Southwestern College el sol magazine 2015

Remembering Mexico’s missing 43

table of contents

pg. 32

Will Calhoun Drummer from Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band Living Colour visits SWC recording arts studio.

pg. 10

pg. 44

Artistic Giant

Farewell to Steve Kowit

Former art instructor John Baldessari is rich, successful, but ever the maverick.

Popular professor and nationally-renown poet was a beloved spirit.

pg. 75

The Jiu-Jitsu Kid Student overcomes family tragedy to win world title.

pg. 66

pg. 80

Raucous Roadtrip

Courage, lucky dog, lead to America

Baseball team clowns on the bus, but all business on the field.

Student flees arranged marriage in England, finds happiness at SWC.

pg. 77

Running down a dream SWC cross country and track star shatters records in her mother’s honor.

pg. 16

SWC wins in SLO

pg. 50

SWC architecture students win first place in San Luis Obispo design competition.

Postcard from Paris

pg. 84

Student spends summer semester abroad learning and loving the City of Lights.

pg. 6

Mars or bust!

Chula Vista Air Force Sergeant is contender for a one-way ticket to Mars.

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pg. 36

Stars of the Southern Hemisphere Mariachi Garibaldi dazzles Brazil.

pg. 58

Remembering the 43 Artists honor Mexico’s missing students.

pg. 70

Margie Reese – Survivor

Not your average Joe

Cancer survivor, sex trafficking victim, philanthropist still loves her life.

Joe Chavez overcomes disabilities to play on two USA Paralymic Soccer Teams and become a respected leader.

pg. 88

‘Dark’ Often-maligned, longforgotten chunk of conceptual art now getting a second look.

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From the staff of el sol, spring 2015 As Southwestern College grows, so do its tales. An institution that sprouted from lima bean fields is now blossoming with great students, faculty and stories.

In an effort to keep up with the college’s growth, this issue of el sol is the largest ever. We remember the largely-forgotten lost 43 students of Mexico, who disappeared without a trace last year then vanished almost as swiftly from the American news cycle. Journalism students were touched and saddened by the murder of these young idealists who forced us to reflect on ourselves and our role in the world.

We may have interviewed the first Martian, though we cannot be sure. Air Force Sergeant Carmen Paul has volunteered for the first one-way mission to the Red Planet and has come to terms with leaving her family, her planet and even her beloved Doritos.

We say a sad goodbye to the brilliant poet/professor Steve Kowit and hello to Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Will Calhoun. Most inspiring of all is our noble and courageous classmate Joe Chavez, who has transcended serious birth defects to become a two-time United States Soccer Paralympian.

We profile world-famous artist John Baldessari and running superstar Amniat Olowora, both of whom run in fast company. With great love and respect we recall the bittersweet life of our terminally-ill classmate and friend, Margie Reese.

Like our newspaper, The Sun, el sol magazine burns to shine light on the deserving, heat the nefarious and energize our readers. Thank you for joining us on these journeys of hope and humanity.

WRITER, DESIGNER, PHOTOGRAPHER Colin Grylls

WRITER, DESIGNER Evan Cintron

WRITER, DESIGNER, PHOTOGRAPHER Nicholas Baltz

WRITER, DESIGNER Rudee Amaral III

Mason Masis, Editor-in-Chief WRITER, DESIGNER Gabriel Sandoval

MANAGING EDITOR Anna Pryor

CHIEF COPY EDITOR Brian del Carmen

WRITER, PHOTOGRAPHER Andrew Perez

SCIENCE WRITER JoseLuis Baylon DESIGNER Kasey Thomas

PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR April Abarrondo

COPY EDITOR, WRITER, ILLUSTRATOR Andrea Aliseda

PHOTOGRAPHER Serina Duarte

ILLUSTRATOR Alan Luna ART DIRECTOR Jaime Pronoble

WRITER Cesar Hirsch

ON THE COVER: Cesar Castaneda lights candles on the altar for Mexico’s missing 43 students. Photo by April Abarrondo.

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PHOTOGRAPHER Derrius Boyd

ADVISER Dr. Max Branscomb

No part of el sol may be reproduced in any form by any means without prior consent from the Southwestern College el sol Magazine. For permission contact elsol@ theswcsun.com

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FEATURE

And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time...

Chula Vista Air Force sergeant plans for a Mars One mission that will boldly go where no one has gone before

By Andrea Aliseda

C

armen Paul is looking forward to the day she becomes a dual citizen. She is already an Earthling in good standing and soon hopes to be a Martian.

Seriously.

Paul, 33, a technical sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, is one of 100 finalists being considered for a one-way trip to the Red Planet launching in 2026 with the goal of establishing the first human colony on another world.

Her husband, Craig Paul, is also under consideration, though there is no guarantee both will be chosen.

Mars One, a Dutch organization, is making plans to establish a human settlement on the fourth planet. Current plans for first shuttle are for a four-person team.

Eventually, if all goes well, 24 Earthlings will become Martians. Paul said she hopes

Photo Illustration by Mason Masis

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FEATURE to be on that flight and has no problem with it being a oneway journey.

Space exploration has been a longtime obsession, she said.

“I grew up in Florida watching shuttle launches,” she said.

“It’s something I’ve always dreamed about.”

Martian real estate is cheap, but getting there is not. It is a seventh month flight to boot, even when Earth and Mars are at their closest. Her cozy abode on Mars will be about 1,000 cubic meters and house four.

It is important for the teams to get along with each other, she said, since they will live in close quarters for the rest of their lives. “(We will have) to quickly work together and solve conflict,” she said.

Paul said she hopes to discover life on Mars.

“It would be one of the greatest discoveries in history,” she said. “Just about everything we do will be one big experiment!

Walking, eating, sleeping...heck, going to the bathroom.”

Nouveau Martians will set up a greenhouse to grow crops, she said, and maybe a vat to brew beer. Paul is more of a wine lady, she said, but a pale ale on the Red Planet wouldn’t be too shabby.

What she is really eager to take is her favorite snack.

“I’m still waiting for an answer on how many cases of Doritos we can bring,” she said playfully. “They don’t take up too much space, do they?”

She will also be taking her tablet, a hard drive chock-full of movies and books, pictures of loved ones, her wedding ring set, a pair of sandals, her DSLR camera and, of course, her smartphone.

“While I won’t be able to call from it, I’ll still be able to connect to Wi-Fi and send iMessage or WhatsApp messages.”

There’s free Wi-Fi in outer space, Paul said, so aside from being one of the first humans to potentially habitat Mars, she expects to be one of the first to answer emails and taunt Internet trolls.

Writing a book is also on her to-do list.

“I’m a bit of an amateur novelist and I think Mars would provide awesome fodder for a book.”

Mars tomorrow means hard work today and a focus on training, which involves loads of studying and hitting the gym.

“I studied the entire Mars One website, a bunch of Mars Wikipedia pages, and the interview prep packet they gave us.

I’d have to say the thing I’m least prepared for are the media interviews.”

Paul’s background is in electronic systems technology in the Air Force as a technical sergeant.

“I’m hoping that the technical education and teamwork experience will lend me the chutzpah necessary to pull off a huge endeavor like this.”

Mars One has been taunted by some naysayers, but Paul said it is a doable plan.

“Mars One has some pretty impressive brainiacs on its team,” she said.

A former NASA chief technologist and aerospace doctor are among the leaders, she said, along with personnel from the

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Physics of Space Travel Rough on Humans

By JoseLuis Baylon

Courtesy Photo

Proto Martian Sergeant Carmen Paul

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

“I doubt these professionals would do business with an entity if they thought it was just a big scam. If they’re convinced, then I’m convinced.”

Soon skeptics and supporters alike will get a sneak preview of the selection process. Mars One has paired up with Darlow Smithson Productions to document the “most extraordinary and challenging job interviews ever seen.”

Paul said she doesn’t know the full details, but all the same is hesitant about the production.

“I’m not thrilled or excited about it,” she said. “I just hope we’ll be busy enough that the cameras aren’t distracting.”

If selected, cameras may be the least of her worries. She will have to bid farewell to her family. She and Craig have no children, but they do have other terrestrials they love and will miss.

“The separation from loved ones would be teary and emotional,” she said. “I’m hopeful that we’ll be so busy that we won’t have time to be overwhelmingly distraught.”

Her final days on Earth could possibly be full of errands, lastminute preparations and emotional farewells, she said. There may be some Dorito chip munching scheduled, too.

As for her last moments on Mars, Paul said she could only imagine.

“This could go multiple ways,” she said. “One, I could live out a long, productive life and quietly pass away from old age. Two, something disastrous could happen, in which case, everything could be over with very quickly. Three, depending on the speed of progress, there might be a way to come back to Earth to retire.”

Paul said it may be tough to leave Mars.

“It may be as difficult as leaving Earth, especially after calling it home for so long. Not to mention I’d likely end up crippled after spending such a long time in low gravity and then coming back to 100 percent Earth gravity.”

Fear of the unknown is normal, but the unknown has always beckoned true explorers. From 34 million miles away Mars beckons. Paul said she is ready to answer, even if she has to leave behind her family, her planet and her Doritos. es

In recent times private companies have made a footprint on space history.

A man free fell from the edge of space, thanks to Red Bull.

Burt Rutan was inspired by a Native American tale of ambitious birds and made planes that soared into space.

PayPal co-owner Elon Musk created SpaceX and sends payloads to the International Space Station (ISS).

Governments around the world still struggle to launch rockets properly and most developed countries use their space programs to place satellites in trajectories. Other than that, the European Space Agency developed modules onboard the ISS and Russian rockets handle all of NASA’s astronaut space flights.

Mars One, which was originally backed by London TV production company Endemol, calls for a mission to the Red Planet in a hasty fashion.

Today there seems like no time to send a man to Mars. America’s Mercury, Gemini and Apollo eras all put emphasis on manned space flight. After the space race, NASA focused on Earth studies, rover exploration and deep space objects. Man was not ready to visit galaxies far, far away.

Getting anything into space, functioning and prepared for duty is astronomical work.

NASA is not even considering manned Mars exploration until 2060. It is technology that is holding us back.

This is no easy task. Available technology does not match up with a Marvel film. Despite what a Sony commercial looks like or how a hero uses technology in a film, people should not believe that life has all the cool gizmos in all the right places.

In December 2013 China landed the Jade Rabbit rover on the Moon. Solar radiation and frostbite killed the rover’s driving unit after the first lunar night. In 2014 Orbital Sciences Corp. launched a payload intended to reach ISS. It blew up on the launch pad. Orbital has lost three rockets in a similar fashion within the last six years.

Last year the Rosetta satellite aimed to land on an asteroid, but failed to fire harpoons intended to wheel her into position permanently. The landing botched and Rosetta fell into the dark shadows of the asteroid.

Mars One is not getting anyone on to the fourth planet.

Star Trek’s Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy always had a way of reminding the U.S.S. Enterprise that impending doom was lurked over the shoulder. Our space ships may take hits and mankind does not yet have the ability to yell “shields up!”

Space suits, vehicles and habitat modules still do not protect human bodies from solar energetic particles and galactic cosmic rays, which can range from mild to deadly.

Our solar system is littered by particles cast this way by exploding stars or burping black holes. It is called Space Weather.

Space is not cute. It is ghastly.

Cosmic rays will penetrate astronauts attempting to reach Mars or deep space.

Astronauts onboard ISS are somewhat protected from some cosmic rays because ISS orbits within the Earth’s protective magnetosphere, past there, however, the solar system is a sketchy neighborhood.

Studies from John Hopkins showed that particles flying through space will become quantum-sized bullets to human physiology, affecting the way proteins order themselves in the brain, ultimately leading to a dull reaction time.

At Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York, mice received highenergy radiation from a collider replicating the same amounts an astronaut would receive on a long space mission.

For 250 days the mice were run through daily fitness tests set to measure exactly how fit for duty the brain of a mouse could be after radiation exposure. Results revealed that transport systems for dopamine, needed for alertness, may be impaired. About 45 percent of the mice showed attention-related defects.

Of those, 64 percent had lapses in attention.

With medical issues in the field of space medicine, doctors and engineers are finding the umbilical cord between human bodies and Earth difficult to detach. Long endurance space flights are a problem. The longer the journey through space, the more bodily damage.

Dr. Michael Barratt, an astronaut assigned to Expedition 19/20 on board ISS, began suffering visual impairments shortly after arriving in space. Barratt examined the

medical records of astronauts who reported the same abnormality.

Having been undiscovered, it was unknown to NASA that a percentage of astronauts exposed to microgravity develop intracranial hypertension that applies pressure to the fluid inside the eye, creating blurry vision.

Blurry vision is not the only problem.

Human hearts get smaller and rounder because there is no gravity in space, and they have no reason to work as hard. NASA researchers worry astronauts will pass out while returning to gravity on Earth or landing on Mars. Every living organism is inextricably tied to Mother Earth.

It is home.

In order to travel to Mars, the human body needs the livable conditions of Earth replicated in space. Right now, though, that technology does not exist.

Future astronauts need to be logical and aware of themselves, like Mr. Spock.

Space crews are required to function in synchronization. Very few know about the Mars 500 mission composed of an international crew of astronauts conducted in 2011. In a study published by The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the crew played a mock mission to Mars in the confinements of an isolated facility for 520 days. By monitoring sleep and light cycles inside the cabins, researchers delved into the dynamics of astronaut’s vulnerability to a neurological condition referred to as hypokinesis. If a body does not move enough in space, muscles and memory get sluggish.

Despite not being in space, astronauts in Mars500 suffered hypokinesis because as the mission advanced, crew members moved less around the ship. Some crew members became lethargic and would avoid light completely.

By not getting enough light, sleep patterns were disorganized. Desynchronization occurred when members took away or added hours of their sleep.

If crews are not working attentively, accidents in space are likely.

Space is a dark, cold and dangerous place, but the human condition encourages itself to push the biological boundaries of our minds and bodies. The universe may never roll out a welcome mat, but be advised, we are coming anyway. es

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FEATURE

1938-2015

The Homeric Life of Steve Kowit

BY ANDREW PEREZ

O

n a YouTube video Steve Kowit stands in front of a crowd at Ducky Waddle’s Emporium in Encinitas.

Harsh fluorescent light brightens one side of the room, the rest is dark save for the the shop’s neon-red marque. Colorful crosses and macabre Mexican folk art decorate the wall behind him. Visions of pale calavera catrinas and red and green devil men stare at the onlookers.

As Kowit starts to read his poem “I Attend a Poetry Reading,” the dark ambiance subsides and audience members begin to laugh their asses off.

Kowit, who passed away in his sleep from cardiac arrest on April 2, was the Warren Zevon of the San Diego poetry scene – capable of creating transcendent beauty and wicked humor.

He once haunted Greenwich Village with Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg, but loved teaching at Southwestern College. Kowit was revered by his peers in both literary and academic circles. His poetry and teaching style exemplified a man who could make readers cry and bust a gut in the same stanza.

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Steve Kowit: Poet, political activist, professor and animal lover.

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B

FEATURE

orn in 1938 in Brooklyn, NY, Kowit cut his p o e t i c chops in the Lower East Side, g i v i n g frequent readings at New York’s bounteous coffee houses, such as the now closed Les Duex Megots.

He earned his BA from Brooklyn College after a stint in the Army Reserve.

He moved to San Francisco when he was 27 and spent time with the Beats, a generation of writers who explored the counterculture, in the HaightAshbury district. Kowit earned a MA at San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University) when he was 30.

After refusing Army induction at the beginning of the Vietnam War – or as Kowit called it, “America’s genocidal slaughter of the Vietnamese people” – he traveled to Mexico, Central and South America with his wife, Mary.

