Interview: Helen Bickham

Interviewer: Elizabeth Bakewell

Date: May 1, 1987

Place: Mexico City

I:...Helen begins the interview with a discussion of an exhibit

that she had of her work in Winterthur, Switzerland.

HB:...I went over there. So, you know like I bought my ticket and

I thought well I have no idea, you know, what's going to happen

but it's worth it to me. And, the result was, the show sold out,

the first time in my life. But I went with the idea that I had

a place to stay which as you know is a very large expense, right?

And, of course, you help with the groceries and things like that

but it is still a more economically ***25 than hotels and such.

And that they would pay for all the expenses of the inauguration.

I: This is the place in London or the place in Zurich?

HB: This place is actually in Winterthur. And they would pay for

the invitations, the cocktail, whatever the publicity cost, and

take care of all of that and the framing. And my part of the

expense was my own ticket and getting the work over there. And we

hadn't talked about what we were going to do if the work didn't

sell. But part of why we didn't talk about this was we were

doing it all by letter and English was not their native tongue.

So the letters were a little bit wild. I wasn't too sure I

always understood what was happening. So I decided well, I'll

deal with that problem afterwords. And as a result it was no

problem.

I: How did you get that...First of all let me explain that

whenever you say something that the transcriber may not know, I

write down the word. And also...in your case it won't make any

difference, but when I interview people in English and their

native language is something else, like Spanish, then I write

down anything, like strange pronunciations. I write down the

word. I did alot of interviews last year. We interviewed alot of

non-English native speakers. The transcribers didn't know alot

of the words such as Michaelangelo...[tape is turned off during a

discussion of interviewer's experiences last year interviewing

art historians and later transcribing the taped interviews.]

I: We are talking about California, L.A. museums...

HB: The gardens are just wonderful. You can wander around and

just sit, you know, under one tree or another tree, or the rose

garden, that was just incredible.

I: This is the Huntington Library?

HB: Right. Well, it was the Huntington Gardens. You were going

to ask me how I got the show in Winterthur, Switzerland?

I: Yes.

HB: I met the sculptor Willy Goodman, in the Museum of Modern

Art here in Mexico City. And we became friends. And Willy came

to my house and he really liked my work. The first thing he

did...Willy, apart from being a sculptor, is a really warm,

loving human being. So, he has a really magnificent barn, a

three-story barn, one of these Swiss barns that just goes all

over the place. And two times a year, he presents artists from

around the world that he's met, that of all the artists whose

work he's seen in that year, he wants to invite those people.

And he calls it "Willy Goodman Presents." So, after he returned

to Switzerland, he wrote to me and said he would like me to be

one of the two or three artists of the year in a show in his barn

in which there is a musical recital, because Willy has personally

restored a very old clavicord or harpsicord, so that it is an

event. It is a wonderful event. So I was going to go. And this

was, I guess '81, but Mexico devaluated and froze bank accounts

and you could only get five hundred dollars and your..., like I

had a rip-roaring four thousand dollars saved which...

I: Now, they froze bank accounts that were in dollars?

HB: Yes. And they gave them to you in pesos and you got half in

the peso amount. So, my four thousand went to two thousand and

I couldn't get but five hundred of it back into dollars anyway

and I simply couldn't go.

I: And you never got that other two thousand back?

HB: NO.

I: No wonder people do not keep their money in the banks here.

Because you had four thousand which became two thousand. And

then there were others who had twenty thousand which became ten

thousand.

HB: I had one friend who had seventy thousand. They were saving

up to buy a house.

I: When I go to the Casa de Cambios, they are filled with people

changing five thousand pesos or five pesos. So, this happend in

1981 and you couldn't go.

HB: I sent the work. I actually took...and I couldn't have

afforded to send it from here because the laws are so complicated

that I would have had to use a broker. I would have had to have

six photographs of each piece and I wouldn't have known how long

it was going to take to get there. So I drove up to the border.

