The Times of Harvey Milk: Uncovering Lost Histories

My English classes are currently writing essays about local politics.  To demonstrate the importance of local, city government, I am showing the documentary film, "The Times of Harvey Milk."  It won the Academy Award for best documentary in 1984 and is the only feature length documentary I'm aware of about the life of America's first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk, who was a San Francisco City Supervisor until his assassination in 1978.


I'm more than a little bummed that I never learned about Harvey Milk in school.  It wasn't until I watched the 2008 drama "Milk" that I learned about this historic figure.  The older I get, the more things I learn about that I wish I'd learned in school--basic, foundational things like Mexican-American, gay, and Native American civil rights struggles.  I feel that if I'd learned aboout people like Harvey Milk and Dolores Huerta and Corky Gonzalez and the Mendez family, I wouldn't have been so closed-minded about gay people or Mexican immigrants growing up.

Which begs the question: Why?  Why don't we learn gay history in public schools?  Why don't we learn Mexican-American civil rights history?  I suspect it has something to do with school boards and elected officials who have historically run successful fear-based campaigns that were anti-gay and anti-immigrant.  People like John Briggs and Bob Dornan and William Dannemeyer ran on vocally anti-minority platforms, and it makes sense that they would't want people learning the real history of minorities, because learning brings the opposite of fear and hate.  Learning brings understanding and compassion.

But the reality is that I did grow up in Orange County and there are huge gaps and distortions in what I learned.  Perhaps it is because of this that I am so passionate about uncovering and learning lost or suppresseed histories.  As the saying goes, "Those who do not know their past are doomed to repeat it."  I don't want to repeat the mistakes of the past.  I want to learn and write and share, and try to inspire my students to do the same.

Artist-In-Residence Collection @ Fullerton College Art Gallery

Yesterday I popped into the Fullerton College Art Gallery to check out their latest exhibit, a collection of work by artists who have participated in their Artist-in-Residence program, which started in 1972, with famous artist Wayne Thiebaud.  Every year, a professional artist gives classes, workshops, and has an exhibit at the Fullerton College Art Gallery, and then donates one piece to their permanent collection.  In the years since I've taught at Fullerton College, I've been pretty impressed with the caliber of artists Fullerton College has managed to pull--people like Sandow Birk, Frank Romero, Gronk, and many others.

I wandered around the gallery, taking pictures of some of the work, and educating myself on the artists exhibiting.  It's an impressive collection.  Here are some of the pieces, presented in chronological order of when the artist was at Fullerton College, beginning in 1972 with Wayne Thiebaud...

Wayne Thiebaud, Penny Machines

1972 artist-in-residence Wayne Thiebaud rose to prominence in the 1960s, and was associated with the Pop Art movement.  He liked to paint colorful objects of mass culture.

Florence Arnold, Artist Proof

1973 artist-in-residence Florence "Flossie" Arnold helped start the annual "Night in Fullerton" celebration in 1964.  She started painting at age 50, and her style is associated with the "hard edge" movement.

Jose Luis Cuevas, Self-Portrait

1975 artist-in-residence Jose Luis Cuevas is a world-renowned Mexican artist.  There is a Jose Luis Cuevas Museum in Mexico City.

Jack Beal, Still Life

1977 artist-in-residence Jack Beal, who died this year, was an American realist painter whose artwork graces the walls of places like the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Gallery in Washington D.C.

Ynez Johnston, Voyage of the Mandarins

1982 artist-in-residence Ynez Johnston graduated from UC Berkeley and has traveled the world extensively.  Her artwork is characterized by mystical references to ancient cultures.  She has a piece at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena.

Leslie Gabrielse, Fullerton Flute Player

1992 artist-in-residence Leslie Gabrielse is a fabric artist who studied at the University of Rotterdam, and has shown his work extensively in the United States and Europe.

