REMARKS ON THE DEATH OF DAVID GULASSA, FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 2001
by Cyril M.Gulassa

I am David’s father. I want to thank all of you for coming today to St. Mark’s Cathedral to honor my son. Many of you here knew David as a man. From the perspective of a father, I would like to share with you what he was like as a child.

When David was a little boy, he was fascinated with dragons. Their size, magnificent teeth, flame and radiant eyes—he would stare at them in story books, and his first drawings were of dragons. One day when he was three, he came into the house at dusk with his sword and wooden shield and told me, "Daddy, I just killed a Dragon, a big big one." The news was reported with great pride and a flourish of a sword..

"Wow," I said. Great, can we go outside to see it?
"Nope, I chopped it up and threw it in a sewer."
"Maybe we should get a flashlight and see if we can find something to save as a souvenir?"
"Can’t," he said. "I washed him down the sewer.

Then he took me outside and showed me. The garden hose was thrust into the storm drain and the water was still running. We shined the light through the grates and sure enough, there was nothing left, not even a scale or a claw. Now, for the record, that was the only time in his life that David ever started a project, finished it and cleaned up after himself—all in a single day.

David’s room was always chaos. Drawings on the walls—NOT DRAWINGS HUNG ON THE WALLS, DRAWINGS ON THE WALLS—toys strewn everywhere, pencils, crayons, inks, soldiers, GI Joe’s, dump trucks, wooden blocks, socks, shoes, World War I helmets, crusty peanut butter sandwiches, sketchbooks, rapidographs. [Cleanup time for him meant to rake everything into the center of the room with a firm promise to sort everything out later, then fall asleep atop the pyramid, matchbox toys leaving imprints on his cheeks.] It was truly a small junkyard, precursor of the ones you now see at the Dravus shops.

David was a keen observer and smooth talker. At a third-grade parent conference, his teacher told me that David gave excellent book reports. But David and schoolwork were never the best of friends. When we questioned him about those book reports which we never saw him prepare, he said with that smile that later became his trademark, "I always try to give my reports after all the other kids are done, then I make one up from what they said."

From his earliest days, David was a gifted illustrator who could focus on the tip of a rapidograph for hours, tirelessly creating vast miniature worlds into which he entered, oblivious to calls for dinner. [But he was also a collaborationist. He and his brother Brian would start a drawing at opposite ends of a paper and meet in the center, or would name a subject and compete to see who finished first with the best drawing. His visual recall was remarkable. I would give him 30 timed-seconds to look at a picture, then close the book and question him about the smallest of details. I could never stump him—he knew the color of the hanky in Toad’s pocket or how many spiders were in the witch’s pot. And he saw things so clearly in his imagination that he could draw them from any angle, even upside down.] When David was 8, I hired him to do illustrations for my faculty newsletter and paid him well. "Art was not just pretty stuff to clip to the refrigerator," I told him. "Never be afraid to ask for what you think you’re worth." Many of his clients here in the cathedral will agree that he learned that lesson well.

Fame came early to David. When a school superintendent was assassinated in Oakland, California [by the Symbionese Army which later kidnapped Patty Hearst], David was chosen to illustrate Dr. Foster’s biography which went to all 30,000 students in the system, and he was interviewed at length on TV. This was his debut into the world as an artist. We had a complete workshop in the basement from radial arm to drill press and jig saw where he made accurate models of houses, down to oak planks and individual shingles and he made doll furniture that he sold to toy stores. For birthdays and Christmas, everyone always got something special, a crank toy, wire sculpture, painting, drawing or stained glass window.

And David was our family clown and entertained us well at dinner. He was fluent in French, German, Spanish, Slovak, Hungarian, and later after he went to Africa to visit Stefan in the Peace Corps, he mastered Arabic. The only problem was that he made no sense in any of these languages. He was a master mimic. We often had foreign students living with us and within minutes he could mimic their sounds and cadences so well that the native students, unable to understand him, tried hard to identify what dialect of their language he might be speaking.

David was a bold adventurer. When sixteen, he and Andy Carl packed up saddle bags to ride their ten speed bicycles from the west coast to the east coast. I noticed he didn’t have a single map, no route selected, wouldn’t he get lost? David laughed at my concerns. "Dad, it’s simple. When we wake up each morning, we’ll head for the rising sun." And that’s what they did, sleeping in fields and barns along the way. He spent the following year wandering throughout Europe, Greece and north Africa, where he met his mentor, Bob Harris, and later he climbed the Himalayas, witnessed the death of a member in his party, helped move a Tibetan monastery and had dinner with Sir Edmond Hillary.

David scorned the idea of going to college. He claimed he knew more about art, metal and wood than any teacher would know. He opened a prosperous wood shop with his good friend Paco Prieto, and named it, with characteristic humility, PACASSA. From there he designed for Urban Accessories and next came David Gulassa Co.

David was proud of his family. All of you have heard stories of his siblings, his sister Cyrille’s life in Budapest, his sister Lise’s job as a fashion designer for Levi’s and consultant to a fashion company in Romania, his brother Brian’s work as an illustrator and toy designer, and Stefan’s omnibus talent as photographer, graphic artist, and Gulassa Co. designer. And any of you who were ever given a tour of the shops, most certainly David took you into the basement of the woodshop to see his brother Harry’s electrical work, the conduits running like multilane free ways under the ceiling. And he was proud of his artist mother, a designer of toys, fabrics, ceramics, flowers. She, too, is a hands-on architect and builder who could design a home or sheetrock and pour concrete as well as David.

David was a lover. I’m not sure exactly why, but he would frequently call late in the night from the shop to thank us for something and then tell us how much he loved us. The most wonderful of those midnight calls was the one where he told us that Tracy was pregnant. We whooped with joy. He likened Tracy’s pregnancy to a small shop where a crew were grinding, welding and sanding a project for him. The nine months production, he said, wasn’t as necessary for manufacture as it was to prepare the customer for delivery. And when Ava was born, it did transform him and open his vision. She was a darling, a whole new form of soft sculpture that required diaper changes. [He played with her exuberantly, turning her into a plane that flew high over the furniture and made soft landings on the couch, into a helicopter that lowered her into the bath water, into a bird that perched high atop the refrigerator. The play included a soundtrack of motors and birds and animals as well as constant conversation between the pilot and his tiny copilot.]

David was my teacher. When we attended a party honoring the new line of furniture at Sloan and Miyasato in San Francisco, we were awed by the beauty and artistry of the pieces. But one of the tables had a flaw, a thin split in the grain that ran down a third of its surface. I asked him about it, and he said, "Dad, that’s not a flaw, that’s called a check. The wood and the artist have collaborated to bring out the character and uniqueness of the piece. It’s one of a kind."

I think that table is a wonderful metaphor for David’s life. He was a lovable child that grew like a great tree into a marvelous man. Yes, he had checks in the grain of his soul—that was a collaboration between David and God to bring out the uniqueness and beauty of his character. And yes, he was one of a kind.

He now lies tucked in a quilt made by his mother and feather linings made by Tracy and Atilla. David, as you set forth on this final journey in your wooden boat that your shop workers so lovingly made for you, please stay dry and warm and paddle strong against the dark currents as you follow the setting sun into the night. Mark the journey well and slay all the dragons in your path so that when our time comes, we may know the way and embark without fear. David we thank you for your life and for Tracy and Ava and for all of your friends. All the world should have such blessings.

(Items in brackets are a part of the eulogy, but were not read at the memorial service because of time constraints.)