peace-making

Abbie Hoffman

Posted by Cranford

(November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989)

I just finished painting Abbie Hoffman’s portrait as I am writing this. I was surprised by the conversation I had with him during the process. I had four encounters with him in real life. The first was in April 1970 on the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis campus. It was either a moratorium against the war in Vietnam or it was Earth Week. I was there with nine other students from my enriched geometry class to be part of a jury for seniors in the Law School. Abbie was on the steps of a building across the square hollering through a megaphone.

The last time I saw him, he was going by the name Barry Freed. It was 1982 or ‘83. (This is where I go on a rabbit trail to explain how I keep track of things like that.) I was hitchhiking, because we did not have a car. Our 1959 Pontiac threw a rod going up the hill on Rte. 562 on the way to see our midwife.

The encounters I had with Abbie Hoffman were random and infrequent, but he somehow left his mark on my soul. Maybe we connected because we shared mental illnesses: severe depressive disorder and bipolar. Most days he knew how to make the best of it. He brought humor to the revolution.

The day he took his own life, I knew something was wrong with him. I felt an urge to go to New Hope and find him. I had no idea where in New Hope he lived. I just knew something was terribly wrong. I also knew there was nothing I could do to help. It was April 12, 1989. He had taken 150 phenobarbital, “enough to kill 15 men” according to Rolling Stone.

I don’t know how or why I sometimes know this stuff. I just do. Years ago, I told my therapist I woke up at 3 am crying for Pretoria, South Africa. I turned on my computer and found out there was a major disaster there. It was her last week before retiring. She said that I was different from all her other clients. So many were upset that their canned goods weren’t in alphabetical order, but I was depressed over real problems, so don’t I feel better now?

I told her, No, and that I was glad she was retiring. I can be harsh. At least it takes out the guess work of where you stand with me.

Abbie was a leader in the peace movement against the war in Vietnam, and an environmental activist against nuclear power and nuclear weapons. He did this work with style and humor. He wrote a book entitled “Steal This Book.” It did not make him or his publisher much money. Too many readers took the title seriously. He co-founded the Youth International Party (“Yippies”) and was a member of the Chicago Seven. He was also a leading proponent of the Flower Power movement.

The painting is Black & White acrylic on 20″ x 20″ stretched canvas. The edges are painted gray, titled and signed in white.

Price: $200 plus postage

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit and debit cards are accepted.

Buckminster Fuller

Posted by Cranford
Buckminster Fuller

R. Buckminster Fuller (July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) has been one of my heroes since I first learned of him when he designed the US exhibit for the 1967 World Expo in Montreal. I was twelve and I read several articles by him and about him. I learned about ephemeralism and synergism and the dymaxion globe and geodesic domes. Most importantly I learned to question authority. All the major and minor powers were and are squandering the resources of the world on war-making. If they would just wake up, they could realize if they spent all those resources on housing, feeding and caring for people, there would be abundance enough to share, and no need to go to war for anything. If we put our minds to “living lightly” on the earth, instead of bleeding her dry, there is plenty to go around for everyone.

Bucky Fuller was trained as an architect. He was known as an author, a systems engineer, an inventor, a philosopher, a scientist, a genius. He didn’t like being called an inventor, though he held dozens of patents. He felt he merely uncovered what was always there, or rearranged existing basic machines. This didn’t seem like a big deal to him, even if he were the first to do it in a certain way to solve a certain problem. He was always working to solve problems. He developed a discipline to rapidly get to REM sleep so he only required two 1 hour naps every day, allowing him 22 waking hours to work.

I painted this based on a photo of Buckminster as a young man, because it was at age 28, when his 4 year-old daughter died of complications of polio that he went through a crisis of depression. He came out of it with a commitment to search for ways to make the world a better place, with an emphasis on affordable housing. He felt his daughter’s death was partly to blame on the poor, damp apartment they were living in.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.”

“When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty.
But when I’ve finished, if the solution isn’t beautiful, I know it’s wrong.”

“Man knows so much and does so little.”

“The minute you begin to do what you really want to do,
it’s really a different kind of life.”

“Either war is obsolete or men are.”

R. Buckminster Fuller

The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.

Price: $80 plus postage.

Fill out the form below so we can arrange payment and delivery. I take PayPal, so all credit and debit cards are accepted.

The Mahatma

Posted by Cranford
The Mahatma

Mohandas K. Gandhi (Oct. 2, 1869 – Jan.30, 1948) became known as the Mahatma or the “Great Soul” due to his wisdom in leading the people of India in non-violent resistance against British colonial rule in the 1930s and 40s. Gandhi was a great teacher. He wrote many books to train the people for the inner discipline necessary for non-violent civil disobedience. He drew on the teachings of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jesus Christ, and Mohammed. He was regarded as deeply spiritual, yet he professed faith in no deity or particular religion, saying: “My uniform experience has informed me that there is no other God than Truth.”

Many claim that his path of non-violent civil disobedience ultimately failed to liberate India, since they resorted to violent revolution. The truth of the matter, however, is that it is unlikely they would have had the cohesion and discipline to do that as a unified people had he not trained them in civil disobedience first. His teachings were instrumental in instructing MartinLuther King, Jr., Simone Weil, and Dietrich Bonhoffer, thus, he impacted US civil rights, and the French and German resistance.

It was through Gandhi’s correspondence with two different actors in the resistance to Hitler that I first connected with him; that was Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Germany and Simone Weil in France. This led me to read his biography and most of his works. I had to learn a fair amount of Hindi to understand them. I came to truly revere the man and fully embrace his philosophy of non-violent civil disobedience.

“I object to violence because, when it appears to do good, it is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”

Painting is acrylic on 16″ x 20″ stretched canvas.

Price: $200

This was a gift to my friend Ray Acker on the occasion of his ordination to the priesthood in the Antiochian Orthodox Church, as Fr. Herman. I wrote the words of Gandhi, above, on the back of the canvas frame:

“My uniform experience has informed me that there is no other God than Truth.”