression. In order for us to determine this we would need to have a broader selection of work from this Italian place and period. This would also be true of the German examples. From my point of view were I to judge the form and extent of creative contribution of Durers work I would state that it lay in those pieces

where he displayed a depth of psychological insight into the nature of

his subject as in some of his portraits.

But, at this point, we must consider the possibility that the final appearance of these portraits quite probably was determined by the tolerances of the society which commissioned them and not by the artist himself, The seven year-old may have been conditioned by the nature of his genetic structure and, therefore, subject to the requirements of that DNA, but the lesson the boy is led to, it would seem, would be an awareness of his ability to identify, select and utilize whatever available elements there may be in his efforts to conceptualize in symbolic form the new awareness...that the earth is not merely a base line, but a plane. We might, therefore, conclude that there were fewer constraints on the boy than on Durer. The communication is not adulterated by societys expectations. In whatever case, whatever the differences between the Italian and the German examples the differences underscore the style of the period which is more a societal requirement than one of the artist himself. The development

of a style within a period or geographic locality may possibly be an arena for technical competition as well where one work may be judged more stylistically or technically expert than another, but in judging the degree of creativity a work exhibits the amount of technical excellence measureable along a continuum cannot be used. The reason for this is that a measurement along a continuum involves numbers identifying some degree of one characteristics and a determination of creativeness involves, ultimately, a difference in a total perception. This kind of operation is essentially, an operation of mind...of a mind that seeks alternatives. The difference between the Durer examples above and the Calibri cannot be judged on the basis of technical execution, but rather on the mental perceptions. While Durer algorithmically adds up the details of visual reality Calibri offers an enriched view of the subjects role in its environment, giving it some affective attitudes and, additionally, allows the application of the tools used and the medium to add a contribution of their own to the whole image. I hope that the above discussion clarifies my view as to the attitudes of perception that must be in place for creative acts to occur. It would, I think, be an error to create a false and adversarial position between discipline (the discipline of the Germans) and the freedom of the Italian because there is, as well, a discipline involved in fully realizing ...no matter what the creative product...the emerging unique product which, unendingly, develops a structure peculiar to itself as choices, decisions and rejections are made in the course of its production. There in, I think, lies one of the major distinctions of having the decisions made apriori, as in a recipe, or making the decisions as events unfold. In theatre work this is called improvisation and it is alleged to encourage a believable spontaneity which is one value totally absent from the Durer work which reveals, by and large, value of exactness. By the way the author is not arguing for the value of one value over another, just that they both exist. The socio-political environment which, it appears, has characterized Chuzos life may have first made its appearance after his adolescent curiosity of what might lie beyond the divinely ruled imperialistic Japan, and he began living in New York. My view of Chuzos response to problems encountered by people, animals or other living creatures would have been, and still is, characterized by

compassion and empathy.a poignant recognition of the struggle to live. I suspect that while his response was compassionate it was also passive. In this response I see no great an ingredient of partisan politics of whatever kind, or even of masculine aggression. It is, rather, an infrequently achieved social as well as personal goal greatly valued among Asian communities and encouraged in their religious practices, that is reflection, or a retreat from inolvment. With Chuzo, as I imagine him, it was not a matter of discussion. He simply exhibited it. This, one might say, culturally installed, characteristic nevertheless did not prevent the development of what might be a more universal characteristic curiosity, from manifesting itself so that as a young adult he found himself leaving the god-directed Imperial Japan and in the somewhat anarchic Europe and America. However, because, perhaps for those very qualities his marriage to Louise would oddly influence the development of his artistic career. He might recluse his gentleness and hand over the public relations to one more accustomed to aggressive maneuvering. Louise had a more direct, practical and well-defined, competitive view of what made a career in the arts and having at close hand a gold mine of potential myth building, the raw material of creative expression, she cleverly managed the public relations profile associated with Chuzos work. It is evident that by and large her efforts were both discrete and uncritically accepted in an America which was being tutored in social and uncritical aesthetic tolerance . We might, with good reason, recall that Louise s back ground centered on what is to a significant extent an Ashkenazi stronghold, a highly fertile ground for the maturation of aggressive defensiveness. In recognition of the possibility that communities might also have distinct persona the following anecdote reveals differences in social projections as exhibited by Bostonians (the proper ones) and New Yorkers. A Bostonian might ask a stranger what school he attended, a New Yorker would ask how much money the stranger had.