Kowit returned to the States after the war and resided in San Diego, where he began to teach at SDSU and UCSD. Among Kowit’s numerous achievements and awards are two Pushcart Prizes and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in Poetry Award.

Kowit published numerous books of poetry, including “Lurid Confessions,” “Cutting Our Losses,” “Passionate Journey: Poems and Drawings in the Erotic Mood” and the non-fiction book, “In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet’s Portable Workshop.”

Before his death, University of Tampa Press was in the process of editing a new collection of Kowit’s poems titled “Cherished: New and Selected Poems.” It is scheduled to be published posthumously later this year.

Kowit taught English at SWC from 1990 until he retired in 2011.

“Steve was an amazing man,” said English Professor Andrew Rempt. “I

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used to stand outside his classroom and listen to him teach and, on occasion, I’d walk in and give him a hug. He wouldn’t miss a beat, just hug me back without comment and keep on teaching.”

A memorial in honor of Kowit was held in the Academic Success Center, where numerous faculty paid their respects and read poetry in honor of their colleague two weeks after his death.

English Professor Francisco Bustos performed a “poetic invocation” called “Aguilar Poeta” with Javier Maldonado and San Diego poet Jim Moreno, where they called the spirit of Kowit into the room through the use of drums and chanting.

“I was a student at SWC in the 1990s and I took one of Steve’s classes,” Bustos said. “I vividly remember how in love with teaching he was. He made the class fun with his humor and wit, you wanted to be there. Afterwards I used to do little readings and performances with him and it was great.”

Kowit’s former office mate, English Professor Heather Eudy, remembered going on frequent walks with him where they would talk about life and the universe.

“During one of our beach walks,” Eudy said, “I was taking a photography class and I needed to take portraits of people and Steve said, ‘I’ll be your faithful assistant.’ I am kind of shy, so he would go up to random people on the beach for an hour and he would be personable with everyone. Ever since then he would always sign his emails ‘Your faithful assistant’ and I just found that so endearing.”

Dr. Joel Levine, dean of the School of Language and Literature, said Kowit was a marvelous teacher.

“When I started at SWC I noticed the looks on the student’s faces after they got out of a class with Steve,” he said.

“He never treated his students like they were students, he treated them like they were writers.”

His “perpetual student,” awardwinning journalist Claire Accomando, said she met Kowit when she took one of his writing classes and instantly fell in love with Kowit’s amiable personality.

“My friend had to drag me to the class, beacuase I had always loved poetry, but never dared writing it,” she said. “Steve was probably the most honest person I know, besides my husband. While he wasn’t very organized, the minute he started to teach, I was transfixed, inspired.”

Kowit’s death came as a shock to the San Diego literary community.

Moreno, who runs a monthly open mic night at Café Cabaret, dedicated an entire night of poetry reading in honor of his friend.

“I first met Steve at a poetry reading and I was immediately mesmerized,” he said. “I then took a class he taught at SWC and became friends with him.

He was laughably and likably irreverent.

He was a social justice priest and a loyal friend, a patriot of truth and selfeffacement.”

Moreno said he remembered interviewing Kowit for his KNSJ radio show “Poetry is Political.”

“After the interview he took me to lunch in a small café near his home,” Moreno said. “When we were leaving to eat, he stopped his car and said goodbye to his dogs. I couldn’t hear what he was saying from my car, but he was talking to them like they were great old friends.

Steve never cared about appearances, he cared about substance. Even with his dogs.”

Many local poets went and paid respect to their fallen friend, including Jett Keyser, who said he was a friend and longtime fan.

“Steve liked to blend genres,” Keyser said. “There was the funny and the mundane and the extraordinary and the sorrowful. It was an eclectic melding of styles that is unique to his work.”

Poet Judith Hanson read a tender poem in honor of Kowit and recalled his workshops, saying that Kowit would pass out candy before every class to relax his students.

“He just wanted to break down the stress that gets in the way of producing good writing, to get out of oneself and just be when creating,” she said.

Another of his many fans was poet and political activist Donna Hilbert. She

Summer days, decades ago, I would lie by your side in the shade of the willow tree that was here on the riverbank. One day I would have carved our names on its bark with a small knife had you not said no, do not harm it.

That day we swore to love each other forever.

Uprooted, that tree has been gone many years. Now you too are no more.

Today I stroll on the bank by the thrashing waters here where it stood recalling your voice & the beauty & gentle grace of your spirit — this river that rushes headlong into the sea…

after the Sanskrit first met Kowit at a reading at CSU, Long Beach where he had brought down the house.

“Steve was one of the best poets America produced in the last thousand years,” she said. “He could see the light in the serious, the magic in the mundane. His poems were genuinely human, written so that everyone could

understand them.”

Poet Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes would take hikes with Kowit where they would talk extensively about literature and poetry.

“Steve was passionate about poetry and poets,” he said. “He was generous with his knowledge and time. He went out of his way to encourage and help

young writers. Steve had opportunities to be an even more famous poet himself, but he turned down offers that would have required him to move away from San Diego. He loved our city and state, so much that he wouldn’t leave for anything.”

Aside from being an immensely talented poet, Kowit was unafraid to

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FEATURE voice his political views.

Artist and activist Doris Bittar remembered joining Kowit for political activities when she and her husband moved to California in 1986.

Last year Bittar worked with Kowit at SWC when she curated the “Labor Migrant Gulf” art exhibit, where he

read poems.

“Steve was always approachable,” she said. “His visions were feisty and at the same time joyous. He really believed in people power and knew how to motivate people into action.”

Poet and writer Terry Hertzler said Kowit was outspoken.

“Steve was also not shy about letting people know his political and social opinions,” he said. “I would call him a politically incorrect progressive. He didn’t care what current acceptable views were if they ran counter to his own views.”

Kowit met controversy in his views on religious tensions in the Middle East. Despite being raised Jewish, Kowit felt that the Palestinians were treated unfairly by Israel. Just a month

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before his death, the U-T San Diego published an opinion piece by Kowit titled “Is the U.S.-Israel Love Affair on the Rocks?”

In the piece Kowit advocated for Palestinian rights and addressed Israel’s relation with Palestinians over the past 70 years. He said the majority

of Congress supported Israel due to “significant campaign funding” from the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Even though Kowit had controversial views, SWC Administrative Assistant Bertha Rose Williams said he had a big heart and helped his friends in need.

Williams wanted to erect a memorial bench in the Balboa Park Rose Gardens in honor of her daughter who had passed away. She had already raised part of the money but she was still far from her goal.

“In walked Steve,” she said, “and after he heard that I was trying to raise money for the memorial he asked how much I needed. I told him that I had $300 so far and that it cost $1,200. Without batting an eye he

just said, ‘I’ll go get my checkbook.’

He donated $900 without another question asked and I’ll always thank him and remember him for that.”

Kowit was heavily involved in bringing a deeper understanding of poetry and the literary arts to San Diego, conducting numerous workshops for San Diego Writers, Ink, a non-profit literary organization that offers reading, workshops and classes, and worked many times with Border Voices, which brings poetry to students in the K-12 grades.

John Webb, the founder of Border Voices, remembered how well Kowit worked with children.

“He was just fantastic,” Webb said.

“The way he got even the extremely shy kids to talk was phenominal.”

“Steve was a champion of poetry that was unambiguous, musical and imaginative, and as he said in the introduction to his anthology, “The Maverick Poets,” ‘tuned to the spoken language, free of decorative rhetoric and distinguished by its clarity, humanity and power’,” Hertzler said. “That was the kind of poetry he produced and encouraged in his students.”

Professor of Theater Dr. Carla Kirkwood remembered Kowit as one of a kind, a man of principle in not only his politics, but also in his writing.

“We used to have a running joke whenever someone in the college moved up in ranks,” Kirkwood said.

“He used to tell me that he thought that it was an incredible tragedy that the best dream in the world you can have is to be a dean, a boss or a manager. And he was right.”

Kirkwood said Kowit achieved artistic immortality.

“People like Steve, the artists and the creators and writers, they’re never really gone when they die,” she said.

“They still have the world that they helped to create and it never really goes away. It may get lost in the shuffle from time to time, but the work will always be there, waiting to be rediscovered by those who really care enough to sift through all the crap.” es

“He could see the light in the serious, the magic in the mundane. His poems were genuinely human, written so that everyone could understand them.”

D O N N A H I L B E RT

“He used to tell me that he thought that it was an incredible tragedy that the best dream in the world you can have is to be a dean, a boss or a manager. And he was right.”

DR. CARLA KIRKWOOD

“He was generous with his knowledge and time. He went out of his way to encourage and help young writers. Steve had opportunities to be an even more famous poet himself, but he turned down offers that would have required him to move away from San Diego. He loved our city and state so much that he wouldn’t leave for anything.”

ISHMAEL VON HEIDRICK-BARNES

“I used to stand outside his classroom and listen to him teach and, on occasion, I’d walk in and give him a hug. He wouldn’t miss a beat, just hug me back without comment and keep on teaching.”

P R OFESSOR ANDREW REMPT

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PHOTO ESSAY

HOUSES OF THE RISING SUN

By Cesar Hirsch

SWC architecture students create a shining house on the hill.

GIMME SHELTER — Sergio

Ituarte (l), Rene Soler and a visiting student discuss Team Helios’ winning structure at the Design Village 2015 competition near Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.

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Photos by Mason Masis

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WINNER’S CIRCLE — Luis Montoya opens the Best of Show award presented to Team Helios. It was, appropriately, a decorative clock.

PHOTO ESSAY

outhwestern College architecture students lined up in a dimly lit alley near a downtown bar called SLO Brewing Co. where Neil Young was about to give an impromptu performance.

As excited as they were for the chance to see a rock legend perform live, the students begrudgingly walked off into the gusty, cold night back to their hotel rooms to get some much-needed sleep. Design Village 2015 competition awaited the next morning and Neil Young would not be there to help.

Each year the Design Village Conference organizes a competition at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo for college students around the nation. Teams design and build structures around a theme. Upon arrival at SLO, they hike up a trail leading to Poly Canyon, assemble their portable structures and camp in them for two nights. This year the theme was clockwork and SWC registered two teams, Helios and Uhrwerk. SWC students brought back two awards, Best of Show and Best Interpretation of Theme.

Diana de la Torre, advisor to the SWC Architecture Club, said she has been taking teams to Cal Poly to compete for four years.

“It’s a great learning experience for the students, not only to visit Cal Poly, which has one of the best architecture programs in the country, but also to learn to collaborate as a team,” she said.

Co-advisor Corey Breininger, a retired SWC professor who now teaches part-time, is a veteran of the competition.

“This year we had two very unique teams competing,” he said. “They both tackled the concept very differently. The way they expressed their geometry and the way they interpreted clockwork was very interesting.”

On the first morning of the competition teams gathered in a parking lot near the bottom of the trail that leads to Poly Canyon. They began unloading their dismantled structures under the warm sun.

While unloading, two team members ran about a mile up the hills and staked out a spot for their structures. SWC students picked an area toward the middle of the canyon with minimal slope. Soon students from other colleges ambled up the hill and

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COME TOGETHER — Luis Montoya and Rene Soler drill screws into the Team Helios structure.

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PHOTO ESSAY ON THE LEVEL — Omar Topete saws excess wood from a stand designed to keep team Uhrwerk’s structure level on the Poly Canyon hillside. (r) Team Uhrwerk’s product stands quietly in the early Saturday morning sun.

the canyon began to look like a construction site.

Teams carried up their one-of-a-kind structures as their favorite music played. Cole Sicora Friesen, a student from Diablo Valley College, rolled by on a unicycle, balancing a long, wooden beam.

“It’s a nice way to get around and just get a nice breeze going,” he explained.

High on the canyon, the morning surrendered to a warm but breeze afternoon.

Gusty winds became an issue, but most of the teams were ready to start building.

“As you can see, this is not flat ground!”

Breininger said. “It’s a slope and it’s a rough slope because cows graze on this land, so having to deal with the topography is an interesting exercise.”

The structure created by Team Helios was an abstract configuration of complex angles made of mainly wood, covered by a white spandex fabric. Rene Soler, a member of Helios, called it “a contemporary, parametric jungle gym for grown-ups” as Luis Montoya, another member of Helios, leaped onto one of the top legs of the structure where he hung and proved his point. “(The structure) is organic,” said Montoya.

“It has complex angles and it’s massive, which makes it very attractive and it is something (the judges) have never seen before. We didn’t want to work with gears in our structure, we wanted to go back to the early concepts of the sundial were you measure time based on the position of the sun.”

Inside the structure inhabitants could appreciate changes in sunlight through three wooden frames where sunbeams entered at various times of the day.

Team Uhrwerk’s structure was a wooden cube placed on a rectangular base composed of studs and bamboo with two wheels at the very bottom. At its center a wooden column rotated around a dial representing a clock that, when moved, elevated plastic panels surrounding the cube that allowed for the different tones of sunlight and shadows to fill the structure.

SWC student Efrain Camacho, an aspiring architect, said his team’s intention was to create an experience through basic design.

“We were trying to keep it simple and build a mechanism that reflected the theme by emphasizing movement and precision,” he said.

Montoya said that getting a chance to build a design is a rare opportunity for most architecture students.

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“To see it live and not just on paper changes everything,” he said. “It’s like a refueling of the soul.”

In the canyon, winds were much heavier than the teams expected.

“You’re looking at 18-20 mph winds,” Breiniger said. “I remember a couple of years ago when the students came back they said to me ‘Corey, everybody’s project blew over except for ours and we still didn’t win anything.’ I kind of wish I had been there to see that actually, but that’s always a factor that many forget to take into account.”

Montoya said his team had trouble putting its structure back together due to a change in their transportation plans and cracks in its wood.

“There are already holes on the pieces of wood and since

the new holes that we’re making aren’t falling in the exact same place as the old ones, it’s making the wood in the legs crack,” he said. “So we need to predrill all of the new holes so it doesn’t crack the wood, but the only drill that we have is for concrete and we need a wood one.”

Miguel Vargas of Team Uhrwerk said the harsh terrain was a problem.

“The slope doesn’t really allow us to work freely,” he said. “On campus we worked on a flat surface and here we don’t have that so we have to accommodate by pretty much holding everything up. That’s the main issue, besides

things we might have lost on the way like a bolt or a piece of wood. It was a very long walk getting up here.”

It had been a long walk, about 16 miles.

“It was the workout of the year,” Soler said. “Walking up a hill with a bunch of wood on your shoulders puts so much strain on your body. We went back and forth eight times.”

Breininger had warned students it would take a long time to assemble their structures. Many expected to party on the first night, but most fell asleep from exhaustion or were still finishing their structures.

Team Helios did not stop working until around 11:30

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HOME STRETCH — Rene Soler inspects staples holding cloth to a nearly finished section of the Helios structure.

TURN, TURN, TURN — Team Uhrwerk members, Miguel Vargas, Ivån Murillo, Omar Topete and Jessica Martinez attach a panel to the side of their structure. It opens when a dial is rotated in the center of the structure.

PHOTO ESSAY

p.m.

After tightening the last bolt, they gathered their camping equipment and disappeared into their structure for the night.

At dawn teams crept out of their structures and into the crisp morning. Soler sat atop the highest hill of the canyon reflecting.

“It’s beautiful up here,” he said. “There is no greater feeling than to be surrounded by mountains, trees and architecture.”

Most of the structures had been built and the atmosphere of the canyon changed. A DJ played music, food was served and the canyon turned into a festival.

“It’s kind of like Coachella, but for architects,” said Ivan Murillo of Team Uhrwerk.

Structures by Team Helios and Team Uhrwerk survived the night. In the daylight, it was easy to admire the array of structures sprawled across the landscape.

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Judge Christine Theodoropoulos, dean of the college of architecture and environmental design at Cal Poly, said the competition was about more than architecture.

