As I grew up around here there was a cultural shift around me. My parent's generation had just fought WW II and loyalty, order, and militancy were thought to be the most important things out there. Church, blue suits, and following the rules happened everywhere. Communist haters, investigations, protests and shame controlled everything from music, art, school, religion and clothing. Soldiers came from the war and went to college on the GI Bill and then on to teach my generation. They had been through the military to fights for rights, freedom and the American Way and saw problems with equality and justice. Teachers began teaching the idea of evaluating ideas and selecting the best for us. Free Thinkers was a bad term to the older generation. That term was applied in history to the Quakers (famous for peace) who ended up coming to the colonies with William Penn, now the communist haters spread that to college students and the arts.
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When the governor stood in the schoolhouse door to block the entrance of negro students to a city school, I asked why. That was because only white children had the priviledge of going to that school. That was a big deal that brought in the President and the National Guard to fix a constitutional crisis. The immediate question then was.. where were any minorities in my school district, or any district in the county? Zero except for in a small company town built for WWII. Basically all minorities in the county lived in those small temp buildings.
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A few years later I came upon the plot that trapped them there. I bought a house about five miles north of that village and was confronted with a shocker. The deeds there and in the rest of the county prohibited the sale of that home to any minority. What!
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I am an artist of the California coast. I work on what is here that feels like home. The major things around are wildflowers, elk, elephant seals, sometimes parades, some wildfires. I have been a teacher, firefighter, affordable housing fan, editor, art group director, and a student with 19 years in school.
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I think my art should speak for itself and not need credentials nor statements about soul and motivation.
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Larry
(415) 493-8531
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