I do not doubt that Louise spent considerable and thoughtful effort in deciding whether to contact me to write a monograph on Chuzo. Without doubt my already published comments had reassured her on at least a few of any doubts she may have had relative to my honesty and ancestry. In short, it would appear that if my not being Jewish had not been a problem for her before she wrote the contract it certainly had become one when she, upon taking the fearful advice of her friends, Geraldine Price and Doris Cross, became a serious one later on or about the time of that fateful invitation to dinnera dinner that never materialized. The reason I emphasize the possible involvement of Doris Cross and Geraldine Price is that they are the only mutual acquaintances of Louise and mine who were somewhat aware of my Libertarian party connections. It would appear, however, that they either had not understood Libertarian philosophy or had chosen to misrepresent it since it, as a philosophy, requires more personal responsibility for ones actions and the quality of ones survival without injuring others than does the political philosophy of Soviet revolutionaries which can be said to have characterized at least a number of Chuzos acquaintances, possibly largely through Louises efforts in New York. By way of example I mention Bea Mandelman whose husband Louis Ribak, also a painter, had founded an organization in support of the American reporter, John Reed, who covered the activities of the Soviet revolution. In sum, on this question of influence, the rather notably pugnacious reputation of New Yorkers in achieving what they think they want in juxtaposition with an Oriental passivity and acceptance of reality made for an acceptable and mutually fulfilling association between Louise and Chuzo. I remember one specific time when I walked my dog, a Borzoi bitch actually, who had , to my knowledge, never seen a man with a beard before and Chuzo, walking North with his cane on the East side of Garcia and I with my defending companion on the West walking South. We recognized each over the fifty foot distance and Chuzo bowed and nodded several times in greeting and salutation. It was this, I think the, bowing deeply several times and waving a little hand in my direction, that so startled my bitch, never having seen a man with a beard before and now watching one gave voice to her confusion and

loudly asked Who are you? What are you? Are you dangerous?

Chuzo and I lived only five or six blocks away from each other. He was on the north side of the Acequia Madre and I on the south. While it seemed that I had known of Chuzo long before I returned to Santa Fe in 1970 it was certainly in connection with my writing reviews for The Santa Fe Reporter that I came into official and professional relationship with Louise. his wife, who looked after all his affairs. It hadnt occurred to me that he may have been incapable, only that he was likely indifferent. Since most of the rest of the world lacks, certainly the interest, and quite likely the functioning intelligence as well, to make aesthetic judgements his decision to leave the rest of the world quite well enough alone may have been very wise indeed. Fortunately, for him he had Louise to look after him and his professional interests as best she could. Consequently, Chuzo spared himself those indignities some other artists put themselves through in an effort to attract an audience. Unfortunately, it is usually am audience that doesnt have an ounce of the required perception. Wives of unusual husbands are a different matter they sometimes feel obligated to take on the bravura their more modest, or more distracted, mates are unable to assume, perhaps recognizing it for what it is...a propaganda distraction which may be why politicians like flashy girls, big convertible cars and loud brass bands and Chuzo was much too tasteful to be a clown. All of this may explain why Louise tastefully approached me and offered me this contract.

It is certainly legitimate, if not to some degree obligatory, for a loving wife who has faith in her husbands judgment, most especially in her husbands aesthetic judgment, or to express it more succinctly a wife who understands that a creatively productive artist is one who is responsive to his unique intuitions and quite automatically disregards the irrelevant...which, at times, may be the wife herself.