“It’s about the students, their enthusiasm, their collaboration, their stories about spending the night, the stories about getting up the hill, how they solved the problems with installation,” she said. “Those things to me are more important than the structures themselves.”

Judges strolled up the hill to examine each structure and deliver their verdict. Families and visitors also visited.

SWC’s submissions drew a lot of looks.

“It was interesting to see the amount of interest the two structures generated,” Breininger said.

Pamela Anderson-Brulé, a founder and president of Anderson Brulé Architects, said she appreciated the design behind Team Uhrwerk’s cube structure.

HANGING OUT — (l) Three hammocks hang in the Team Helios structure. Sunlight shines through the square near the top of the photo at dawn. (r) Iván Murillo holds a panel to the roof.

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PHOTO ESSAY Sebastian Gonzalez

Jessica Martinez

Rene Soler

Sergio Ituarte

Daniela Granillo

Ivette Ramos

Miguel Vargas

Efrain Camacho

Iván Murillo

Omar Topete

Luis Montoya

Joaquín Calderón

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“...once you were in there you got this very James Turrell-esque experience that changed with the diurnal swings of the day. It could have had better craft, but we forgave that because it did well on so many other levels.”

“I really enjoyed the simplicity of it and how it can change and sort of adapt to the environment,” she said.

Isha Chhabra, president of the Design Village Conference, announced that team Helios shared Best of Show with Team LX from Diablo Valley College and earned a special award for its interpretation of the theme.

Judge Thomas di Santo, an associate professor at SLO and partner of M:OME, said he was impressed by students from Team Helios.

“They did a really great job of handling the experimental qualities of the theme by interpreting clockwork in a very non-linear, abstract way, which we appreciated,” he said. “Formally, the structure was attractive from the outside and as you got closer it really invited you into the center and once you were in there you got this very James Turrell-esque experience that changed with the diurnal swings of the day. It could have had better craft, but we forgave that because it did well on so many other levels.”

Montoya said he was happy the judges understood the meaning behind their structure.

“Sometimes when you design something it’s difficult for other people to grasp what you’re trying to convey through your art,” he said. “I feel like the judges really understood what we were trying to say.”

On the event’s final evening, members of Team Helios celebrated their victory at a SLO bar.

One remarked on the unimaginative design.

“It’s such a bad use of space,” Soler said. “You have to keep in mind form and function when you design a place like this.”

Architecture, as Neil Young might have said, never sleeps. es

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Will Calhoun Living Colour drummer rocks SWC recording arts studio

FEATURE

Y

Story by // Mason Masis

oung Will Calhoun pushed a milk crate up against the wall below his neighbor’s window in a Bronx brownstone, ambled up and stood on his tippy toes to peer inside.

Steve Jordan was in there playing his drums and Will was soaking in the rock legend’s rhythms.

Jordan, who played with Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, The Blues Brothers and the Saturday Night Live Band, was unknowingly teaching a future Grammy winner and rock pioneer.

By the time Calhoun turned 27 his band Living Colour had opened for The Rolling Stones, performed on Saturday Night Live and won two Grammys for Best Hard Rock Performance. Calhoun himself had been named the Best Drummer of 1990 by a Rolling Stone magazine reader’s poll.

Living Colour – one of the world’s first all-black power rock bands – shattered categories with music that paid homage to funk, metal and hip-hop in the 1980s and ‘90s. Calhoun has since recorded or toured with music giants such as B.B. King, Mick Jagger, Lauryn Hill and Paul Simon.

Calhoun was invited to SWC by Professor of Commercial Music James “Jay” Henry, a three-time Grammy nominated recording engineer and producer, as part of a guest lecture series for SWC recording arts students. Tucked away on the east side of campus, SWC’s state-of-the-art $6 million recording studio has a multi-year program waiting list. SWC recording arts intern Mary Ann Enginco said there is no place like it in the county.

“If Beyoncé came here tomorrow, we would be ready,” she said.

“We are the only studio in San Diego (County) that can say that.”

Calhoun said his recording arts and engineering education at Boston’s Berklee College of Music gave him an advantage. “(Led Zeppelin guitarist) Jimmy Page was a sound designer at a radio station for the BBC, people don’t know that,” Calhoun said. “Jimmy already had experience on how to make sound shift in a room before he was playing his guitar (for Zeppelin). All those records sound amazing because Jimmy was already educated about sound and how it works.”

Calhoun said his life was immersed in music.

Growing up, his neighbors included drum and keyboard legend Jordan, pianist Ray Chew and jazz great Lou Donaldson.

Becoming a professional musician was not a goal when he was a boy. His brother, a drum prodigy, left Will intimidated. That changed on Feb. 19, 1978 when Calhoun shuffled into the Bottom Line, a New York City music venue, to see a concert.

Drummer Billy Cobham headlined the event. Journey bassist Randy Jackson provided the thunder down under.

Calhoun said on this night everything changed. It was “divine intervention.”

“When I went backstage to meet (Cobham), (jazz trumpet legend) Miles (Davis) showed up,” he said. “And no one had seen Miles – this was when Miles was cleaning up, so no one had (seen) him for five or six years – and he was always one of my all-time favorite Photo by Lia Chang/Wikimedia musicians. So when you are (that young) and Miles walks past you and says ‘Hey man, how you doing?’ you can’t speak. After that night I decided to quit all my sports teams and my social life changed. I got a job and I started working and saving money to buy a drum set.”

Calhoun was accepted into New York University, where instructor and bassist Malik Abdul convinced him to go to Berklee where he studied drumming, music production and engineering and film scoring. He took the Bronx with him in his heart.

“1980 was around the time the industry started to change,” he said. “Where rappers I knew at that time – musicians – were selling beats – music – to record labels. So being in the

Photo by Manfred Werner/Wikimedia

Bronx, watching this thing start in my neighborhood become an industry, and then me studying with people like Horace Arnold and being able to go to the Vanguard and see Elvin Jones and Max Roach and Charlie Persip and all of these great drummers. I felt like that was my school.”

His choice to go to college divided the music community, Calhoun said, and oldschool jazz artists like Donaldson and Ralph McDonold told him college would only make him generic.

“Those communities do not want you to become a carved-out piece of musician,” he said. “A lot of that generation’s musicians thought universities made you another cookie in the roll of cookies.”

Henry agreed.

College should breed creativity, he said, and it frustrates him when colleges – including SWC – only teach music like it was math.

“I’ve been here for 15 years and I hear the teachers giving the students the same breathing exercises, the same warm ups,” he said. “For 15 years, performing the same songs. College should teach students to be creative, not to be generic. If you have a teacher that encourages you to challenge everything – including what they are telling you – and to ask questions, to observed, understand and extract information, then

you are developing the skills that you are here to (learn).”

While at Berklee, Calhoun only thought about getting back to New York, he said.

“I would turn on (The Tonight Show with) Johnny Carson and I would see my friends playing with Duran-Duran, playing with Sting and there I was in school, starving,” he said. “So there was this energy of ‘I need to get back to New York.’”

Berklee had its faults, Calhoun said, and his thirst for knowledge sometimes put him at odds with faculty and other students.

“Berklee was difficult,” he said. “I was not expecting it to be. Divisive, in a way, how the teachers were teaching their students. But it was a real experience and I was a little bitter about some those experiences.”

Calhoun said his closest allies were the rap artists he grew up with. Unlike the jazz generation, the New York rappers he knew supported his decision to go to Berklee.

Though he was missing out on the New York scene, Calhoun said he knew it was not his time.

“I was a little bit intimidated about missing out when the rap scene was more like KRS-One, RUN-D.M.C., Public Enemy, when it was still to me intelligent rap, really good tracks. (This was) stuff (that) was happening around me. I went to high school with some of those guys, so it was

tough to leave that scene. But they always gave me their blessing. They were like ‘Will, go to Boston man. We need you. We need all kinds of soldiers out here,’ and that was the beginning.”

Shortly after graduation he found himself with Living Colour and his career skyrocketed.

Calhoun said he did not expect to hit the big time imamediately after college. His plans were to be a jazz or session drummer, not join a huge rock band. He was still enthralled by rap.

Rap was birthed out of necessity, Calhoun said, thanks to Reagan-era cuts to music and arts education. These cuts created students who yearned to learn music, but could not afford it.

“What’s brilliant about that art form is one was created out of nothing,” he said. “(Rap and hip-hop) were created out of necessity for people to be creative, like graffiti. People do not look to that with respect. To me, it has been overlooked because the popular rap became more the negative rap, and that’s not really how rap started. But the guys I played basketball with were there because their parents did not put them in the after-school piano program or Saturday piano lessons. So they created music another way. And there’s the art form.” es

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FEATURE

SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE

SWC’s Mariachi Garibaldi shows beautiful Brazil its own wonder

Courtesy Photos

FEATURE

Noemi Zavala sings to a standing-roomonly audience in Nova Petrópolis

H

Story by // Gabriel Sandoval

igh atop Corcovado Mountain, the towering Christ the Redeemer statue gazes over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Near its base, 2,400 feet above the teaming city, a group of Southwestern College students shivered and took selfies, surprised by the chilly air atop a tropical mountain.

A ghostly white mist formed puffy, nebulous clouds that brought frothy rain from the sky. Ill-equipped students expecting the steamy weather of the World Cup huddled like puppies on a brisk morning.

Brazil was not the sizzling white-sand, blue-skied picture of paradise they had imagined – it was better.

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SWC’s Mariachi Garibaldi was cooler than a breezy mountain top and hotter than an Amazon rainforest during a triumphant appearance at the Festival Internacional de Folclore in Nova Petrópolis, a rural city located in the mountainous state of Rio Grande do Sul, 900 miles south of Rio de Janeiro. It was el mariachi’s first journey to South America after gracing stages in France, Korea, Russia, China, Mexico and throughout the U.S. Mariachi Director Dr. Jeff Nevin said people love the SWC banda – even in countries where mariachi is foreign as Klingon opera.

“Mexicans have a reputation of being just really outgoing, just really friendly,” he said. “Everybody around the world just receives us well.”

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FEATURE

San Ysidro’s Ballet Folkorico Jalisciense teamed with SWC’s Mariachi Garibaldi to dazzle local audiences at Festival Internacional de Folcore

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Local audiences gathered by the hundreds at the festival as musicians and dancers from around the world represented their cultures through the performing arts.

Maraichi Garibaldi performed twice a day for a week straight.

Violinist Jacqueline Sierra said she cherished the experience.

“We had the opportunity to show the people of Brazil what mariachi is,” she said, “(We were able) to show the beauty of it.”

Before traveling to Nova Petrópolis, los mariachis had a few days to explore Rio de Janeiro. On the itinerary were the famous Copacabana Beach, the Christ the Redeemer statue and Sugarloaf Mountain. City streets abound with a mosaic of local vendors enticing tourists with souvenirs and exotic native fruit. SoCal mariachis immersed themselves in the vibrant culture of another hemisphere that developed on the bottom half of the planet.

Buildings painted lime, cherry and hazel lined streets like walkin flower bouquets. Food stands featured authentic lavender açaí bowls. Aromatic smoke from barbecued kebabs drifted like ghostly temptations through the crowds. Melodic Portuguese sang the songs of daily life.

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Rio’s Sambodrome, the artful streets designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, served as the backdrop for the luxurious annual carnival parade, as the mariachis entered the tropical spotlight. Streets were lined with bleachers and packed with the memory of exuberant celebrations. Mariachis donned extravagant carnival costumes that flared with primary color. Smiles stretched ear to ear.

Mariachis also combed the legendary Copacabana beach and swam in the emerald Atlantic as locals played futbol and foot volley on the shore.

During the golden hour as twilight approached, they took a cable car ride to Sugarloaf Mountain as Rio de Janeiro revealed its panoramic beauty in full — a powder blue sky dissolved into ebony as streaks of grapefruit pink and sherbet orange lingered above the warm ocean and tropical city below.

In the morning their plans were to take a flight southwest to Porto Alegre and buses to Nova Petrópolis. Experienced travelers, the mariachis are used to transporting instruments. So it was a surprise to them when their airline demanded a separate plane ticket for the lumbering guitarrón.

Guitarrón player Eunice Aparicio said she has traveled abroad with her

instrument many times and has always checked it on her flights. After a brief argument, the musicians gave in and bought the guitarrón a seat. Safely secured, the guitarrón wore a seatbelt like the rest of the passengers, but consumed no peanuts.

Nova Petropólis was as different from Rio as mariachi is from hip-hop. Settled by Germans in the 19th and 20th centuries, it was more European culturally, racially and meteorologically. Daytime temperatures seldom touched 60 degrees and a few mornings were frosty. Los mariachis were woefully under-dressed in their flip-flops, shorts and tanktops. Local clothing stores did brisk business selling pants, jackets and beanies to turistas Americanos.

Cold air was warmed by hot music. Mariachi Garibaldi opened each festival set with “Do Brazil,” its medley of the traditional Brazilian samba, “The Girl From Ipanema” and other Latin American standards. Audiences burst into applause, overcome with joy, as they recognized the melody.

Aparicio recalled how she felt as this situation played itself over and over again.

“It was an overwhelming sensation of happiness,” she said. “Oh my God! We’re making these people happy!”

Nevin said traveling helped to galvanize Mariachi Garibaldi.

“I noticed when we started taking these trips that the performance level of the group got so much better,” he said.

Often, he said, young mariachis can start to play professionally without proper training.

“It’s a funny thing because they can be hired when they know 40 or 50 songs, but they’re not as good as they should be,” he said. “A really good professional mariachi knows a thousand songs.”

Mariachi Garibaldi does not yet have a repertoire of 1,000 songs, but it has a reputation burnished by thousands of fans on four continents. In Brazil, Southwestern’s global ambassadors hit all the right notes. es

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Portrait of John Baldessari by Hedi Slimane

FEATURE

Maverick John Baldessari started at SWC then conquered the art world

By Gabriel Sandoval

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I

FEATURE

n the 1960s, art instructor John Baldessari never sold a painting. Seven years ago one sold for $4.4 million.

Still creating at age 83, Baldessari is possibly the most famous and richest person to have ever taught at Southwestern College.

So much for the myth of the starving artist.

Baldessari was one of those “overnight sensations” that worked hard for years.

He made his living an as instructor at SWC and made art in his spare time. His National City studio, an abandoned movie theatre, was brimming with unsold art. Weary of abstract expressionism, he started experimenting with a new series of works.

He called them text paintings.

In 2007 one of Baldessari’s text paintings, “Quality Material,” sold for $4.4 million at Christie’s in New York.

Baldessari is considered one of the world’s most influential living artists.

He is revered as the “Godfather of Conceptual Art” and has had more than 200 solo exhibitions and 1,000 group exhibitions. He has created paintings, sculptures, installations, films, videos, books and even an iPhone app. His exhaustive 2010 retrospective exhibition “Pure Beauty” travelled the globe before touching down at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the same museum where the great works of Classical Antiquity reside. There, Baldessari exhibited works that spanned five decades.

Baldessari joined SWC’s faculty to teach art in 1966.

“John had a real talent and that’s why we hired him,” said Bob Matheny, SWC’s founding gallery director. “He was starting to do work that was really new and funny. It was no surprise to me that he eventually became world famous.”

Baldessari was born in National City in 1931. A son of European immigrants, he grew up in a workingclass neighborhood. His mother, a nurse, worked hard to pay for art

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lessons when he requested them. When Baldessari was a teenager and became interested in photography, his father, a hard working jack-of-all-trades, built him a darkroom.

Baldessari attended Sweetwater High School and SDSU, where he graduated with a Master’s in art history.