Crossed the border with the art work, which was completely

legitimate, it went with me. You know, I just walked across the

border, "what's that?" "It's my art work." It was legitimate on

both sides, right?, because I am an American citizen. I'm a

resident of Mexico. So, that's why the law is insane. It works

so easily if you go with the work. "This is my work." No problem

either side. So, I crossed the border and sent the work again by

simply mail from a post office in McCallen, Texas. Alright, in

this exhibition, which the art community comes to at Willy's

place, the dealer who was working with his work, saw my work

and liked it. So, when I wrote to Willy that my son was now

living in Holland and I was going to visit him and,therefore,

maybe I would see him. He wrote back and said "Well, I mentioned

this to the gallery owner where I show." And she said, "Well,

ask her if she would like to have an individual show because I

really like her work." So, I wrote back and said yes. "My plan

is to arrive in September, so it can be September or October. I

can stay or whatever." So we set up the show for, I think it was,

the twenty-sixth of September, '85. And that's how the whole

show got going. And we had these wonderful letters back and

forth. One of my favorite letters from Willy that I will

treasure forever, in one letter he said he apologized because he

hadn't been using his English for a long time and [asked] if

there was some confusion? There was alot of confusion. I didn't

even understand that the owner was a woman. I thought the name

of the gallery was Blum Shield, which is [translated] the blue

shield because the building was built in something like 1563 or

something, its a wonderful old 17, I don't know, its a beautiful

wooden building, and it has the original shield. Well, I thought

the owner's name was Fred Shield.

I: Now, you were writing letters to Fred Shield?

HB: I was writing to Willy but I mentioned Fred Shield. He

didn't know what I was talking about. But at one point he

apologized for his English and by now his letters were hand-

written instead of typed so I said "Willy your English is fine, I

really understand your English, its your hand-writing. I said,

"some of your words I can't decipher what you wrote." And he

wrote back and he said, "Well, it's because if I'm not sure how

to spell the word I reduce it and make it smaller." So in

addition to inventing the spelling he would make a contraction

and then write it smaller. I would be looking at this word

trying to figure out what it was. If it had been larger I could

have at least phonetically sounded it out or something. There

were whole words that I didn't know what they were.

I: So, Willy's native language is what?

HB: He's Swiss-German, so it's Swiss-German. We were having this

wonderful time with the correspondence so, because I trusted

Willy completely, I had arranged a show for him in Denver,

actually, with Singer. Singer had a gallery, Norman Singer. Do

you know him?

I: Now, how did you arrange that?

HB: Because Norman Singer bought a drawing of mine from a gallery

in Houston and wanted to meet me and I happened to pop into

Houston at the right time. It was Tom Robinson's gallery. And he

said "this man bought the drawing and he had a gallery I think and

he's here." I had just had a show in Washington, D.C. So, flew

from Washington to Houston. Since I was showing alot in Houston

at the time I always routed myself through Houston wherever I

went in the States. So, I flew in and met Norman who had bought

a drawing but then subsequently had decided that he really wanted

to specialize in sculpture. So, he knew of Willy Goodman. And I

showed him some catalogues and got very excited and he gave Willy

a show.

I: So, using I start out chronologically but jumping around is

alot more fun! Houston, why were you showing alot in Houston?