Some time after the contract was brought into being Louise telephoned me to invite me to dinner to discuss aspects of the monograph related to the contract she had written and both she and I had signed not too many days earlier. I arrived. Louise was pleasant. She asked if I would like a gin and tonic (Boy! did she mix a good one!). Since Louise never had given me the idea that she was a party girl, I was astonished when, after not getting to the point, she offered me another and there still had been no evidence of a dinner being served...or even the table set... and soon a vague image of the falling walls of Jericho did occur. So, after no sign of the purpose of this meeting or even of a light supper, combined with the fact that after two of Louises gin and tonics I felt myself slightly tipsy I decided that I would leave and even that failed to bring on some positive action...so, I left. Retrospectively, I imagine she had found it impossible to bring up the matter of the contractual arrangement and I refused to ask her why she had invited me to supper. The matter of the contract never came up and, rightly or wrongly, not enjoying a controversy, I left the matter where it was and silently returned home, although I later registered with her my concern to which I have no record of a response, nor do I remember a reply until the letter of apology . It is on this point that I find the report that Louise backed-off from fulfilling her authored contract with me because someone, or some couple of her friends such as Geraldine Price and Doris Cross may have turned her off by telling her I was a member of The Libertarian Political Party and that they were anticommunists and since Chuzo had been associated with a Communist movement in New York I would, therefore, take the opportunity to discredit

him.

Curiously enough both Geraldine Price and Doris Cross were the agents, separately, as it turned out, of embarrassing moments for me. I do not recall how it was I was with Geraldine at the time she needed to meet with a New York artist by the name of Thurs. Geraldine had just brought me along and of Thurs I had known absolutely nothing, but it was immediately evident he did not like me. For whatever reason I can only guess, but there had been nothing in my actions which might have caused him to be rude. The meeting had been scheduled by Geraldine and Thurs, who obviously was attempting to secure her assistance in some project and I was a silent bystander. It was the same sort of silent disdain I received from Bea Mandelman in Taos, Paul Brach when he was at La Jolla, or Sheldon Rich who successfully founded the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival of New Mexico when I refused to rent him my home and to move out. It does make one wonder what may have gone through Mosess mind when contemplating the murder of the Canaanites. In a seriously developing quarrel between Rolf Koppel and myself whose side Doris took , automatically without an invitation to me to explain and without any curiosity about my version offered advice on how to conduct my affairs. Since I had not been asked I offered no information. The matter of the rental agreement between Doris and myself was the critical and deciding matter of the end of our association. In order to help Doris out financially we had agreed that I would accept works of hers in which I had expressed interest in lieu of an increase in rent . The work entitled Cock , a dictionary column piece was at the time on exhibit at a local gallery and had a gallery price of $1,000. Had it sold while at the gallery the gallery would have received 40%, or $400, and this was the amount Doris expected me to give her in addition to the agreed upon $600. How ostensibly intelligent people can lend themselves to some ridiculous

assumptions I find it difficult to accept, but then we have had the example of
the Senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy with the help of his mischievous and hypocritical lawyer Roy Cone quite neatly successfully convince an entire nation that all communists were homosexual and all Hollywood was communist. Time after time this nation has gone through such ridiculous and

ridiculously popular movements, such as the Salem witch trials, that give expression to nothing more than the pre-adolescent delight in causing others injury. How on earth is it possible for us to be proud of an educational system that continues to stifle thought based on insightful perception is beyond me. If Chuzo represents anything at all it is insightful perception...at least to that part of the world he allows entrance. It has been suggested by another observer that those two ladies, Doris Cross and Geraldine Price, were being protective of their own agenda in discouraging the acclaim of someone not a Jew. That suggested scenario does no one any credit at all for I had, as art critic, praised Chuzos work in print which Louise ought to have known about, she and everyone else, and that scenario also express a deep misconception of the Libertarian position in that they are not primarily anti-anything , or Communist ideas as such, except as they, the Communist, prohibit individual expression...and that is a problem for Libertarians...of course, there are others who do so as well. While Chuzo had expressed horror at the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima I could not personally associate that with other than humanitarian concerns that might be shared with many people regardless of their political affiliation. But then, of course, learned habits of distrust such as those harbored by the Jews against the Goyim (and both groups encourage it against the other) even among so-called intelligent people like Rabbi Hellman who prejudiced the views of Reies Lopez Tijerina about me before the start of an open meeting on the Land Grant questions made unjust assumptions about my attitude toward the matter...attitudes that hadnt yet been formed. At the time Hellmann libelled me to this high profiled advocate for the return of royal land grants I was undecided as to the nature of The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and am, today, still rather confused about many of its implications. In short all these, Doris Cross, Geraldine Price, Rabbi Hellman and Louise attributed ideas to me that I never held, but, it seems, it had been convenient for them to believe I had held them and to use them for their own agenda at that time.