P r i o r t o j o i n i n g S W C ’s a r t department, the towering, 6-foot, 7-inch Baldessari had taught art around San Diego. He had also been exhibited around San Diego County, including SWC. Baldessari had the inaugural exhibition at the SWC gallery in November of 1961 when the college was sharing the campus of Chula Vista High School. In 1964 he exhibited work in “Snap, Crackle, Pop,” a threeperson show, and then again in 1965 for Matheny’s invitational exhibition “Polychrome Sculpture.”

Baldessari said SWC’s art department took the liberty of putting on exhibitions and activities that members thought would be fun.

“The president of the college, Chester DeVore, said ‘I don’t care what you guys do, just keep it in the walls of the art department,’” he said.

Baldessari was an advisor to the gallery program and curated one

exhibition of Los Angeles painters, titled “Some L.A. Cats.”

His signature style of art emerged in those days.

“Looking back,” he said, “since no one cared what I was doing and I had no audience, I tried things that I would not otherwise try to do as art.”

That freedom led him to create his now-famous and extremely valuable series of text paintings from 1966 to 1968. It was serious shift from work he had previously done. His new works were conceptual, the idea of the work took precedence over any hands-on craftsmanship and even the actual finished product.

Baldessari hired a professional sign painter to paint the text and his instructions were explicit: “Don’t do any beautiful calligraphy. I just want this to be information.”

In 1967 Baldessari implemented “Artist Speakout,” a new program at SWC that produced dynamic panel discussions. “Speakout” was free to the public and many notable artists spoke, including Robert Irwin and Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, as well as at least one Hell’s Angel.

That same year Baldessari began working on his National City paintings, a series of black and white photographs

“Looking back, since no one cared what I was doing and I had no audience, I tried things that I would not otherwise try to do as art.”

-JOHN BALDESSARI

‘Everything is Purged...’ 1966-68. Acrylic, on canvas. 68 x 56.5/Courtesy of John Baldessari

enlarged and put on canvas with plain text below them. For this series, Baldessari had taken snapshots from his car window while driving around National City and Chula Vista. Text below each image described where each was taken. One read, “LOOKING EAST ON 4TH AND C / CHULA VISTA, CALIF,” another “ECON-OWASH / 14TH AND HIGHLAND / NATIONAL CITY CALIF.” In one photo, taken by his wife,

Baldessari is purposely posing in front of a palm tree. It created the illusion of a tree sprouting from his head.

Inspired by books on photography for beginners, the painting doubles as the perfect example of how not to take a photograph. Appropriately, the word “WRONG” is spelled out just below the image.

Baldessari’s conceptual art was a world away from what was being done elsewhere by artists who believed

conceptualism was supposed to be serious. Baldessari, in his own irreverent way, turned that idea on its head.

Baldessari left SWC after the spring semester of 1968 to teach at UCSD. That October he had his first one-person exhibition in Los Angeles at the Molly Barnes Gallery. It was called “Pure Beauty” and featured his text paintings.

Two years later, Baldessari changed jobs again, this time moving to the

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FEATURE California Institute of Art in Valencia, north of Los Angeles. Before he left for Cal Arts, however, Baldessari decided to scorch all paintings he made from May 1953 to March 1966. In an act now known as the “Cremation Project,” he, along with friends and UCSD students, destroyed his paintings before incinerating them in a local mortuary’s crematorium. Ashes were put into a bronze urn in the shape of a book. Some ashes were baked into cookies. Two weeks later, Baldessari published an affidavit about the event in the San Diego Union, formally ending his painterly era and embracing a new direction.

Baldessari taught at Cal Arts for 16 years, and some of his former students also became famous artists, including David Salle, Mike Kelley and Barbara Bloom.

Baldessari went on to teach at UCLA from 1997 to 2007.

Some of Baldessari’s honors and awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement from the Venice Biennale and a membership to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has also been awarded three Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees, including one from his alma mater, SDSU. Dr. Hugh Davies, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, said he first learned about Baldessari’s work as an undergraduate in the 1960s and later met him in the 1970s. They became friends. Davies said part of the reason he moved to San Diego from the East Coast in 1983 was because “Baldessari had blazed that trail” and “made it seem like it was the future.”

“There is no history of art of our time, art of the last 60 years, that doesn’t include Baldessari’s work and its influence,” he said. “John is someone who was able to make conceptual art that was very simple and very philosophically profound, but also had humor.”

In a world of ultra-fast information, Baldessari’s work maintains its ability to command attention, becoming increasingly more relevant to our time because of its directness. “(Baldessari) can make these very telling, provocative juxtapositions of images that imply a narrative that are just completely disparate,” Davies said. “They provoke a thinking process, almost like surrealists juxtaposing random objects and creating a sort of absurd dialogue.”

These days Baldessari, with his trademark shoulderlength hair and white beard, endures as a vital, even hip artist. He currently has an exhibition at Marian Goodman Gallery in New York, titled “Movie Scripts/Art.” He has exhibitions in 2015 at the Marian Goodman Gallery in London, the PKM Gallery in Seoul, Korea and the Staedel Museum in Frankfurt, Germany.

Davies said Baldessari has already secured an important place in the history of 20th century and 21st century art.

“I think it goes very much as a credit to Southwestern that he was on the faculty,” Davies said. “(He) did some amazing exhibitions while he was there.” es

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The Studio. 1987. B+W Photographs, Vinyl Paint. 48 x 63”/Courtesy of John Baldessari

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FEATURE

Postcard from Paris Study abroad student falls in love with the City of Lights Story and photos by Andrew Perez

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on

ati

str

Illu

hen I stepped off the plane at the Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris, I was expecting a warm European summer welcome.

Instead, I got a cold, wet slap to the face.

Rain came down in torrents and wind shook the trees to their foundations.

This was not going to be a San Diego summer, but that was okay. This was Paris. Cold, smoky and desolate. Not at all the quaint “City of Love” depicted in the golden age of Hollywood, at least not yet.

First impressions, though, do not always hold. Paris is, indeed, for lovers, and if you are not in love when you arrive you will be when you leave.

I was one of the 14 students sent to Paris as part of Southwestern College’s Summer 2014 Study Abroad Program.

For one month we were immersed in the culture, history and people of one of the world’s most famous metropolises.

Aside from having my luggage lost and the excessive rain, Paris and its people were kind to this étranger.

Parisian alleyways, while narrow and confined, opened themselves to me, revealing hidden secrets, history and culture.

Metro stations were bite-sized hubs of mobile culture and musicianship.

Guitarists, violinists, singers and wanna-be rappers hopped on and off the trains, busking for spare euros in exchange for their chansons. An aging blonde hippie, with hair down to his waist, strummed a beautiful rendition of Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World” on his tiny blue and red ukulele. An accordionist polkaed his way through French national songs that had everyone on the train stomping and clapping.

Not everything about the Metros

by Ala a

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FEATURE

KEY TO MY HEART — Thousands of “love locks” inscribed by star-crossed lovers line the bridges along the River Seine.

was sunshine and rainbows, though. Littered throughout the mazelike tunnels of the metro were homeless gypsys.

I will never forget two of them huddled by the stairs at one of the stations, straining to keep warm. They were wrapped in a raggedy, stained blanket that did not look like it retained warmth. Their bodies shivered. Through a tiny hole in the middle of the blanket I could see the face of a little girl no older than 10. Her face was caked with tears and grime, and I could not help but give them two five-euro coins.

Aside from the doom and gloom of the metro, the rest of Paris is a paradise for the senses.

French culture flourishes in the district of Montmartre, located in the 18th arrondissement (district). Built on a steep incline, Montmartre is the bleeding heart of Paris.

This is where artists silently draw caricatures or paint beautiful vistas, writers furiously scribble their elegant or angry missives into notebooks, and philosophers leisurely

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probe the tenuous meaning of life over a cup of coffee at a local café. Such artistic savants as Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso and Van Gogh resided here, and Montmartre was the setting for Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 2001 crowd pleaser “Amélie.”

Just a couple of blocks further from Montmartre is Pigalle, home to the world famous Moulin Rouge cabaret theatre and the red light district of Paris.

Aside from godes, smut and expensive lap dances, Pigalle is a hub of swindlers and con artists, ready to snatch money from gullible tourists. Scraggly strip club owners lurk outside their establishments, their seethrough wife-beaters stained with grease, sweat and desperation. Like low-rent carnival barkers, they entice young, horny tourists with promises of exotic dancers and a five-euro student discount on alcohol.

While these hucksters don’t do anything to help the image of the French, the standard Franco stereotype alive

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ALL THE COLORS OF HEAVEN — La SainteChapelle is home to one of the largest collections of stained glass in the world.

FEATURE

in America is far from the truth. Americans too often paint Frenchmen as rude, pretentious, chain-smoking wearers of striped shirts and berets. During my stay I only encountered a handful of grumpy grossier Francos. Most of the citizens were kind, patient and willing to help me with my nascent French when I jumbled my words. None wore striped shirts fit for a mime.

Far away from the den of pleasure that is Pigalle, lies the peaceful, yet macabre Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, located in the 20th arrondissemont. This 119-acre cemetery is labyrinthine in scope and it is quite easy to get lost among the tombstones and mausoleums. The graveyard is the final resting place to some famous residents, chief among them The Doors frontman Jim Morrison, whose grave was nothing remarkable. Tucked away in one corner of the necropolis, the only outstanding thing about it was a tinyframed picture of The Lizard King atop the headstone.

Yet despite its lackluster appearance, I couldn’t help but shiver as I read the inscription: JAMES DOUGLAS MORRISON, 1943-1971. Other famous denizens include “Native Son” author Richard Wright, writers Gertrude Stein and Marcel Proust, singer Édith Piaf and Irish satirist Oscar Wilde.

I also had the immense privilege to be in Paris on July 14th, Bastille Day. Known as La Fête nationale (The National Celebration) to the French, Bastille Day celebrates the beginning of the French Revolution with the Storming of the Bastille in 1789 and the unity of the French people (the Fête de la Fédération) on July 14, 1790.

Just like their American counterparts, the French go all out and it is a day of unfathomable celebration. During the morning there was a huge military parade that started at L’Arc de Triumphe, snaked its way through the ChampsÉlysées boulevard and ended at the Place de la Concorde, a large public square, where they are greeted by the French President, his government and the foreign ambassadors to France.

During the night La tour Eiffel was a hub of celebration.

Luminous fireworks shot out of the tower like stars, extinguishing their fiery nebulae across the black sky.

Halfway through the show the familiar tinkling of a piano

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echoed through the park and John Lennon’s heartbreaking voice sang about a world without a heaven and where peace reigned free. The crowd sang right along, and as the tower shown blue and green and gold, it felt like Lennon’s message wasn’t wasted on deaf ears.

Aside from Bastille Day, my favorite memory of Paris has to be the time I spent by River Seine. I adored the little vendors, lovingly named “Les Bouquinistas” that were scattered along the banks of the River. These quaint merchants sell posters, old antiquarian books and more.

Prices are reasonable. As a lover of books, I found myself spending all my money at these moveable feasts.

While the rest of Paris is hustle and bustle, time has no meaning along the banks of the Seine.

Woody Allen got this right in his films. Snaking its way through the middle of Paris, the river has a peaceful quality that enraptures tourists and natives. Emerald green waters lapped up on the embankment where I sat, cooling my dangling legs with a fine frothy spray.

Looking into the depths of the river, my imagination was set free, just as so many others had been set free before. Its waters whispered its stories to me and I sat with my notebook in hand, furiously trying to make sense of the ideas that emerged in my tingling head.

Paris is a hotspot of creativity and it is contagious. In May 2014 while stateside my creative juices were dry.

Writer’s block had set in and I was bashing my head against a blank paper wall in hopes of getting anything to come out.

As soon as I set foot on Parisian soil in June, ideas were liberated like doves on a cool morning. Like churning flood waters, they overpowered the brick dam in my mind and carried me along.

Paris is a life-changing experience. After my short month-long stay, I fell in love with the City of Lights.

There exists a certain je ne sais quoi about Paris that can be found nowhere else in the world. It has the ability to mesmerize and humble in a single breath and while it may sound cheesy, I feel like I truly did leave my heart in Paris.

I know one thing – I shall return for it. Save me a spot by the river. es

TIT FOR TAT — A sculpture by an unknown artist peers out at passerby in an alleyway in Montmartre.

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PHOTO ESSAY

Remembering

Mexico’s Missing

43

By Gabriel Sandoval

Suddenly they were gone.

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exico’s 43 missing students – kidnapped in Iguala on the way to protest a speech – are presumed dead, murdered by the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel.

Since September 2014, the month they vanished, furious protesters on both sides of the border have organized rallies, vigils and marches. They have expressed vehement support for the students and contempt for the cartels that run amok amid widespread corruption by Mexican police and politicians who allow them to perpetrate acts of violence without due process.

Local artists have joined the effort. A recent art exhibition at Original Gentleman, a new Barrio Logan barbershop and gallery, gave artists an opportunity to show solidarity with the missing students. Titled “43,” the exhibition was comprised of 43 artists, each assigned a student to honor with a piece.

Exactly 43 Mexican candles burned outside on a shrine near the gallery’s entrance. Inside, walls were lined with colorful canvases, hung from a chain link fence.

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43 candles sit atop a makeshift altar in front of Original Gentlemen Barber Shop and Gallery in Barrio Logan. Each candle represents a missing student from a teachers’ college in Guerrero, Mexico.

PHOTO ESSAY

S

(top) Artwork by 43 artists on display in Barrio Logan honoring the missing 43 students. (l) Karina Zuñiga adjusts her “Nuevos Niños de la Patria” during the 43 Artists for 43 Students exhibition. (above)“Ya Basta”

by Mex honors Emliano de la Cruz and reads, “Mexico enough is enough.” (r) Dulce Martinez stands with her painting “Ojos de la Verdad.” Martinez runs a neighboring gallery which offered face painting during the event.

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ome were painted blood red, depicting sadistic acts of horror. Others, however, had hopeful messages. One read “todos somos uno” (we are all one). Another demanded and asked a question: “Mexico ya basta / Cuantos mas se mueren a la mano de los narco politicos?” (Mexico, enough / How many more will die at the hands of the political narcos?)

Elena Marques, an artist and one of the exhibition’s organizers, said the situation in Mexico resonates in the United States because of the deaths of Eric Garner and Mike Brown, two unarmed black men killed by police.

“It’s an abuse of power, an overmilitarized police and a human rights violation,” Marques said.

A few of the artists in the exhibition, Marques said, have family members who were affected

by Mexico’s violence.

Artist German Corrales, 27, said his uncle was murdered.

“It’s a disgrace,” he said. “People are not getting the idea. It takes 43 students to die because they’re fighting for education and better rights? It’s ridiculous!”

In order for the situation to change, he said, people need to get involved, educate their children and show them that they can be part of the solution.

“If (we) don’t show our children the way to a better tomorrow, then we’re not going to succeed,” he said.

Corrales said to do his part he volunteers at three Tijuana orphanages, where a few bucks go a long way and are much appreciated.

Artist Dulce Martinez, 22, created a piece for the 19-year-old missing student Benjamin Ascencio Bautista.

“He really loved children,” she said.

Tears ran down her cheeks.

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PHOTO ESSAY

smearing her makeup, as she wiped her eyes. She listed the similarities between her and the 43 students.

“They weren’t into violence. They weren’t into cartels,” she said. “Why did they get that?”

It was a question she and her colleagues could not answer.

Southwestern College student Sarah Vianna, 22, an art major, contributed to the exhibition. She said violence begets violence, so all people can really do is remain strong.

“Stand up against it,” she said. “(The cartels) are not going to be able to do what they’re doing if everybody’s against them.”

Rick Trujillo, a community liaison of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, said he was a huge supporter of the exhibition. He said that, although it is great to appreciate history, Chicano Park’s blank walls belong to a new message, from a younger generation.