Jim Morphesis, Dark Triptych

1993 artist-in-residence Jim Morphesis paints powerfully emotional pieces, often of male torsos, influenced by Christianity and Greek mythology.  His work can be see at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and many other world-class museums.

John Frame, Self-Portrait: Given Shadows

1994 artist-in-residence John Frame is an American sculptor, photographer, composer and filmmaker.  Frame has been given Grants and Awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He has participated in group exhibitions around the world and has had major solo exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Long Beach Museum of Art, and the Huntington Library.

Milford Zornes, Hogan in the Canyon of Art Criticism

1998 artist-in-residence Milford Zornes was a famous California watercolor painter.  During the Great Depression, he was commissioned to paint WPA murals in post offices in Claremont, California and El Campo, Texas.  During World War II, he was commissioned as a war artist.  He traveled extensively in China, India, and Burma, making war art.  He ended up teaching painting at Pomona College.  His art is featured in the White House and the Library of Congress.

2001 artist-in-residence Frank Romero was an important member of a Chicano group of painters known as "Los Four," which also included Carlos Almaraz, Gilbert Lujan, and Roberto (Beto) de la Rocha (father of Rage Against the Machine front-man Zack de la Rocha).  Following the break-up of Los Four, Romero turned his attention to cars, low-riders, freeways, and general street culture.  In Los Angeles, Romero is perhaps best known for his iconic "Going to the Olympics," a downtown LA mural he painted in 1984, celebrating the olympic games of that year.  The piece that he donated to Fullerton College is located in the library.

Frank Romero, Fullerton

Terry Allen, Buddha Cage (Catcher)

2002 artist-in-residence Terry Allen is both a conceptual artist and country musician from Lubbock, Texas.  He collaborated with Talking Heads frontman David Byrne on the soundtrack to Byrne's film True Stories.

Mike Sheehan, Uncle Sam

2003 artist-in-residence Mike Sheehan currently lives and works in Los Angeles.  His recent sketches have been featured on KPCC's "Off Ramp" with John Rabe.

Justin Sweet, Untitled

2005 artist-in-residence Justin Sweet studied art at Cal State Fullerton, and is now an acclaimed fantasy artist, whose has worked as a concept artist for numerous films, including the live action Chronicles of Narnia film.

Alyssa Monks, Rebecca

2006 artist-in-residence Alyssa Monks is a contemporary painter who has studied painting in Boston, New York, and Florence.  Her work has been featured in exhibits around the world.  She paints mostly human figures and has taught "Flesh Painting" at the New York Academy of Art.

Sandow Birk, The Bombardment of the Getty Center (The Battle of Los Angeles)

2009 artist-in-residence Sandow Birk is one of my top five living artists.  He has made contemporary visual adaptations of such epic works as Dante's Divine Comedy and the Qu'ran.  He combines ancient ideas and texts with scenes from modern life.  My dream is to have Sandow Birk exhibit at my gallery, Hibbleton.  

Hung Liu, Fullerton Fawn

2010 artist-in-residence Hung Liu was born in China and studied art there until she immigrated to the United States in 1984.  Her work often incorporates images of China, and is a reflection on history, heroism, and feminism.  She teaches at Mills College in Oakland, CA.

Gronk, Untitled Mural

2011 artist-in-residence Gronk was a founding member of ASCO, a Chicano artist collective from East LA who famously graffittied their names on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), as a protest against the museum's lack of Chicano art. 30 years later, ASCO had a major retrospective exhibit INSIDE LACMA!  Historical irony.

Marlo Bartels, These Days

2012 artist-in-residence Marlo Bartels is a tile muralist, and he created the first ever exterior mural in Fullerton College history (pictured above).  Bartels work can be seen publicly and in private spaces all around Southern California.

The image in the center above is by current Fullerton College artist-in-residence Mia Tavonatti, who paints meditative figures, often surrounded by ornate cloth.  

Overall, the exhibit is packed with important art, full of ideas, history, and beauty.  Just studying the lives and work of these artists, one gets a richer sense of what has happened in the world since 1972, when the artist-in-residence program began.  