At some point Louise evidently consider it important for her to apologize to me for her odd behaviour and to ask me to reconsider writing the monograph. Perhaps it was because she had ultimately realised she had already turned over to me much of her archival material about Chuzo and probably imagined I would not willingly return them. This may or may not have been true as it was years later, some nearly twenty years later after moving to Malta that I realized I still had the material...and seeing them reminded me that perhaps the contract Louise had written and we both signed might still be valid. It is wih this in mind that I do it now. Besides, my publishing this letter of apology now certainly does no harm to Louise and might just well augment her standing among those who remember

her.

In that note, however there is a reference to my having attended an opening of an exhibition of Bea Mandelman. Yes, it was Doris who had asked me to drive the 70-odd miles to Taos to say nothing of the 70 miles in the return to Santa

Fe so that the two-older girl friends might lend support to each other. One look at me, however, and Bea had made it clear that I was an unwelcome attendee. In terms of art criticism, however, published news items are of very limited value to a researcher interested in the motivations for creative behaviour. But what the above anecdote reveals is the very limited truthful value that exists in manipulative hearsay mischievously employed. It is true, however, that it does a great deal of damage. In point of fact I believed then what I believe now and that is that Chuzo, perhaps, of all the artists in Santa Fe had exhibited more genuinely creative qualities of expression and, for the most part avoided using whatever the prevailing art style may have been. In short, his work was more convincingly related to his world view than to the aspirations of other artists. He was not in competition with others but only with the specific means of and motivations for expression available and acceptable to him...which are, from my point of view, the only legitimate requirements for any creative work. If the artist is truly unable to sense that he has a conceptual problem even if unable to identify it, and does not recognize that his energies are motivated by some cause it may well be that all his activity to mere show, bravura, vanity. At this point the question of academic training and its influence on creativity in the arts is vital. As in many academic fields, too strong an addiction to obedience provides the death knell to independent and creative thinking...and revealing a degree of independence in an institutional setting may get one thrown out. This brings us to another and quite vital issue in the manner of art criticism about which, most people in the world, including some prominent art critics, know too little, or have forgotten too much. Aesthetic judgment is that judgment made on the relationships between, or among, sense data as that data is received or admitted to consciousness by the receptive mind. This statement, I hope, leaves, room for the possibility that some data is precluded by the pre-conscious mind, a possibility which may explain why some creative artists, graphic, musical, or whatever, seem to have (unreasonably) excluded several potentially creative tools it is not, they