“Enough with Frida (Kahlo)! Enough with Diego (Rivera)!” he said “Where’s the sign ‘Ayotzinapa’ in

Chicano Park?”

There was no sign visible that night.

In December, human remains were uncovered in a remote dump in Guerrero, the state where the students went missing. Forensic experts have identified one of the 43 missing students, Alexander Mora Venancio, 19, among the remains.

In a press conference on Jan.27, Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam officially confirmed that all 43 students are dead, citing confessions and forensic evidence as proof.

Many protesters firmly believe otherwise.

Melancholy and tragedy continues to disturb the region.

People on both sides of the border have their reasons to be upset.

Marques said she hoped to bring more attention to this heartbreaking issue.

“I think it’s important,” she said, “no matter what side of the border you’re on.” es

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SPORTS

On the Road Again Story and photos by Colin Grylls

Spring break is the per fect opportunity for a road trip.

Unfortunately for Southwestern baseball players, their spring break getaway took them to Imperial Valley instead of Imperial Beach.

SWC won easily, 11-0, and were in good spirits knowing that, for once, they did not have to worry about waking up for class the next day.

9:30 a.m. Scheduled departure time.

Players are still loading the bus.

9:40 a.m. Sophomore right fielder Roberto Lucero is on MTS Route 709, barely passing Fifth Avenue.

9:45 a.m. Head coach Jay Martel instructs the bus driver to head towards I-805. Lucero would be picked up on the way.

9:49 a.m. With a hint of annoyance in his voice, Martel yells to the back of the bus.

“Where is he?”

9:50 a.m. Sophomore centerfielder Daniel Goodrich responds. “He’s there. He sent me a picture to prove it.”

9:56 a.m. Lucero hops on the bus across the street from the Terra Nova Plaza Shopping Center.

From the back of the bus, light-

hearted booing erupts while Martel does his best to focus on the U-T San Diego Sports section.

10:17 a.m. East County’s Jaguars – assistant coach Mike Butterfield, closer Kevin Ginkel, outfielder Ray Pe t e r s o n a n d second baseman Codie Simmons – board the bus after a quick stop at a gas station near the Greenfield Dr. exit on the I-8.

10:18 a.m. In the parking lot, a woman driving a white Volkswagen honks and yells at the bus. “Move!”

10:19 a.m. Upon realizing that there’s a full 20 feet between the Volkswagen and the bus, assistant coach Mike Shinske scoffs, “I cannot believe she wouldn’t get out.”

10:29 a.m. Once again heading east on I-8, Butterfield and Shinske borrow Martel’s newspaper to check on potential 2016 Jaguars in the high school box scores.

10:52 a.m. Like most college students before noon on Spring Break, the players are sound asleep.

11:28 a.m. Shinske is tasked with ordering chicken from El Centro’s finest restaurant – KFC. He calls to find out how much it will cost to order 25 pieces and discovers that buckets come with either 12 or 16.

11:30 a.m. Shinske realizes he forgot to ask about the price and calls back. After roughly a minute on the phone, he hangs

up without ordering.

11:32 a.m. Shinske dials one more time. “Sorry, it’s me again.”

11:52 a.m. Jaguars empty 7-Eleven’s shelves as Shinske walks across the street to pick up the buckets of extra-crispy chicken.

11:53 a.m.

Diminutive sophomore outfielder Daniel “Mighty Mouse” Macias, listed at a generous five-feet-seven-inches tall, picks up a Lunchable. Butterfield takes one look and says, “That box is bigger than you, Mouse.”

12:05 p.m. Back on the road.

12:25 p.m. A rare windless day greets the Jags as they finally arrive at Imperial Valley College.

12:39 p.m. Batting practice kicks off the pre-game warm-up. Butterfield pitches while Martel and Shinske hit fungoes to the infielders. Reminiscent of Dog Beach, the pitchers are told to shag fly balls in the outfield, but end up running around with little guidance.

2:04 p.m. The first pitch is thrown. SWC did not score until the third inning, when sophomore first baseman Roman Garcia hit a double to left center to knock in Goodrich and Peterson. Six more Jaguars crossed the plate in the inning to give the Jags a 8-0 lead.

3:25 p.m. In the top of the fifth inning, Macias sprints home when IVC catcher Javier Vasquez tries to catch Simmons stealing second. Macias dives head first, his shoulder crashing into Vasquez’s glove. Both

GUMMING UP THE WORKS — Freshman pitcher Walter Hernandez is oblivious to the bubble gum a teammate placed on his head during an 11-0 rout at Imperial Valley College. (above) Sophomore pitcher Keith Kozak convinces Hernandez that every player is getting a portrait when he asks why his picture is being taken.

MIGHTY MOUSE — Jaguar sophomore Daniel “Mighty Mouse” Macias dives through Imperial Valley catcher Javier Vasquez to give SWC a 10-0 lead. (below) Sophomore outfielder Daniel Goodrich (11) kicks off an eight-run SWC rally in the top of the third inning, scoring when IVC pitcher Alex Dollente rifled the ball past his third baseman.

players’ helmets went flying, but so did the ball. Macias gets credited with a stolen base and SWC takes a 10-0 lead.

3:45 p.m. In the top of the sixth inning, an anonymous Jaguar blows a large bubble and gently sets it on top of freshman pitcher Walter Hernandez’s hat.

3:52 p.m. Hernandez has not noticed yet, though he says he is getting suspicious. “I feel some sarcastic thing going on around me.”

4:00 p.m. Hernandez finally discovers the bubble gum after 15 minutes. He cannot help but laugh.

4:25 p.m. With an 11-0 lead in the top of the ninth, Martel allows sophomore pitcher Keith Kozak to pinch hit. He connects and flies out to right field, tripping on his way to first base. Even the umpires crack smiles as the Jags roared in the dugout. Kozak said he had not had an at-bat since his junior year of high school.

4:39 p.m. Sophomore pitcher Calvin Faucher, who also received an at-bat in the ninth, catches a fly ball in center field to record the final out. SWC players start the mad scramble back to the bus.

5:10 p.m. Players are rewarded with a stop at Golden Corral. The line cooks can barely

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SPORTS the bus. “LIAR!” 7:41 p.m.: Players are still singing as the bus takes the Greenfield Dr. exit to drop off the East County residents, as well as sophomore reliever Frankie Nunez. Almost immediately, the volume on the bus is cut in half.

8:10 p.m.: After a long day on the road, the bus finally reaches SWC. The Jags empty out the bus as quickly as possible, eager to head home.

Southwestern, however, was not home for the playoffs despite finishing the season second in the PCAC with an 18-6 (28-8 overall) record.

As the ninth-seed, it loaded up another bus to take on the eight-seed – Western State South Conference champion Glendale Community College (19-17, 15-6 conf.) in the first round of the playoffs. SWC dropped the series, two games to one, but Goodrich said he would always remember the Jags’ road trips.

“It doesn’t get any better,” he said. “These guys are great. Any one of these guys on the team I’d do anything for. We’re a family. Yeah, it sucks how it ended, but I wouldn’t want to end it with anybody else. I’m gonna miss these guys.” es

MAKE THEM PAY — Goodrich celebrates his second unearned run of the third inning after IVC centerfielder Alan Lizarraga’s error transformed Goodrich’s single into a Little League inside-the-park home run.

IN STRIDE — After 15 minutes, Walter Hernandez laughs when he notices the bubble on his cap.

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keep pace. Back to campus, the bus is loaded.

5:59 p.m.: In the back of the bus, the restroom is put to use.

6:19 p.m.: Wind noise fills the bus as the safety hatch on the ceiling pops open. Shinske gets up and pulls it shut.

6:22 p.m.: Woosh. The hatch pops back open.

This time, both Butterfield and Shinske close it.

6:28 p.m.: Shinske and Butterfield give up when the hatch opens again.

6:31 p.m.: Macias manages to close the hatch and uses his shoelaces to tie the handle to a seat.

6:33 p.m.: Macias’s laces rip and the hatch opens. “It’s okay, I work at Vans,” he says. “I get free laces.” No one else attempts to close the hatch.

7:05 p.m.: As with seemingly all baseball road trips, players start singing Taylor Swift songs.

7:24 p.m.: Butterfield hits his breaking point when they start singing Justin Beiber songs.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa…”

7:32 p.m.: A rousing chorus of “The Star Spangled Banner,” complete with firework sound effects.

7:34 p.m.: After a round of Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl,” Butterfield yells to the back of

A LITTLE RUSTY — Sophomore pitcher Keith Kozak picks up his helmet after tripping on his way to first base. Kozak flew out to right in what he said was his first at-bat since his junior year of high school.

MOUSE HOLE — Macias looks through the malfunctioning safety hatch on the bus after attempting to tie it shut with his shoelaces.

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JOE

NOT YOUR

AVERAGE

Two-time soccer Paralympian star smooth as ice in sled hockey

J

Nicholas Bal tz/Staff

Story by Nicholas Baltz & Rudee Amaral III

oe Chavez was born with cerebral palsy, autism and fetal alcohol syndrome.

Oh well.

Tougher than nails, driven like hail and f o c u s e d a s a l a s e r, Chavez is not one for excuses or “woe is me” stories. Instead, he is an Olympian, a revered student leader and an irrepressible role model.

“I feel like I’m just getting started,” said the feisty 24-year old Chula Vistan. “I just want people to know that they should feel comfortable in their own skin. Maybe my example can help motivate them in knowing they can do so much more with their ability, despite their disability. They should take out the dis and look at their ability.”

Chavez played a myriad of sports at the Chula Vista Boys and Girls Club. He had his patella realigned when he was 10, making his soccer prowess that much more astonishing.

At 15 he attended a wheelchair sports

camp and was given a flyer to attend a soccer clinic at the Olympic Training Center.

Chavez accepted the invitation. On the morning of the clinic, he competed in a half-marathon at the Silver Strand in a hand cycle. Exhausted, the opportunity almost slipped his grasp.

“I remember starting at 7 a.m. and crossing the finish line in the afternoon,” he said. “If I had just gone home, this never would have happened. Honestly, just that split-second decision changed my life. I’m very blessed that I chose that path.”

Chavez caught the attention of the coach and was off to Carson, home of the L.A. Galaxy, for a tryout with U.S. National Paralympic Soccer Team.

“I’ll always remember that first tryout,” he said. “It kind of felt like being on a reality show, you never know if you’re going to get cut. That was always in the back of mind, but I knew I wanted to do more and I made it. I got to join that brethren.”

In 2006 Chavez traveled with the team to Rio de Janero, Brazil for the ParaPan American Games in an attempt to qualify

for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“The only ones wearing that red, white and blue were teammates and coaches,” he said.

“Honestly it was scary. I was very homesick, but you are there for a reason, to play soccer and represent your country.”

The team’s will to win was not enough to punch its ticket for Beijing, but Chavez’ appetite grew.

“The Olympics is every four years, but each and every one of us on the team knows it’s not,” he said. “My season never ends. I train every day to get better, to get that gold medal.”

Next were the 2010 Para Pan-American games, this time in Argentina. Chavez said he played with a torn meniscus, but kept it to himself.

“If you saw me, you would think there was nothing wrong,” he said. “I never let the pain show. What matters is playing for your country and I didn’t want to give that up.”

He missed the 2012 London games.

Rehab, he said, was grueling.

“It was a long process, but I’ve done this so many times as a little kid that it’s just gotten

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the ABLE Club website logo and was recognized for his video work with Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE).

They have shared numerous escapades, but Cardenas recalled one in particular.

“I think the coolest one was when he raised $10,000 for the disabled van,” he said. “That was a great thing he did. I feel like Joe was the voice of that club. The school really needed someone like that.

It might be used by a small percentage of students, but it’s a small percentage that matters.”

Cardenas said he is thankful he met Chavez and that he is the embodiment of prosdiorismós, seizing life’s infinite possibilities.

“If you take more opportunities in life, more will happen, the more outcomes that will transpire,” he said. “Joe is an example of that,” Their kinship grew over the years, but one conflict made them brothers. At 21, Chavez discovered he was adopted at birth.

“I’m proud to be adopted,” he said. “It gives me more strength and motivation.

Reflecting back, I understand why (my adopted parents) didn’t tell me until later.

I didn’t know because I was so camouflaged with love and that’s one of the biggest things I couldn’t have expected. They treated me as if I was their own and that’s the thing that really matters to me. They were always there for me through surgeries and complications.

I’d give my whole life to them and now I dedicate my life to them.”

Cardenas shares a similar past.

“When you’re adopted you feel like you don’t have an identity, you don’t feel like people want you,” he said. “I was left at a fire station by my mother. My parents were heroin addicts. That is why I have autoprocessing disabilities, because they fucked up my egg growing up.”

Their friendship was also strengthened through their love of soccer and they began to train together, said Cardenas.

“He works harder than he should,” he said. “He goes that extra mile to the point where it’s exhausting to watch. That’s why he wears the uniform. He represents his red, white and blue. I respect that.”

Cardenas said they coached girls soccer together.

“The most important thing for us during that was having fun,” said Cardenas. “I would always be the mean one and Joe was the nice one. Joe would say ‘Come on man, loosen up, it’s a nice day. Who wants to go for ice cream?’ It made Joe and I better people because they taught us to be more responsible. It learned to be better with my motor mouth and be more reserved. After that season, I was more patient.”

“And I became more aggressive,” Chavez chimed in.

After months of rehab on his knee, Chavez was finally ready to return to the practice field and his soccer family was there to support him, said Cardenas.

“All the girls came out for a scrimmage game with signs to support against Canada,” he said. “That’s when old Joe came back. He needed that.”

After everything they have been through together, Cardenas said they are best friends.

“We watched the whole World Cup together,” he said. “We play pool, go gamble together. Joe would give me his buffet wristband and while I was waiting for him I’d set up my laptop and eat all the lobster and cheesecake with my stretch pants on.”

Chavez is training daily for his next run at gold at the Chula Vista Futbol Club.

Trainer Raul Reyes said Chavez’s attitude is rubbing off on the team.

“We are hoping that these players grab a little bit of what Joe has,” he said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to encourage. Joe, the way he is, he can do everything in the world, so you can too. Nothing’s impossible.”

Chavez has also hit the ice and picked up the pads to begin training for the

Se

easier,” he said. “I knew that I would come back faster and stronger.”

On campus Chavez is a gold medalist.

A kinesiology major, he studies the art of physical rehabilitation. He became the youngest President of Abilities Beyond Limitation through Education Club (ABLE), where he created the Walk-n-Roll Marathon.

“It allowed people to get in a wheelchair, roll around the perimeter and get a sense of what it’s like for those who have a disability,” he said. “It helped to keep things growing, expand that awareness throughout the community.”

More impressively, perhaps, Chavez helped to lead an effort to raise funds to purchase a van capable of transporting students in wheelchairs. Chavez was presented SWC’s first-ever Student Access Award last year.

Dr. Malia Flood, director of Disability Support Services, who was the ABLE Club advisor during Chavez’s presidency, said he was truly amazing.

“The club got bigger when he was president,” she said. “He would not just have an idea, he created the energy to get things done with tireless enthusiasm and commitment. He has been a great champion for access.”

Karina Mendoza, a former ABLE Club president, said she was inspired by Chavez’s actions.

“Just seeing what he did made me think I could do something for the school,” she said. “I witnessed a kid in the student center having trouble getting in and out of the restroom. That’s what led to me working real hard to get the wheelchair accessible doors and I was able to get three.”

Current ABLE Club Advisor Robert Valerio said he remembers a soft-spoken, hesitant Chavez.

“He was a very quiet guy when he started,” he said. “Little by little he started learning the process of how clubs work and how to present in front of the club, doing big presentations in front of the campus during college hour, which is amazing because I was able to see that firsthand.”