Analyzing the Culture of The Real Housewives of Orange County

My Engish 103 (Critical Thinking and Writing) students at Fullerton College are currently writing essays in which they critically analyze a local culture.  Today, to practice this, we watched an episode of the wildly popular reality TV show "The Real Housewives of Orange County."  As we watched episode 18 of season 8, we wrote down our observations, and then discussed the strange customs, clothing, values, and social lives of the local "housewives" tribe.  Here's what we found.

The appearance of the housewives is reminiscent of the citizens of The Capitol in The Hunger Games--artificial and highly decorated.  Their hair is always professionally styled with such opulence that they look like they are going to a senior prom or wedding every day.  Their faces are caked with makeup and have the artificially smooth sheen of cosmetic surgery and serious dermatological work.  Their faces are, quite frankly, haunting.  

Clothing and jewelry are top-of-the-line expensive, but lack any sense of unique individuality.  The housewives appear as walking billboards for major high-end designers, their dress chosen more for social status than anything else.  From their appearance, one does not get the impression of human beings with rich inner lives.

The housewives' dwellings are multi-million dollar mansions in gated communities of south Orange County--places like Newport Coast, Coto Ce Caza, and Laguna.  The interior of these modern castles are as opulently decorated as the housewives themselves.  Much of episode 18 takes place at Vicki's house, as she celebrates the fact that she has re-decorated again.  Like the clothing and facial decoration, the houses' interiors lack human individuality.  The objects (furniture, artwork, light fixtures, fireplaces, kitchen cabinets, etc.) seem chosen primarily for their brand, cost, and the social status they imply.  The fact that the housewives live in gated fortresses of wealth may (at least partially) explain their worldview and social outlook, which is totally insular and shockingly unconcerned with anything happening in the outside world (unless it pertains directly to them).

The drama of the show tends to center around in-fighting between the housewives, as they bicker over things that are, from any reasonable standpoint, petty and insignificant.  The main "conflict" of episode 18 begins when Lydia's mother puts her feet on Vicki's couch.  Somehow, this action sparks an argument that soon engulfs everyone and threatens to upset the whole dynamic of Vicki's party.  This kind of thing seems fairly typical of the show.  Watching the housewives argue over trivial matters is apparently part of the mysterious allure of this television program, which is (again) well into its 8th season.

Ultimately the housewives make amends and remain friends.  The episode ends with a quote from Lydia: "If we can get through these really tough times, there's nothing that can get in our way."

Of Murals and Libraries

As a teacher of (mostly) college freshmen, I constantly find myself fighting against, and trying to reform bad ideas about education that my students picked up in high school.  One of the worst things we in America teach our students is that learning can be standardized, and that success is the ability to pass a test.  This is bullshit.

What I try to instill in my students is the joy, exhilaration, and tremendous importance of learning--how it can empower us, how it can cause us to see ourselves and our world differently, how learning is not a pointless, abstract exercise, but a vital part of being a fully realized human being in the world.  There is so much ignorance, intolerance, and cruelty in the world, and education is one of our best weapons against these things.

So how could I dare let my classes be boring, given all that's at stake here?  My rule is that if I'm not personally "pumped" about a lesson plan or activity, I don't do it.  If I don't really give a shit, if I'm just going through the motions, how can I expect my students to do any differently?  What's at stake here ultimately has nothing to do with grades, and everything to do with how the next generation understands and shapes their world.  If we, as teachers, are doing anything less than inspiring our students to learn, then we are little more than a finishing school.

Given this great privilege and responsibility, I am constantly thinking of creative ways to take my students out of the classroom, to see the world around them with new eyes…eyes of curiosity.  Today, I took them to see a giant mural in University Hall at Cal State Fullerton.  The mural was painted by the celebrated, local Chicano artist Emigdio Vasquez.  It depicts several important civil rights figures, many of whom are local, and many of whom we don't learn about in school.  People like Corky Gonzalez, Dennis Banks, Dolores Huerta, Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez.

