Being Dan
By Mike Eldon
Today, I immersed myself in Dan. I virtually
became Dan, allowing his spirit and energy to enter me. I felt confident,
creative, relentless.
In the morning, I hosted one of our meetings
to plan the January exhibit of Dan's art at the Watatu Gallery.
Some who came were new to the phenomenon that was-that is-Dan. I
was conscious of their trepidation, their uncertainty as to how
to handle their participation. They were clearly overwhelmed by
Dan's talent and his prolific output, burdened too by the responsibility
to show it at its best, while reflecting accurately the spirit of
the man. There was the sadness too, the respect for a creative force
cut down in its prime; and they were here in the house where he
lived and producedÉwith his father. How to behave?
One woman wore a permanent frown. I felt her
intensity, I understood how she was straining to absorb, to synthesize,
but I wished her forehead would relax. Finally, I said, as gently
as possible, "Try not to frown. Everything we are doing to remember
Dan by, to celebrate his memory, we should enjoy doing, and although
I want us to be ambitious, I am confident we'll succeed." She smiled
weakly, grappling with her thoughts and emotions. I hoped she would
learn to relax. I was moved by her anguish.
I often think about how Dan tackled whatever
he did with confidence, even where, particularly where, others warned
him he was biting off more than he could chew. That assumption of
success is what made Dan, and carried others along with him, knowing
they could join him in confounding the skeptics.
All this I tried to imply in what I said. I
feel very much at home with all these creative artistic people,
able to spark with them on their wave-length, share their sense
of aesthetic, work with them to put together a wonderful event of
which we, and of course Dan, can feel proud.
Out of the misery of his death comes this consequence,
an opportunity for me to indulge and develop my own creativity.
Our title for the exhibit is "The Show Goes On," symbolizing the
continuity of the vivid life reflected in the work we are exhibiting.
Some were initially tentative about tampering with it, but it was
clear to me that we would inevitably develop the art by bringing
it together, just Dan did in his journals. I am sure he would not
have wished us to feel inhibited, and I feel we are in harmony with
Dan's spirit in all that we are doing.
One of the ways this is happening is through
the easy style in which we are all working together. I must say
that I naturally strive for such an atmosphere in my life, as does
Kathy, and it would be unduly modest to deny that this rubbed off
on Dan, as it has on Amy. When Dan got going with a project, he
always involved others, allowing each to show they had a valid contribution
to make. No one remained a spectator; timidity gave way to boldness,
encouraged by his guiding hand. (I only came to realize how much
a part of Dan this was after he died, from the countless letters
we received which paid tribute to this great inspirational quality
of his.)
This is why I want the exhibit to courage unthreateningly
those who come to view also to enjoy creating, whilst surrounded
by his joyous jumble of art.We'll have great strips of newsprint
(as we did at the Ngong Hills memorial), on which artists and non-artists'
will express themselves, at least for a minute or two. I want nothing
about this exhibit to be normal. After all, there was nothing normal
about Dan: he defined his own rules, independent of the conventional.
This is not to say that he was abnormal, or
an eccentric or a rebel. It's only that he saw life through an original
perspective, and dreamed of possibilities and opportunities which
he had the confidence to pursue, in ways only others would describe
as unorthodox. He simply did what came naturally to him, and it
worked.
The Watatu event will embody Dan's style: no
neat, orderly rows of conventionally framed photographs, no warm
sweet wine or stale soft crisps. No, I want the gallery to capture
the spirit of Dan's room, his studio, his depot. I see different
areas spilling out Dan's works, enriched by the paraphernalia which
adorns his room, reflecting his vibrant, eclectic multi-cultural
perspective. And all the good souls who are involved with me want
just that.
Some time in the evening, now alone in the house,
I wandered into Dan's room. One of these days we want to take some
pictures of it, so that people who had never picked their way through
Dan's debris while he was alive can get a feel for the fertility
of his mind and the way he gathered his resources around him. Of
course, the state of the room has changed. So many have visited
what has now almost become a shrine. Others, not least me, have
sorted through the endless layers.
I have spent many hours wilth the pictures and
papers, the cameras and film, the crayons and pens, the swords and
knives, the masks and hats, the coins and notes, the T-shirts and
boots, the bullets and bones, the razor blades and batteries, the
inks and paints, the medals and permits, the postcards and letters,
the books and magazines, the buttons and beads, the ebony and ostrich
feathers, the whistles and spears, the tapes and filtersÉ Don't
ask me how we'll be able to recreate the chaos (which to Dan formed
a well organized, well-structured store-he knew exactly where everything
was). For some reason, I felt that a prerequisite would be to complete
the sorting.
So, that evening, I found myself relentlessly
creating my order out of his. I spent several hours going through
his desk drawers, conscious that we may wish to incorporate some
of his furniture in the display at the gallery, and that there was
no way we could bring along all its contents. The work was mundane.
Prising out loose knife blades from among a mass of coins from England,
America, Canada, Tanzania and elsewhere provided no mental stimulation
per se. But as I picked at the blades and coins, or later as I dabbled
among the regimental insignia, the felt-tip pens, the lettraset
packs, the plastic moving eyes, my mind lifted to another level.
I began to feel how Dan operated, bringing together conventional
bits and pieces of material to create his dense, explosive art.
He found dramatic ways of allowing different shapes and textures
to live together, bringing new meaning as they met, sometimes besides
each other, sometimes on top of each other. The bubbling pages of
his journals, layers of hilarious surprises, grew from the raw material
of his room, an infinite stock of infinite variety.
In a different way, I too enjoy filling blank
pages: inspiration, as someone once said, is a blank piece of paper.
But I only use a pen to fill the empty whiteness, and once my writing
has reached the bottom of the page, that's it. Similarly, when I
take a photograph, although I am fully conscious of the artistry
involved, the process stops there; the picture is the end product.
For Dan though, the process of creation evolved gradually and cumulatively.
The photographic print, often as not, was but the first stage. The
image was then photocopied, sliced, twisted, colored, juxtaposed.
Dan gave new meaning to "developing" photographs, inventing families
and generations of derivatives which owed their independent lives
to some initial conception.
As for his journals, I can see him now, turning
finished pages, some new bric-a-brac in the other hand, looking
for a suitable home on an already crowded, and nicely complete,
spread. Yet, returning later to that page, you no longer remember
that it had grown organically over time.
Dan was not at ease with straight lines. In
his art as in his life, linearity played little part. As ideas occurred
to him, as opportunities arose , he pursued them, or stored them
in his physical and mental depots for future inspiration, integrating
them with what already existed, strengthening the base.
Now here I am, mourning his loss, celebrating
his memory, continuing to learn from his example. How shattered
I am to have lost him, how fortunate to have been left with his
rich heritage which has given rise to his and other glorious activities.
"It's all very fine, putting so much energy
into these projects," some have told me, "but aren't you simply
postponing your grief?" I don't think I am. They help me handle
my grief and sadness, help me heal. I understood more about this
process from my friend Mary Collis, a painter. Following the recent
death of her father, she produced a series of paintings in honor
of his memory: the emotions which inspired her to paint were, it
seems, transformed by the painting process itself. So it is with
me and my projects. They help me focus on the positive in ways that
uplift me and others. I am proud of who my son was an of what he
did, and I want as many peo0ple as possible to learn from his example.
Not least me.
Mike Eldon wrote this several months
after Dan's death. It appeared in one of the annual yearbooks he
prints and gives to friends as a holiday gift.