Through the ABLE Club Chavez met Dominic Cardenas, who would become his best friend.

Cardenas, a recent SWC graduate with a degree in film editing, modernized

“I want people to feel comfortable in their own skin...

They should take out the ‘dis’ and look at their ability.”

Joe Chavez

FEATURE

RED, WHITE, BLUE AND GOLDEN — Joe Chavez is a tremendous athlete but an even better leader, his classmates insist.

He is an international soccer player who remembers his South Bay roots.

Serina Duarte/Staff

U.S. Paralympic Sled Hockey team. He is a member of the San Diego Ducks Sled Hockey Team and will be training with U.S. gold medalist goalie Steve Cash, in Indiana.

“I want people to feel comfortable in their own skin,” he said. “Not to care what others think of them or the people who tell them they can’t. When I was little the doctor told me I wouldn’t be able to walk. I’m proving them wrong and it’s powerful. The possibilities are endless. I had a dream and I didn’t know how far this dream would take me. Never stop believing, never give up and you can do anything, just put the work in.”

Chavez has now transitioned to the ice as

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a member of the San Diego Ducks.

An affiliate of the NHL’s Anaheim Ducks, their sled hockey counterparts the San Diego Ducks have become a new home for Chavez, who migrated east to Buffalo, New York for the 2015 USA Disabled Sled Hockey Festival.

The world’s largest hockey gathering of athletes with a disability played host to 65 teams.

Ducks’ coach Pete Bellin, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, said he has been coaching hockey in San Diego for more than 20 years.

“We only started with a couple players, but it has really grown,” he said. “A lot of

people don’t even know that this is available.

In San Diego, any ice is good ice.”

Former Southwestern College ABLE Club presidents Joe Chavez and Karina Mendoza were among the first to join the team.

Chavez, who is the goalie for the Ducks, also goaltends for the U.S. Paralympic Soccer Team.

Chavez said he realized Father Time is chasing him and sled hockey gives him a new opportunity to extend his athletic career.

“I have pretty much 80-year-old knees, chronic arthritis,” he said. “I never worried about the pain because that’s how dedicated I am to representing my country. Now I’ve found something I see myself playing for a really long time because it consists of my upper body, not my lower.”

Chavez flew to Fort Wayne, Indiana to learn from Steve Cash, a two-time Olympic goal medalist as a goalie for the U.S. Sled Hockey Team. Chavez said the experience was amazing.

“I really went into the camp as a blank canvas so I was able to soak in everything he was teaching me,” he said. “There are many differences from playing goalie in soccer.”

Chavez said later this year he will attend the Sled Hockey Jamboree in New Jersey to showcase his skills in front of the coach of United States Paralympic Sled Hockey Team.

Sled hockey, he said, is his new favorite sport.

“This sport keeps me going, keeps me active and my mind set on bigger things,” he said. “Goalie is really intense. I’m probably the only one who is a dancing starfish on the ice. It’s really physical.”

Sarah Bettencourt, a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, founded the Ducks.

In 2008 she developed a rare neurological disorder that forced her retirement from military in 2012.

Bettencourt said she reached out to the sports community to fund raise $20,000 for the team. The Ducks have adult and youth programs for both travel competition and recreational. Teams are also allowed three able-bodied players in a game.

Chavez knows a few things about raising funds himself, but more about raising awareness. He is living proof that athletes are made, not born. To donate contact http:// www.adaptivesportsandrec.org/sledhockey/ sarahscampaign. es

Jiu-Jitsu Kid Story by Evan Cintron Photos by Derrius Boyd

R

olando Samson keeps picking fights.

He has picked fights all over the United States and even in Abu Dhabi.

And he won.

Samson, 19, a Southwestern College physical therapy major, is a jiu-jitsu world champion with more gold medals than Michael Phelps.

He has won gold in the 2013 International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation American Nationals Championship purple belt division and the 2013 IBJJF Worlds Jiu-Jitsu Championship in the blue belt division. This year he won his third consecutive lightweight American National Championship.

Born and raised in San Diego, Samson began his athletic journey playing basketball and football. His father introduced him to jiu-jitsu when he was nine.

“I was getting beat up a lot at first by girls and little kids,” Samson said. “Then my competitive nature grew. After losing so much I wanted to start winning.”

At 16 Samson earned his blue belt, signifying his transition to adulthood in the jiu jitsu world.

In 2013 Samson competed in the IBJJF World Championships in Long Beach. Fighters from around the world came to compete, including 120 in his bracket. One day he fought seven times. Match after match, Samson dominated his opponents en route to winning the lightweight blue belt championship. His professor Andre Galvao presented him with the purple belt while he was on the podium.

“I felt very proud of Rolando in that moment, ” Galvao said. “I believe he can achieve even more with his purple belt.”

Samson was on top of the jiu-jistu world, but the excitement came crashing down just a month later when his four-month-old cousin, Nevaeh died.

“For me, family is everything,” he said. “It was so devastating. Our family broke down. We didn’t even have any money for a proper burial.”

His extended jiu-jitsu family helped him raise $1,100. He

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FEATURE

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TRAIL

BLAZER

Rolando Samson

Don’t blink, you’ll miss her.

Story by Evan Cintron

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t is tempting to call Aminat Olowora the Forrest Gump of Nigeria, only with a better GPA. Southwestern College’s record-shattering cross country and track star is a national champion distance runner and table tennis wizard, a football star (the soccer kind) and an international traveler. She also, sadly, lost her mother way too soon and had to strike out on her own.

There are no shrimp boats in her future, but the Olympics are a real possibility, according to a pair of SWC coaches who were Olympians themselves.

Olowora crashed onto the national sports radar in the fall when she destroyed the California Community College cross-country record and broke the never surpassed 17-minute barrier on the championship grounds in Fresno. She won the state title, of course, but was equally proud to earn a spot on the honor roll. In track and field, Olowora won three state titles in the 1500m 5k and 10k events while earning the California Athlete of the Year and setting the national pace for junior college students in all three events.

Olowora was almost victimized by her own

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“Then all of a sudden I just felt (Nevaeh) and I couldn’t help but burst into tears...I knew I was going to win because I felt her.”

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what, that’s just who I am,” he said. “I love the adrenaline and the feeling of winning and losing. Just going out there and fighting, that’s what I enjoy.” es

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tapped him out. I never got bit before.”

Samson’s girlfriend Kathleen Kimoden said she video chatted with Samson after he won.

“It was unreal,” she said. “Winning that has to be the biggest accomplishment in jiu-jitsu. After that, everyone knew him.”

Samson concurred.

“Kids come up to me, parents come up to me and tell me that they’re proud of me for going to school and training at the same time,” he said. “It’s an amazing feeling to see kids smile.”

After finishing classes at SWC, Samson makes a 30-minute commute to ATOS Jiu-Jitsu in Kearny Mesa three or four times a week. He begins training at 11 a.m. and his training includes 10 sparring rounds of 10 minutes each. Training ends at 8 p.m., then it’s time to study. Samson’s dream is to compete in at least one MMA fight then change careers.

“My main goal is becoming an athletic trainer,” he said. “I like to be very hands on and work directly with athletes and people who really need it. My ultimate goal would be to get my doctorate in physical therapy so I can open up my own facility.

I wouldn’t mind doing jiu-jitsu on the side and training with friends. I just want to focus on getting my degree first and then jiu-jitsu.”

Samson said he has a few tournaments lined up this fall.

“I’m always going to compete no matter

Nigerian Aminat Olowora destroyed the California cross county record, won three golds at the state track, is a national table tennis champion and an A student.

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remained crest-fallen.

“I was really depressed for a while,” he said. “I didn’t even want to think about competing.”

In September 2013, Samson made his return by competing in the American Nationals. He wrote “Baby Nevaeh” on the back of his gi.

“My first match back, before getting on the mat, I kissed my family and girlfriend,” he said. “Then all of a sudden I just felt (Nevaeh) and I couldn’t help but burst into tears. Right before the match I was crying and all during the fight I was crying. When they called my name I felt chills all over my body. I knew I was going to win because I felt her.”

Samson’s first opponent was a towering 6-foot-2-inch, third year purple belt.

Samson, only five-foot-7-inches and blinded by tears, fought his heart out. He said he put everything into the fight and went on to win match after match.

“It just felt amazing,” he said. “Afterwards I just cried and cried. That was my comeback return.”

A month later Samson competed in the Abu Dhabi trials in Long Beach to qualify for the world championships, all the while sporting the name of his cousin on the back of his gi. He won all four fights in his weight class. He fought three more times in all weight classes round. His last fight, he said, was against one of the strongest competitors he ever faced. In the last seconds Samson passed his opponents guard, giving him a one-point advantage and the victory.

Samson traveled 8,441 miles to compete in Abu Dhabi against great fighters from Brazil, Romania, Australia, Russia and other nations. After a win in the semi-finals, Samson faced a ruthless competitor from Russia for the world title.

“I already knew what kind of fighter he was, he likes to fight dirty,” he said. “I knew he was going to shake my hand and then shoot for the take down for two points.”

Anticipating the attack, Samson put his opponent in a triangle choke 25 seconds into the round, forcing him to tap out. The Russian, however, left his mark.

“I didn’t think anything of it at first because I had just won,” he said. “Afterwards I was like, wow it really hurts right here (thigh). This Russian guy bit me after I

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FEATURE transcendent talent. She was so fast and won races so easily that some college coaches figured she must some how be illegal.

Before donning the maroon and gold of Southwestern College, Olowora won three track and field gold medals in Nigeria and represented her home country in an international table tennis tournament.

Olowora said growing up in povertystricken, politically-roiled Nigeria was tough.

“I lived in a very low-income area,” she said. “It’s very rough living there. You need to know how to survive. Most people there are living hard lives and many of them did not go to school.”

Olowora knew she wanted a better life for herself so she turned to sports. Growing up around a lot of boys, she played soccer, rode bicycles and played table tennis.

“On every street you see someone playing ping-pong,” she said. “You just pay money and you can play. That’s how I began playing.”

She eventually went on to represent Nigeria at the Junior International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) World Championships.

Olowora’s table tennis career did not last long because a track and field coach recruited her after watching her play soccer.

“He saw me interacting with the guys and he was like wow, who is that girl?” she said.

Hesitant to join, Olowora finally decided to attend a track practice one day. After her first competition, she knew running was for her.

“I remember that I didn’t know anybody there so I was just running on my own and before I knew it I was in second position. I heard my coach yelling to keep going, but five meters before the finish line, I just fell down on the floor,” she said laughing. “I ended up placing fourth and ever since then I kept working hard.”

Olowora’s work ethic earned her three gold medals in the 2012 Nigeria National Sports Festival in Lagos State. She ran off with first place in the 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000-meter races.

As a gold medalist she parlayed her name and expertise to create a competition in her city for the local youth. More than 200 people were there, including major companies and the Sports Commissioner of Nigeria. Olowora’s family members were there, too, present medals to those who had

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won. Children also received backpacks with school supplies as gifts.

“There were games like soccer and pingpong, all those kids were happy,” she said.

“The more I saw them happy, the more it made me happy. I was so happy that day.”

Olowora plans to host another event in the future and name it after her mother, Adijat,

“Mom sacrificed a lot for me and I wouldn’t be where I am without her.

Every time I’m scared, I just think of her. I really miss her a lot.”

Aminat Olowora who passed away in 2013.

“I lost my mother two days before my birthday,” she said trying to keep her composure. “I don’t know what happened to her, they just called me in March and told me she was dead. They told me she woke up in the middle of the night coughing. They rushed her to the hospital, but before they got there she was already gone. I didn’t get to see her before she died and I still don’t know what was wrong with her. I was so sad about that. She was 43 years old. I didn’t believe she would die so soon.”

Olowora’s family did not have much, but saved everything it had to give her a better opportunity in the United States. Olowora credits her mother with encouraging her through hard times.

“She sacrificed a lot for me and I wouldn’t be where I am without her,” she said. “Every time I’m scared, I just think of her words. I really miss her a lot.”

Olowora’s first competition for SWC was

at the Rio Hondo Open, where she set a course record in 16 minutes 33 seconds.

After that she was on every college’s radar.

Some schools became bitter about her talent and tried to find ways to prevent her from competing. Olowora’s said her season looked doomed.

“I was depressed then,” she said. “I was down. Sometimes I didn’t want to go to practice. I just felt like giving up. I’ve been going through this since I started athletics.

When the issue started in California I was trying to work towards (resolving) it and get the papers I needed to.”

It was difficult considering the nine-hour difference between San Diego and Nigeria.

Olowora had to wait until midnight to get in contact with the proper people.

Track coach Tonie Campbell had a notion that other schools were afraid of Olowara’s success.

“The problem I have with the whole thing about Aminat was that they were complaining that she was too good to be running with everybody else, but that is a ridiculous, ludicrous argument,” he said.

“The best athlete is always better than everybody else, so what are they complaining about? She was the same age as everybody else, she’s got two arms and two legs like everybody else, she’s running the same race, she’s not on a motorcycle and she’s doing the exact same thing. They complain that she’s beating people by so much. Well, you know what? Train your athletes better! She’s raising the level of everybody else.”

Cross-country coach Dr. Duro Agbede said Olowora has the ability to reach great heights.

“The key to athletics is the heart,” he said.

“She has heart and works very, very hard. She is a highly dedicated athlete. She set her goals on the Olympics and she has that potential.

She knows what she has to do to get there. I’m very positive that she will be able to succeed.”

Olowora said her faith keeps her strong.

“Somebody told me in the U.S. that anytime someone interviewed me I don’t need to talk about God because nobody believed that here,” she said. “That may be true, but nobody can take that from me. For me to be here today is because of God. I don’t believe much in myself as much as I believe in God.” es

Racing off to one of three gold medals in long distance events at the state track championships — all in the same day.

Nicholas Baltz/Staff

Colin Grylls/Staff

Destroying the California cross-county record in the fall by clocking a 16:59.

Nicholas Baltz/Staff

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FEATURE

Courage, Lucky Dog

lead to

America Story by Gabriel Sandoval

Illustration by Andrea Aliseda

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ne cold, crummy afternoon in 1980, 18-year-old Sushila Chandegra was in London arguing with her father over a pragmatic proposition — her arranged marriage. Her mother and two younger sisters stood by.Â

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FEATURE “I don’t want to marry him!” Chandegra said.

“You can leave home!” her father fired back.

“Okay, I will!” she replied.

Moments later Chandegra was in her upstairs bedroom, packing. She said she grabbed a few things, clothes and towels, and stuffed them in a large suitcase, then scurried downstairs.

“Please don’t do it!” her mother cried, pleading desperately, holding her back.

Chandegra said her sisters latched on too, but it was not enough.

Suitcase in hand, Chandegra broke free.

She left.

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” she said.

“I was just numb.”

With nowhere to go, Chandegra wandered aimlessly, lugging her suitcase.

“It had hardly anything in it,” she said.

Adding, “If I had time to cool down — maybe it would have been different.”

Terrified, she stopped at a bus stand and waited for a miracle.

Today 35 years later, Chandegra, a Southwestern College alumna who was twice named to the Vice President’s Honor Roll List, the top three percent of students in GPA, said everything worked out for the better, though it did take a few years for the numbness to subside.

She said her family disowned her the day she left and they did not see each other again for more than a quarter century.

Chandegra said she has dealt with the fallout and has since moved on. Her focus now, she said, is becoming a licensed practical nurse (LPN).

Chandegra is currently taking a six-week course at Eastlake Medical College, earning a credential to become a certified nursing assistant (CNA), which is a stepping-stone toward her main goal.