My students are writing about local issues, so looking at a mural, and training ourselves to pay closer attention to things like murals, helps us to see our communities in richer and more informed ways.  I assigned each student a civil rights figure from the mural, then took them to the library.  Their task was to find an actual, physical book which talked about their civil rights hero.   Another battle I constantly find myself fighting is the battle to get my students to read books.  There is a popular myth that the best way to do research is just to Google things.  There is nothing wrong with Google, but most of the important things I learn still come from books.  With Google, you have to sift through so many advertisements and endless bullshit.  A library, especially a college library, is an advertisement-free zone.  Just rows and rows of knowledge, waiting to be read.

To emphasize the point that not all information is on the internet, I showed my students the Center for Oral and Public History, on the third floor of the library, which contains literally thousands of interviews with local residents, compiled over 45 years.  It is the best resource of researching local history I'm aware of.  Most of the interviews in the Center do not exist on the internet.  You have to read them in their typed, bound, physical form.  Our final essays will be about local history.

"This," I told my students, indicating the thousands of carefully bound volumes of physical books, "Is the goldmine of local history."

Some students may not like my method of teaching, and that is fine.  Whether or not they like me or don't like me, my goal is to not give students the option of saying, "He didn't care" or "He didn't try."  my goal is to care, and to try, and to never give up.

Jean-Michel Basquiat @ The Fullerton Museum Center!

The current exhibit at the Fullerton Museum Center is totally worth checking out.  It's called "Jean-Michel Basquiat: An Intimate Portrait" and contains primarily photographs of the famous New York street artist Basquiat by his friend Nicholas Taylor.  The museum describes it this way:

"This exhibit is an intimate look at the friendship between artists Nicholas Taylor and Jean-Michel Basquiat, a camaraderie that was born under the pulsating lights of New York's famed Mudd Club in 1979. Although countless essays and reviews have been written about Basquiat and his work, these photographs by Nicholas Taylor are the portrait of a man, an artist, and most importantly, a friend."

It's hard to overstate the influence and importance of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.  He was a street artist who ended up, at a very young age, becoming world famous and having shows with people like Andy Warhol.  Contemporary artists like Shepard Fairey, Banksy, Barry McGee, and countless others are directly influenced by the ideas and general bad-assness of Basquiat.  I visited the exhibit recently and took some photos.  The show is only up for one more week, so be sure to check it out!

In the Foyer Gallery, adjacent to the main gallery is a show inspired by Basquiat, and contains work by some amazing contemporary artists like GERMS.

The Fullerton Museum Center, a historic and beautiful building, is open Tuesday-Sunday from noon-4pm and is located at 301 N. Pomona Ave in lovely downtown Fullerton.  Ch-ch-check it out!

Airplanes and Jains

This morning, I took a fantastic little trip with my friend Steve Elkins.  We started by having breakfast at the little cafe in the Fullerton Municipal Airport.  Yes, Fullerton has an airport!

After breakfast, we watched some airplanes taking off.  Then we headed over to the Jain Center, just down Commonwealth Ave. in Buena Park.  

Both Steve and I were really curious about the fact that there is a Jain community in Orange County.  This is strange because, at least for monks, Jainism is really hardcore.  Jain monks do not use electricity and take great pains to not kill anything, even bugs.  They believe in extreme non-violence, so they are vegetarians, and don't even eat certain plants.  Steve had arranged to meet with one of the directors of the temple, because he is interested in various forms of monasticism for a documentary he's working on.  I just tagged along, taking pictures.

I know very little about the Jain religion.  From the internet, I learn that it's one of the oldest religions in the world, tracing its beginnings to about the 5th century BCE.  It's kind of an offshoot from Buddhism.  The most important aspect of Jainism is non-violence.  For this reason, I like it immediately.