HB: Because, Tom Robinson, the owner of the gallery, and Tom had

trained with Kennedy's in New York, had gone on a vacation in

Puerto Vallarta and saw a drawing of mine in Puerto Vallarta in

the gallery that I showed at in Puerto Vallarta and bought the

drawing. And before taking off for a trip to Houston because my

children were working in Houston for the summer and I wanted to

see them, I happened to call my gallery in Puerto Vallarta to

tell her, maybe I sent a shipment, I don't know why, but whenever

I would send her work I'd always call her and say, "It's on

Mexicana and no se que," and go ahead and send it. So, I called

her and she said, "Listen, there was a wonderful man in here and

he bought the drawing that I already sent you the check for and

he really, really loved the drawing and he has something to do

with the art world and I think you should call him and let me

give you his name and phone number and you know it's your first

trip to Houston, I think you should pop in and see him." So, I

said, "Alright." So, I went off to Houston and I called this

man, Tom Robinson. He said, "where are you?" And I said,

"Houston." He said, "Can I take you to lunch?" So, I said,

"Yes, that would be very nice." So we met. And, he did a really

wonderful thing. He talked to me a bit about the art world in

Houston, then he loaned me a car and he gave me a list of all the

galleries and made a lunch date with me for the next day. I went

sailing off in his car and this list, and I went around...

Anyway, I went off and looked at all the galleries, and when I

came back and we met for lunch the next day he said, "Well tell

me your impressions of the galleries." So, I did. And he said,

"Well, which one would you like to work with?" And, I said,

"Well, I'm not really sure cause some of them seem to me that

they were too much based on the New York School." You know,

that...

I: You mean the galleries in Houston?

HB: Right. Whereas, definitely a gallery has to make up its mind

about what it is doing. You know, it can't show African,

artesania, everything all over the place. Some of these seem to

me that they really wouldn't look at your work on the individual

basis. You had to fall in a formula. Which is fine if they want

to work that way. It didn't make me very interested in going in

to show them my work. Tom said, "Well, I'm glad to hear that

because I'd like to work with you." And I said, "Well, why

didn't you say that yesterday?" And, he said, "Well, I feel your

work merits you making up your mind, I didn't want to capture you

simply because you didn't know what was around." And he

proceeded to be that honorable always. And he had some financial

reverses and some very heavy personal problems and he eventually

had to close the gallery but we worked together for about five

years. And now he has started to work with a foundation, it's

called Grace something [*228] and I just got the letter, and he's

down in Ecuador right now, but it has something to do with like

Primitive Art, so I don't know if he will get back to his own

field eventually but a superb gallery owner. I mean top rate.

I: He sold quite a bit of your work?

HB: Yes. And the thing about Houston, though, is I think that it

is becoming more sophisticated now. But one of the galleries, Max

Hutchinson actually closed their Houston gallery. Because the

people would go to New York and would call from the Max

Hutchinson Gallery in New York and say send that statue up here,

that sculptor up here, that maquet, or whatever, because the

people wanted the prestige of buying in New York. Max Hutchinson

had the same work, a top, beautiful gallery in Houston. And

Wallensteins had the same problem. People would fly to New York

and wouldn't buy in Houston. It was easier to sell Mercedes

Benz, Cadillacs and diamonds than art. And the people who tuned

into the fact that art was prestige, they tuned into it as a

prestige item that you buy in New York. I happen to know because

a friend of mine was working in Max Hutchinsons. The piece would

be sent from Max Hutchinsons, shown in New York and be flown back

to New York to be sold in New York. And when I went in to talk

to the man who was managing the Wallensteins who were some

relative also, and they had a magnificent gallery. The same

thing. They weren't selling.

I: So, in other words, would Houston people fly to New York to

buy the piece.

HB: They would fly to New York to be shown art work and then be

shown photographs or whatever, but they wouldn't go to the

gallery in Houston. I mean, they didn't even go to Max

Hutchinson in Houston. They would go to Max Hutchinson in New

York. This was a terrific problem.

I: Were your pieces being flown up to New York?

HB: No, I was in Tom Robinson's gallery. And Tom Robinson was a

Texan and had contacts and such and he knew how to sell work.

Part of the work, at least, because he was one of the first

galleries to, good galleries to seriously be working, was to

educate the public.

I: How did he do that?

HB: As best he could. Writing articles about the artist.