Born in Rawal, India, in 1961, Chandegra was the second of four children. She migrated to Kenya with her family when she was an infant. She said her parents ran a strict Hindu household and spoke Gujarati, their native language.

Chandegra said as a child she was an outspoken, tree-climbing tomboy who occasionally stole mangos from her neighbors’ trees. Her childhood was carefree, she said, and she remembered learning English in elementary school, starting with the alphabet.

“When we had (lunch) breaks,” she said, “my mother would bring a glass of milk and a cookie.”

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When she was 10 the Chandegras moved back to India, to a city called Rajkot. Three years later they moved again, this time to London, to a neighborhood called Southall, also known as “Little India” because of its large South Asian population.

There was not a culture shock, she said, “We just went with the flow.”

Chandegra said she loved the weather in London, particularly its rainy season.

As a teenager, Chandegra said she led two lives.

“When we went to school, we wore the uniform, spoke English and we mixed with other people, but when we went home, we couldn’t speak to anybody outside our culture, our people. So at home it was Indian, we spoke Indian, wore Indian clothes. Everything was Indian, Indian, Indian, Indian.”

Chandegra said she always knew her marriage was going to be arranged and that did not bother her. What did bother her, though, was when a man actually requested marriage.

“I just didn’t like him,” she said. “He was a nice person. That’s about it.”

Chandegra told her mother how she felt and was met with meek support. To her recollection, her mother said, “If it doesn’t work out, we’ll help you get a divorce.”

Chandegra said she also told her suitor.

“I told him after we met, ‘I don’t like you, so if you say no, then I won’t have to marry you.’ But he went along after. He knew I didn’t like him.”

Frustrated, Chandegra had the argument with her father that wrecked their relationship and severed her family ties.

“My sisters weren’t allowed to talk to me,” she said. “My brother, any of my relatives, didn’t want anything to do with me.”

Ostracized, she said she had to survive on her own. She worked three jobs to support herself and eventually found an Indian family to live with. She lived with them for about six years, acting as their in-house babysitter for the couple’s two young children.

This arrangement allowed Chandegra to save money because the family did not charge rent.

She would go on month-long vacations every few years. On one vacation to Singapore she met her future husband.

“It was nice to be able to choose someone that you loved,” she said. “He was a different religion. He was a Muslim. I was a Hindu.

That’s a no-no with both.”

Somehow they made it work, Chandegra said. About six months after they met, they

married and she relocated to Singapore, where her husband had a job at an international finance company. After a year in Singapore, they moved to Bangkok, Thailand. A year later they visited her husband’s family in Pakistan.

“We just ended up staying there,” she said.

They settled in Karachi, she said, the most populous city in Pakistan. Chandegra said locals taught her to speak their language, Urdu, and she and her husband opened a garment factory.

“We made a lot of jogging suits and exported them to America,” she said.

It was the early 1990s, she said, and jogging suits were very trendy. They had about 20 sewing machines and employed a staff of about 30. “(I) managed the factory,” Chandegra said, “which was a very rare thing to do because women aren’t supposed to work over there.”

Chandegra said she would sometimes sleep on the factory’s floor when she worked long shifts, some longer than 24 hours.

One day, unexpectedly, Chandegra’s husband, an animal lover, suggested they adopt a dog. Chandegra initially resisted the idea, she admitted, but caved in.

“The first day, when he brings her, she’s a little white cotton thing,” she said. “I was so scared because I had never been around a dog.”

About an hour later, Chandegra said she fell in love. They named their dog Sundri, which means “Beautiful” in Hindi. Sundri was a Samoyed, a fluffy, white herding dog.

After a few years in Karachi, Chandegra said the Taliban began wreaking havoc. There were ethnic wars and Pakistan was becoming a dangerous place to live. They planned a move to England to flee the violence. They discovered, however, that their dog would need to be quarantined for up to six months, she said.

Days later, strolling along a Karachi beach, Chandegra met an American who told her that in America there was no quarantine. All she needed was the proper paperwork to bring her dog into the U.S. Her husband went to the U.S. Embassy the next day, she said, to confirm the news.

He called her from the embassy.

“We can take the dog!” she remembered him saying.

Elated, she said she cried.

Chandegra said her family of three immigrated to the U.S. in the mid-‘90s, during the O.J. Simpson trial, and settled in New Jersey.

“It was really an exciting moment, it was just nice,” she said. “I found a job after two weeks.”

Chandegra said she worked at several kiosks, below New York City’s World Trade Center, selling hats, t-shirts, gloves and souvenirs.

“I worked seven days a week, 12 hours a day,” she said. “I made good money.”

In 1999 they moved to San Diego, where her husband had relatives.

Chandegra established a business selling postcards and setup a stand at the 32nd Street Naval Base. There she met Carl Phipps, a retired Navy officer, who bought one of her postcards.

“I stood around there talking and I forgot to pay for it,” he said. “I started to walk off and she called me back and made me pay for it.”

Phipps, 93, who was a frequent visitor to the Naval Base, said when his wife passed away 13 years ago, Chandegra and her husband became his friends.

“She has a great personality, one of the greatest,” he said. “She has a big heart.”

Years into their friendship, Chandegra said she and her husband divorced, her dog Sundri died and her business collapsed, which led to financial worries. Phipps offered both her and her ex-husband a room each in his Bonita home to stay at while they recovered from hardship. Chandegra said she moved in but her ex-husband did not. She subsequently became Phipp’s caretaker and has lived with him ever since.

“She does everything,” Phipps said, “does my cooking, cleaning the house, taking care of the dogs, watering the lawn — she does everything.”

Three years ago, Chandegra said, she and Phipps regularly visited tribal casinos and she became mildly addicted to gambling.

After recognizing the symptoms, she said, she decided to quit – cold turkey – and found a hobby that was more productive. That hobby, she said, was school. She enrolled in adult school and did relatively well. A friend she met there, named Carolina, encouraged her to try SWC. “I said, ‘I can’t go to college at this age’” said Chandegra, who was 50 at the time.

Initially nervous, Chandegra said she found her college experience to be quite pleasant.

“Some (classes) are hard,” she said, “but that means I had to go home and put in that much extra work.”

Professor of Art John Lewis had Chandegra in one of his beginning ceramics classes last semester. He said she emerged as a leader in a program of more than 200 students.

“Her participation in class discussions and her contributions to the overall climate of the program has been articulate, accurate and catalyst for thought,” he said. “Her work has been thoughtful and her interest in learning, growing is evident in her immaculate attendance, high performance on coursework and good use of class time.”

In October 2012 Chandegra was granted American citizenship.

“I could have had dual citizenship because (I was) a British national,” she said. “I thought to myself, I don’t want to be here and there.

This is my place. I don’t want two homes. It’s like two sets of parents.”

Chandegra said she went back to England about five years ago to visit her parents.

She said she initiated the meeting because she wanted to see them “before anything happened.” It felt forced, she said, and did not turn out as well as she had hoped.

“It was awkward,” she said. “It was embarrassing, shameful, because I know I did something bad (by refusing an arranged marriage).”

These days Chandegra said she still feels ashamed around Indians because of their deep cultural respect for arranged marriages.

Around others, however, she feels differently.

“I feel proud,” she said. “I don’t regret anything.” es

YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE — As part of her final project, Sushila Chandegra presents a ceramic sculpture of books and gives a speech honoring Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, a champion of women’s rights and education in Pakistan.

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FEATURE

Raging against the dying light Margie Reese survived sexual slavery, abuse and cancer to lead a rich life of philanthropy, inspiration and love Story by Anna Pryor

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argie Reese lives life by her motto that every day above ground is a good day.

Reese was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 and is in her seventh year of surviving. She now has stage four cancer that has metastasized to the bone.

Cancer has not defined her. She decided to attend Southwestern College a year after a close encounter with death.

“In the middle of my first treatment I had a cardiac arrest,” she said. “When I woke up, I figured if I was going to kick the bucket, I should do something on my bucket list. I always wanted a journalism degree, so five days after my cardiac arrest I was sitting in my first journalism class.”

Her first class at SWC remained her favorite.

Former journalism instructor Jerry McCormick required students to create a blog.

“Everybody in class seemed to know what a blog was, but not the old lady,” she said. “I leaned over and said ‘What’s a blog?’ to the next student.

They looked at me like I was from outer space.”

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Courtesy Photos

Reese sat front and center in classes, determined to graduate. Despite the initial learning curve, she earned her AA degree in journalism in 2011 and an English degree in 2012, graduating with a 4.0 GPA. She started a third degree in Criminal Justice that she has not yet completed. She said her best years were at SWC, the best day being spent walking across the stage at graduation.

“I had the best time at Southwestern College,” she said. “I always wanted to go to school when

“Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

- Dylan Thomas

I was younger, never thinking I was going to wait until my 60s to go. It was a great experience because I learned about poetry, I learned about politics. Stuff I had never touched on.”

Of politics and poetry, a poem that she holds dear is “Do not go gentle into that good night”

by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.

“I took that as my poem I had to read in class and now it’s like my battle cry,” she said.

“I think that’s what I should do. I should ‘rage, rage against the dying of the light.’ I can’t let this cancer beat me. I’ve got to die someday, but not soon. I’ve still got some things to do.”

A priority on her bucket list is to complete her autobiography. Writing is an exhausting process, she said, because of the cancer. She does not want to write without being inspired. To her, it would be a bunch of meaningless words.

“I try to visualize something that will push me forward, so I visualize a book signing, with all these people lining the block, waiting for me to sign it,” she said. “But I guess if I can just finish it, that’ll be good enough.”

Reese said reminiscing is an emotional process.

“Some of the passages, some of the things that have happened in my life, I really prefer not to deal with,” she said. “So that’s a hump to get over as well. Not just feeling well enough to write it, but also having to relive it and be left in a pile of tears.”

Reese was a victim of illegal sex trafficking when she was 17.

“It was nothing more than trusting the wrong person and as a teenager, you don’t know the difference between someone that’s conning you and someone that really wants to help you,” she said. “So I went with the wrong person, a stranger. It was the wrong thing to do, but it didn’t deserve what happened afterwards.”

For years, she blamed herself. Even after escaping, she did not seek counseling and stopped speaking to the man she was engaged to for fear of judgment.

“You think somehow it’s your fault,” she said. “Then you think it’s because you’re a bad person. Then you think everyone knows and no one’s going to want to talk to you. It took a good 15 years to come to a place where I could say I was the victim, but I’m not a victim anymore and if I continue to let this affect my life, then this guy is continuing to pimp me and rape me and turn me out.”

Like her ability to visualize her book signing to propel her forward, she said she developed coping mechanisms to help her survive.

“There’s a trick that the mind does,” she said.

“I’m not sure it happens in every incident or with every person, but you think of something else. When you’re being violated you think of something else. You can’t think of what’s happening to you.”

Reese said she could not go to the police because she would be seen as a criminal. Her situation happened in 1964, but she said these issues still exist and there is little help for victims. When trying to call to see what resources are available, she was told there is a referral hotline.

“I’m on the street, I’ve got a pimp chasing me down the alley with a knife, I’m jumping in the back of this truck and going to a bus station. Why isn’t there a call that I can make where someone can come pick me up and help me in the immediate situation I need? But there isn’t. That was 50 years ago. In 50 years they couldn’t figure out the best way to help the kids on the street. That’s really disgusting. If I had the energy, that would be where I would be focusing it.”

Although she never sought counseling, she

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FEATURE Although she never sought counseling, she learned to forgive herself and the man who pimped her out.

“I learned to define my own self,” she said.

“I am not what happened to me. I’m Margie Reese. A lot of things that happened made me stronger. Some things, especially the rape, just made me pissed off. For so many years, I hated this man. I finally let that go, because you can’t run around hating folks that are hopefully dead. It gave me a lot of comfort to think he’s probably dead by now.”

Reese married in 1966 and had four children. She married an African-American, which led to several dangerous encounters with racism. She said her father-in-law warned his son not to marry her.

“I didn’t have a clue that we were illegal in some states,” she said. “I didn’t care. His father said, ‘Boy, are you crazy? You can’t marry that white girl.’ I was standing at that phone booth listening to my future father-in-law give it to us, asking if we were crazy, telling us we were in a world of trouble.”

They found it difficult to rent. Her husband lost his job the day after she picked him up from work. When they were moving to Portland, Oregon, they were almost killed by truckers.

“We were so naive,” she said. “We were waving up to the truckers and they looked down and saw my husband and my baby and next thing you know one’s moving beside us, one’s moving behind us and they’re steady trying to push us off the road to kill us. It scared me to death, I was in hysterics.”

She is no longer married, but says she does not believe that racial prejudice has improved.

From 1994 to 2001, Reese owned a recording studio. She said it was the second best time of her life, after her time at SWC. One of her favorite memories was recording an album by a young artist named David who was dying of Leukemia.

“A friend of his from the Rock Church called and said they were looking for a studio that would let them record his hip-hop Christian music. They didn’t have any money and they were calling all the studios to see if they’d let him come in and record because he had Leukemia. He was only 23. I said, ‘If you get the money, pay us. If you don’t, that’s okay.”

Reese never told her parents that she was forced into sex slavery. When she was diagnosed with cancer, she was taking care of her ailing mother.

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“At the time, my mom had come to live with me so when I came home from the biopsy, I told the caregiver to tell my mom I had the flu so I could stay in my room for a couple of days and recover,” she said. “I never told her. I never told her I had cancer because I’m her only child and I figured she didn’t need to know that. About three months after I found out, she died.”

Reese had her biopsy done by a surgeon she previously worked for. He told her he could barely get the biopsy because there was a large tumor attached to the inside of her nipple. After seeing before and after photos of mastectomies, she said, she was set on not having one.

“He patted me and said ‘We love you. We’re going to take good care of you and give you a mastectomy.’ I patted him back and said ‘I don’t think so.’”

Seven years later, she is thankful to still have her breasts. She is also happy to have her hair, which she attributes to the vitamins she takes. The cancer has moved to her bones, though, and in October 2010 her right hip was replaced, which she said was the worst

pain she has ever felt.

“They couldn’t get enough drugs into me to keep me from screaming. I was in such bad shape. At one point I was asking them to kill me. I said, ‘Please just kill me. I can’t do this. Get my gun and just kill me.’ Of course, nobody did, so I still had to go through it.”

Now, with tumors up and down her side, her doctors are worried about her bones fracturing so she gets bone shots to strengthen them. She estimates she has had at least eight different types of treatments, in different places with different doctors. She was recently cleared to begin a new treatment called Ibrance, which she was previously denied. She researched the treatment herself and likes it because it is in pill form, not injections.

“You should be your own advocate in the medical industry,” she said. “Keep in mind that it’s an industry. They make money every time they scan you, every time they give you drugs.”

In regards to money, the treatment comes with a hefty price tag at $10,000 a month.

Even after co-pay from insurance, it would still cost $2,000 per month. Reese said she has a coupon for the first month free and will look

to find foundations to help pay from there. She is optimistic about the new treatment.

“I’m hoping it gives me a few more years, because evidently that’s how long it’s going to take me to finish this stupid book,” she said with a laugh.

Reese said she is often complimented on her strength and bravery in dealing with the negative experiences in her life, but there is something that nobody knows about her.

“I get scared,” she said. “People always say ‘You’re so brave,’ and I think, No. You just don’t know. There’s times that I sit here and cry. There’s times that I regret wasting time doing different things. There’s times that I regret wasting time on certain people when I should’ve known it wasn’t going to make any difference in the long run. They need to know that just because you’re fighting and you look strong, it doesn’t mean that you’re not scared.

You get scared. Since everyone’s going to die, you don’t think about it. But with all this, it’s thrust upon you. You don’t have any other choice but to think about it.”

She does partake in the small comforts of life in times of anxiety or worry.

