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By Kathryn Porter It was the 1970's, a time when children dressed in costumes and went off to school, painted on classroom walls, learned how to use the centrifuge, calculated glazes and made salads. Skateboards and rapidographs, Picasso and journals, were everyday school tools. Reading, writing and Russ's form of algebra came along with this odd and ever changing curriculum. David was one of those children and I was one of his teachers. The kids called me Kathy. David Gulassa came to our classroom with an authority about him that made curriculum always a choice, his choice. He was relentless in pursuit of solutions to mechanical or drawing problems which inspired his interest. David competed only with David and had a magnetic quality to him. If we showed him how to draw an elbow as an elbow, soon a dozen 12 and 13 year olds were sprawled on the carpets, absorbed in their elbow work. . He taught me to give up my expectations and surrender classroom authority to the inspiration which he brought to his school work. Stan Cohen, my boss at the art school then, described our jobs as "tour guides". In David's case, that proved an apt description. The art school experience was not without problems for young David. Spelling was a problem. I remember one parent- teacher conference, David was in the eighth grade. Having long given up the idea that David's education was going to be, in anyway "standardized", I tenaciously held the belief that ALL CHILDREN, even the inspired and artistically gifted, should learn to spell. David attended this meeting, at the kitchen table on Harwood Ave. I laboriously poured out my concerns for young David's future. Cyril and Harriet joined me in my insistence that regular spelling assignments be completed and progress toward literacy be routinely measured. David listened to all this with characteristic nonchalance. The results of the agreed upon mandate were not as assigned: what showed up as vocabulary homework were carefully rendered stories ASS Sid U ous, an intelligent donkey, CAP RICIOUS, a hat collection, what else? Meanings and usages "bent" by David. He at 12, leveraged vocabulary assignments often creating an unfinished result which so far exceeded the assignment as to challenge the assignment. My insistence upon standard usages wasn't going anywhere with David. His response: "Kathy, relax, I'll get a secretary". This was, of course, long before spell check. But, even then, it was hard to argue with David. You had to believe him, it was just another obstacle that he would tackle and solve when he got ready to do so. One wanted to believe in David and one was rarely disappointed. Over time David and I became friends, collegues of a sort. He trusted me. He trusted me when he was a youngster, enough to labor thru Moby Dick, or most of itÉI think. He knew that I thought the ideas Melville talks about were important. So he read it ( I think) and we talked about natural law, will power, the forces of nature and man. And he drew, and he drew and he drew. Coincidently, the year he graduated from high school was the year I took sabbatical leave and went to study in Italy. David and Lise both came thru Italy that year and stayed with me. It was a wonderful time. David's first trip to Italy. He absorbed Italy. When we learned that, with a student id card, he could get into the museum archives where many original texts of Leonardo DaVinci's work, his inventions, were available for review, David was gone. I will forever see him sitting at that long, centuries old, wooden library desk, pouring over the original texts, drawing, looking, the images seeping into him. David was tireless when it came to feeding his visual memory. By the time I returned from that year, I had decided that I would leave teaching and work in real estate. In a conversation with Harriet one day she suggested that THE TIME HAD COMEÉtime for David to have his own PLACE. Soon, David's growing collection of cars, parts of cars, pieces and parts of buildings, a circular stairway and several tons of scrap metal, moved to my newly acquired little project on 37th St. in Oakland. Before long THE TIME CAME, again. David watched me working on my first live/work loft conversion. He became interested in purchasing one of the lofts. He was twenty something at the time. While he knew zip about real estate he had an innate sense of value and was financially aggressive. Actually, he HAD TO BE financially aggressive: he had great and expensive taste. And, by this time no one would disagree, THE TIME HAD COME FOR DAVID TO OWN HIS OWN abode/storage yard Soooooooooo, we did a very complicated, negatively amortized, 100% financed deal and David had bought his first piece of real property: unit #11 at Oak Park Studios. In the interests of full disclosure, I had offered this deal to several other people. Only David took me up on itÉFour years later he had transformed unit#11 and sold at a handsome profit, thereby graduating from first time buyer to savvy real estate investor. That money went to Washington state, his new home. By then, he was well on his way to artist/entrepeneur. Again and again, he took what he needed and went way, way beyond this teacher's expectations. I have struggled with a way to close what I have to say here about my dear friend David. There is no justice in a life tragically cut short. The young ones are not supposed to die before us. There is solace only in having known him and loved him. Let us forever cherish the steely 12 year olds whose inspiration and insight is a gift to our lives. With love. |