might tell us, in my creative vocabulary. In this regard I do not understand the function of rejection except, perhaps, as a clarifying element used to better understand a point...some particular point. Judged on the levels of technical expertise Tamotzu might suffer in compassion to Albrecht Durer, Edward Munch, or Pierre Bonnard, but the very supposition of such comparison is at fault, for it misses the very point which makes Tamotzu, Tamotzu. Yet, the observation is still applicable. A brief review of the changing relationship between the individual art and his efforts may be helpful. Very early on man assumes that images of the gods, whatever they may be, were present to educate the people and to remind them, perhaps, of what their social relationship might be. By the time the Greeks and Romans depicted their gods there seemed to be a degree of playful mischievousness involved. By the time of the 18th century Kings, and Gods were glorious beings indeed, Indeed it often seemed that the kings out did the gods in their depicted glory. By the end of the 18th there seemed a budding interest in those people who did the work, the beautiful shepherdess, the sexy goat herd and then the cobbler. Finally, it was realized that such creatures actually had a primitive political mindset and the Bastille was stormed. By the mid 19th century artists were seriously beginning to assay their own creative dimensions and with such as Munch. Van Gogh, Cezanne and Bonnard truly individualized interests flourished. Those artists did not arrive at that point because they were obedient, but rather because they responded to their perceptions...just as Tsiaras had, in the video above, advised. These developments seem. actually to overlap to some extent and it might be said that the use of image making as a vehicle for personal psychotherapy may be said to have developed with Caravaggio in the early 17th century and rather grossly carried on by Marsden Hartley in the early 20th. I see no justification in believing that Tamotzus neural organization is identical to that of Durer, Munch, or Bonnard. And it not being the same requires the

perceptive critic to essay what motivation experienced by the artist might have been satisfied by the marks he made. It is this last objective which is the important factor in active expression which relates to the development of the performer. There are moments when I tend to see the efforts of a few artists as a journey forward in the effort to meet up with their evolving self. Art is a language designed to communicate the response to experience and as such a search by means of the semiotic creator is an understandable social endeavour. The community learns through the individuals struggle to express. This, of course, requires much more of the potential critic than what is even acknowledged to exist by most editors, publishers and art historians. They appear to recognize none of this. While it would be reasonable to suppose that the neural connections of an adult would bare more evidences of neural maturation than that of a 6-7 year old the two drawings above are here offered as evidence of a transitional neurally patterned observation and how that observation gets translated into graphic symbols on the initiative of the individual involved. This development seems to be normal in most children of this age. It is not something usually taught, nor does it need to be. This phenomenon seems to suggest that there is a neural pattern built into the mind of the child, not unlike, perhaps a time-release tablet , which arrives, developmentally, to cause, urge, or demand that the child alter his graphic expression and aim to better fit his new environmental awarenessess. It is also my belief that it is this characteristic of a continually viable process of graphic symbol building that distinguishes the creative artist from the non-creative. It is this in the drawing to the left we have what is called a base line, that is, a symbolic horizontal line made and used to identify the ground upon which we stand. In the drawing to the right, made by the same child within an hour of the first shows the childs new awareness that the ground is really not a line upon which we stand but a plane that extends in all directions and has variations, differing populations all of which have entered the consciousness of the 7 year old. This new information he dealt with reveals to us. I contend, that it is only within the content of ones experiences is creativity possible.

What the elderly Chuzo shared with the emerging seven year old is a respectful response to the ways in which each recognizes the legitimacy of their respective neural systems...Mark for his at 7 and Chuzu for his at 75 and what they also both share seems to be an unawareness of the professional conceits shared by more of the rest of the worlds artists except for the exceptional such as Edward Munch, Vincent van Gogh, Pierre Bonnard, and Paul Cezanne.

While the above illustrated works demonstrate the artists technical facility in various media, a facility which may, or may not be a result of training, the choice and treatment of the subjects are a more direct indication of who the artist is. Technically these works do not adequately prove that Chuzo had had adequate, or that he had responded adequately, to any academic training. To his credit, as a creative individual, they more readily indicate his immediate, yet selective, response to the demands and character of the moment. These are witnesses to his being an active and participating observer. These are viable works quite likely independent of training, quite likely entirely dependent upon his unique response patterns to material and his humanely based perceptions of intimate relations between living beings. This is the autobiography that Tamotzu has written as a record of his own delight and seemingly very willing to share these gentle observations with others. We might also thank Louise for her efforts to popularize his work , relating the

commercial importance to their lives and reminding us all of the value of socially supported compassion. I feel the need, at this time, to repeat that normally I would have agreed with the commentator who advised that I should separate the occult social influenced which urged her to break her contract with me out of fear that I would discredit his art because of my personal political views....so much for hearsay.