“Afraid,” she said. “I get afraid. But then I have a bowl of no-sugar added ice cream and it makes me feel better. When I first got confined to the house, I got panicky and the first thing I did is call a friend and ask for a sugar-free cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory.

And honey, I ate a piece every day. Someone would say they were coming over and I’d tell them they’re not allowed to have any of my cheesecake. It’s mine, it’s my comfort food and I’m eating the whole dang thing. And so I did.”

Reese has begun to prepare for death. She

has a tombstone ready for her in the El Cajon Cemetery.

“My headstone has got ‘Any day above ground is a good day,’ my name and my date of birth,” she said. “All it’s waiting for is the last day.”

Her first time going to visit her burial plot was a sobering experience for her.

“It didn’t really hit me until I went to see it,” she said. “To look down and see my name on a tombstone. That made me cry. That was the first time I cried about dying.”

Besides her degrees, Reese has also been acknowledged at SWC with the college’s highest honor, the Student of Distinction Award.

She was a recipient of the ASO Academic Excellence, Chicano Latino Coalition and Optimist of the Year awards. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Administration of Justice club, Student Veteran Organization (SVO) and ASTRA. ASTRA is SWC’s community service club and Reese was a part of the student group that originally chartered it. She has also been involved with the Kiwanis Club, Photo Charity and Laurels for Leaders. She said philanthropic work is an important part of her life.

“I think that’s the key,” she said. “Taking the focus off of yourself and putting it towards something worthwhile that can help others.”

Of all the things she has done, Reese said she misses SVO most and wishes she could still attend the meetings. A project she started and would like to finish is the bench program to benefit the SVO. She said the lack of places to sit at the spacious SWC campus was apparent when she was attending while having cancer.

There is one bench placed on campus which

“It didn’t really hit me until I went to see it,” she said. “To look down and see my name on a tombstone. That made me cry. That was the first time I cried about dying.”

-Margie Reese bears her name. Reese said she might look for someone to take on the project for her, to ensure its completion.

Reese has drawn her will and has told her medical power of attorney that she would like to pass peacefully, without fanfare, drama or hospitalization.

“I wanna die right there in my bed. I don’t want a bunch of nonsense going on. If people want to come and purge their soul because they think I’m dying, don’t let them in. Make them go away. Don’t disturb my death, don’t disturb my dying. I told Ervin not to let a paramedic walk in with a gurney. I’m gonna tell them, ‘I’ve got a gun. I don’t know where the bullets are, but I’ve got a gun and I’ll get it out of the safe, just hold on and let me get up and go get it.’”

For now, she accepts that she will die. She just does not plan to let it happen yet, so she continues to rage against the dying of the light.

“All of us are going to die,” she said. “But I’m not trying to do that too soon. So I keep fighting.” es

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FEATURE

I

t has no plaque, no hint of significance or worth.

It is a r usty hunk of steel, measuring 4 feet by 4 feet by 4 inches, weighing more than two tons. It is as absurd as it is profound, a true masterpiece.

It is defined by one word: “Dark.”

A conceptual sculpture by the artist Bruce Nauman, “Dark” was acquired by Southwestern College in 1968 for $1,900. Nauman created it in a small National City steel factory and wrote the word “Dark” beneath it with a yellow permanent-pigment steel marker.

Today the piece rests outside in the gallery courtyard, atop wooden boards, two inches off the ground. Nauman, now 73, is one of the world’s most influential living artists.

“It’s just a steel plate with the word ‘Dark’ written on the bottom,” Nauman explained to Avalanche magazine editor Willoughby Sharp in 1970. “I don’t know how good it is, but it seemed to be a germinal piece to me.”

In 1989 Nauman mentioned the importance of “Dark” in an interview with Christopher Cordes for a catalogue raisonné: “The feelings I had about that piece and the way it functioned for me were important for a long time. I was able to make a statement in it that let things out of me that I hadn’t been able to get out before.”

Few have ever actually seen the word “Dark,” so most can only try to comprehend the piece conceptually.

Get it? Most people do not.

“Nauman is the guy who makes you feel incredibly upset and existentially nervous,” wrote Andrew Soloman for the New York Times in 1995. “You can recognize a Nauman by the

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way it makes you want to go home.”

In a career spanning more than a half-century, Nauman has crafted sculptures from metal, latex rubber and translucent fiberglass. He has shot films, videos and photos of himself pretending to be a fountain (“Self Portrait as a Fountain,” 1967). He has drawn, produced sound pieces and written poetry. He has utilized neon lights in his most vibrant and aesthetically pleasing works (“Sex and Death/Double ‘69,’’’ 1985).

He became widely known in late 1960s and early ‘70s for performances in which he used his body as an expressive instrument (“Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square,” 1967). One of his most famous installations is a chair hanging from a ceiling (“South America Triangle,” 1981). He has not painted since 1964.

In the spring of 1968, SWC held its sixth annual Purchase Award Show. It would be the last. A screening committee consisting of four art instructors — Bob Matheny, John Baldessari, John Clark and Dick Robinson — selected pieces for the show from a pool of applicants.

One juror, Dr. Kurt von Meier, an art critic and assistant professor from UCLA, selected the winner.

Nauman, then a tenacious 26-year-old artist

Southwestern’s slab is an enigmatic masterpiece Story Gabriel Sandoval Photos by Mason Masis

from the Bay Area by way of Wisconsin, entered his steel sculpture “Dark.” Odd yet thoughtful, his piece won and the college agreed to pay him $1,900 with funds from the Associated Student Organization. ($1,900 in 1968 is roughly $13,000 in 2015.)

Then came the complaints.

Students, faculty and community members expressed outrage. San Diego Evening Tribune published a letter to the editor by local sculptor Frank Morgan who described the piece as “unmitigated trash.” Letters to the editor of this newspaper (then called The Athapascan) argued for and against the purchase.

“It’s just a slab of steel,” wrote D.S. Baird from the English department. “This particular phase of art today is a homosexual joke… Nauman’s piece of ridicule may imply some kind of social criticism and Kurt von Meier may think he

knows what it is, but that does not make it a piece of art.”

Other complaints scrutinized every conceivable aspect of the piece: “Steel is only $26.50 per ton,” “It looks like any other block of steel,” “The intent of the artist is not apparent,” “It’s fooling people to buy junk,” “It’s an expensive pigeon perch,” the letters read.

Baldessari, who later became a world-famous

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FEATURE artist himself, wrote a letter to the e d i t o r d e f e n d i n g t h e p u rc h a s e , addressing 18 individual complaints.

One by one.

“If art is only to be judged by cost, the materials for a Rembrandt are only $25,” he wrote. Responding to the claim that it looked like other steel blocks, he wrote: “A lot of books look alike, too.” In response to the claim about the artist’s intent, he wrote: “The intent, I believe, is to make people think about what really is art.”

Was the piece fooling people to buy junk? Baldessari said no.

“Life is too short to go around fooling people,” his letter explained.

“Art is long, and time will prove the value or non-value of the piece.”

(Nauman’s sculpture “Henry Moore Bound to Fail,” 1967, sold for $9.9 million at Christie’s in May 2001.)

Von Meier, who declared the piece a winner, wrote a formidable essay on “Dark” in defense of his decision.

It was also published in the campus newspaper. His critique of “Dark” is possibly the most elegant and compelling case in favor of the sculpture ever writ.

“The word ‘DARK’ is inscribed on the underside — buried,” his essay read. “What more apt poetic image could there be for expressing the fundamental role of any educational institution: To bury the darkness of all forms of ignorance, prejudice and stupidity.

“On the side facing upward there is light. It is not spelled out. Very often truth does not appear spelled out — in the same ways falseness and ignorance very often do.”

Pontificating on “light,” von Meier cited scripture (Genesis 1:3: “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”), Goethe’s dying words (“More light.”) and the great Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung’s comments on the I Ching: “…I know that the universities have ceased to act as disseminates of light.”

Von Meier also noted that “Dark” is “solid, clean, elemental” and “certainly down to earth.”

Regardless of the juror’s testimony, a

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petition began circulating at SWC to nullify the purchase. Petitioners had gathered 173 signatures by early May, according to The Athapascan. But it did not work. Nauman was eventually paid in full.

Matheny, 85, then the SWC gallery director, said the college became “like a battleground.”

“Somebody decided that would be the last deal where students would pay for the art in the permanent collection,” he said. “That ended the annual Purchase Award Show.”

As time went on the controversy quelled. People forgot about the debate, forgot about “Dark.” Month, years and decades passed. The piece, like so many heavyweight champions of the past, faded into obscurity like sunlight in the dark night sky.

In late January of 1968, about three months before the Purchase Award Show, Nauman travelled to New York City for the first time. He had his first solo show at the Leo Castelli Gallery.

It featured fiberglass sculptures, body molds, films, photographs and square metal slabs, among other works.

A keen-eyed young artist named Vallo Riberto attended that show.

Riberto had been living in New York since the early 1960s and studying art at the Pratt Graphic Center. The show was his formal introduction to Nauman. He said he was immediately struck by one film in particular, describing it as “a spinning ball bearing shot from above.” Projected on a wall, he said, it looked like “Pong” and “was genius.”

The film, “Bouncing Two Balls between the Floor and Ceiling with Changing Rhythms” (1967), left a lasting impression on Riberto.

“I still feel that it was one of his strongest works,” he said.

Riberto left the Big Apple for the West Coast in 1989, but kept the film in mind. By the mid-1990s he was teaching art classes at SWC. A few years later he became gallery

director. Then one day he was walking around the outside perimeter of the courtyard. He glanced down, not believing his eyes.

“I saw this piece of steel sitting in the mud,” he said. “It was next to a sprinkler. I saw the name…

‘Nauman.’”

It was beneath a bush, covered by overgrown shrubs, rusty and utterly neglected. The springer had watered it as frequently as the shrubs. Riberto said he reached out to Matheny who told him the story. Riberto was perplexed, reticent to ask how it got there.

“I think all through the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, till I got here, nobody made any mention of it,” he said. “It was just sort of asleep for 30 years, buried in the corner there.”

Matheny retired from SWC in 1991 and stepped down as gallery director in the 1970s. He said he had no clue how it got there either.

“It could have been negligence on my part,” he admitted, “no doubt about it.”

An SWC employee or one of several successive gallery directors may have put it there, he said.

Soon an excavation took place.

Riberto said a small forklift hoisted the piece and it was moved inside the gallery courtyard.

“The bottom had deteriorated,” he said, “and it had about an inch and half of rust shells that crumbled off.”

In its new courtyard home, it sat for nearly a decade.

In 2004, Constance Lewallen, an adjunct curator at the UC Berkeley Art Museum, began research for a new project. It would be an exhibition of Nauman’s work from the 1960s.

“Maybe I’m biased,” she recently said via phone from Berkeley, “but I really think Nauman is the greatest living artist… He continues to be able make works that are innovative, unexpected and influential.”

In 2006 Le wallen sought out

“Dark,” contacted Riberto and made arrangements for the piece to have its first road trip.

“They sent a truck down to pick it up,” Riberto said.

From Jan. 17 - April 15, 2007, “Dark” was exhibited at BAM in “A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s.” Beside its extended family of slabs and other works, it basked in the limelight.

Months later the piece returned to SWC, Riberto said, and it went to its old spot, outside in the gallery courtyard.

“If you aren’t aware of who Bruce Nauman is, the piece is not going to mean anything to you.

It’s just a hunk of steel. But if you know who Nauman is, and you see that name, then you know.”

Riberto said he prefers that “Dark” not have a plaque. He said he likes its unassuming, quiet nature. Others, however, such as Bob Matheny, said it should be donated to a museum or at least given a plaque. That way, he said, people could appreciate it.

Riberto said he has been in contact with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) who has expressed interest in borrowing the piece for a Nauman exhibition, tentatively slated for 2016.

When the piece was resurrected in the late 1990s, Riberto said the word “Dark” had flaked off and crumbled to pieces. “Dark,” the word, had disappeared. Was “Dark,” the word, ever there?

In a statement in a 1972 catalog Nauman noted: “It’s partly the i d e a o f ‘ Gi ve n t h i s p i e c e o f information, there’s nothing you can do about it.’ Of course, the obvious thing is establishing a place you can’t get to — you have no control over it. It’s sort of like trying to think about the universe.

The difference between ‘Dark’ and the point I’ve reached now is that now I wouldn’t actually put the word on the slab. I wouldn’t need to.” es

The following is an excerpt from a letter to the editor printed in The Athapascan the precourser to The Sun - in 1968. It was written by then SWC instructor, now worldfamous artist, John Baldessari.

“ON NAUMAN’S SCULPTURE: AN EXPLANATION

W

e have our first piece of “New Sculpture” on campus and it has hit with the same explosion that rocked the art community. To understand this specific work, we have to come to terms with the issues that New Sculpture raises.

But first, it would be interesting to deal with some of the questions raised in last week’s Athapascan (May 3, 1968): 1. IT’S JUST A CHUNK OF STEEL That’s right, or a Specific Object. It’s simply there without reference to any person or thing. One gets it immediately. There aren’t a lot of parts to relate to each other. It’s not made of a precious material and it’s not super-finished. It could be Art-by-Telephone – anybody could do it (but why didn’t they?) All of these directions are reactions to the traditional approach to sculpture. Why do it? The artists simply want a change.

2. STEEL IS ONLY $26.50 PER TON. If art is to be judged by cost, the materials for a Rembrandt are only $25.

3.

THERE IS NOT SKILL INVOLVED Do you really believe that art is what is skillful? Then why are not all skillful things art? Is a smooth stone skillful?

4. IT’S AN EYESORE Does that mean it offends the sight? Most psychologists that deal with the nature of perception tell us that simple forms are easiest to perceive.

Perhaps what is meant is that the eye doesn’t get sore enough.

5. IT’S AN EXPENSIVE PIGEON PERCH Yes, it is – if it were meant for that. But then, so is the Library.

6. IT’S AN EXAMPLE OF POOR TASTE Does that mean it’s not an example of mass taste? Then

it is poor taste. But are not schools meant to challenge and prod taste?

7. IT’S A PIG STY Someone’s ideas about art are being challenged. Now, if he just won’t stop there. In the Bible, Paul persecuted Jesus, only to become a follower.

8. IT’S FOR A SMALL MINORITY True. Art is for the few as is anything worthwhile. So is Space Technology, but we can attain to it with effort.

9. IT OBLITERATES THE CAMPUS ARCHITECTURE Hardly, 90% of all architecture is geometric.

10. IT’S AN ABSTRACT OBSCENITY What is abusive about a four-letter word is that it says something too well. Abstract Obscenity may be a contradiction in terms. If not, it may be an apt characterization of the sculpture.

11. IT’S THE STUDENTS’ MONEY Perhaps all of us should vote for the best design for a moon rocket, too. Art is seldom made by votes.

12. WE COULD USE THE MONEY FOR A BETTER LIBRARY True. But wouldn’t life be dull without art?

13. ONE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SEE THE WORD “DARK” UNDERNEATH You’ll know it’s there, though, by a plaque nearby.

Would it really be more fun if you could see the word on top?

14. THE MONEY WAS GIVEN BY THE COUNCIL WITH NO STRINGS ATTACHED Again, we can’t get art with recipe books and mass consensus.

15. IT’S THE STUDENTS’ MONEY True. Do you really want the money back? Perhaps we could have statues of Famous Students.

16. IT LOOKS LIKE ANY OTHER BLOCK OF STEEL. A lot of books look alike too.

17. THE INTENT OF THE ARTIST IS NOT APPARENT. The intent, I believe, is to make us think about what really is art; is this sculpture art?

18. IT’S FOOLING PEOPLE TO BUY JUNK Life is too short to go around fooling people. Art is long, and time will prove the value or non-value of this piece...” es

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