Displaying artists very well whose work he believed in. But this

is why he also had financial problems because he would show the

work, fortuneately because of his training at Kennedy Galleries

had a strong background in American art. So someone would come

and ask him to sell a Frederic Remington, for example, and his

commission on that sale would be enough to keep him going for

several months and he could go ahead and show what he wanted to

show. So in a sense he was like the artist who supports himself

driving a taxi or working in a restaurant to have the freedom to

do exactly what he wanted to do. You know, he was doing the

equivalant with the gallery. The only thing is it is expensive

to keep up the gallery.

I: Because the New York audience is assaulted daily, it must be

one of the most educated in terms of art. Any newspaper has

articles on art, radio stations, the Met has these large banners

outside, I mean it is amazing to go to the Museum of Modern Art,

you can not get in if there is a big show, they sell out. They

sell their tickets at Ticketron.

HB: I know that. I've gone into the Van Gogh in January because

I went early in the morning with the idea...but they held the

show over. I already knew I was on safer ground.

Would you like another waffle because we have more material...

I: No thank you, I don't know where I would put it...

HB: Anyway, you see this is something which is very strange. I

have run into this alot. Even in my Zurich, mWinterthur show,

that I ended up being almost six weeks, I was sent by the

University of Zurich to the first international conference on art

and science and creativity and what is it, organized by the

University of Zurich, and it took place in Cortona, Italy. So I

went with Willy. We were 150 people, from all over the world. It

was very interesting. We were housed in a 16th century

monastery, this was an old Medici town. It was good they housed

us together because in a very short time the artists and

scientists discovered they didn't understand each other all that

well but because we ate together, danced together, played

togeteher, we stayed together and there was no other place to go.

It was very astute on someone's part to lock us up together. We

continued to talk.

I: Now, there were artists from all over the world?

HB: There were more scientists from all over the world and

because the man who organized it was a chemist, there were more

chemists than there were, but we did have musicians, we had

actors, we had dancers and we had painters, and Willy was a

sculptor, of course, and then we even had a Trappist Monk and a

Zen monk, so it was a wonderful, wonderful experience. And in

fact, three people that, oh we even had the head of psychic

healing from Great Britain, and three people that I decided that

I had had enough of, and I decided that I should stop saying that

because all three people made a big point of finding me and

buying me a cappuchino or something from the coffee bar at the

monastery and I ended up talking to them. But we really did

annoy each other tremendously becuase it did turn out that we

were approaching life from two different angles and we sometimes

just could not even get terms defined.

I: What language is everyone speaking?

HB: Well, that was part of the problem. Some people spoke

German, one spoke Japanese, I mean we spoke every language...And

that was one of our problems, they did do translations, but that

was one of the problems because, to me it seemed like an awful

lot was going on in German. I suppose that's because the

organizer was Italian but taught at the University of Zurich, so

his German was fine.

I: Your a black coffe drinker?

HB: That is the milk...the fact that I am not a milk drinker

makes it, that if I try to buy bottled milk than either it goes

bad, either I get a guilty feeling that I am throwing out milk

when people are starving all over the world or I am drinking milk

that I don't want.

I: I only buy this [carton] milk, I love it.

HB: Anyway, so, I started off telling you about...

I: Do you speak German?

HB: No, not a word.

I: But you do speak Spanish, English and ...

HB: Italian, badly. But I understand Italian well. I have

walked from town to town and people would ask me, because I was

walking through peoples fields and such, and they would ask me

questions and half the time I wouldn't know how to get home, but

I could see the town way down below and I just kept praying that

no one had a great big aggressive dog and they didn't.

I: Well, how did you learn Italian?

HB: Because I lived a year in Florence and travelled all over

Italy.

I: When was this?

HB: Italy was actually way back.

I: I am jumping around...

HB: I came from a very ignorant family. And...

I: What do you mean?

HB: Very uneducated.

I: No college background?

HB: Nothing.

I: High School?

HB: My mother, yes, but my grandparents couldn't read or write

and my grandfather was a carpenter on the Trans-Siberian railway.

I was born in Manchuria, so my grandfather was a carpenter on the

Trans-Siberian railway.

I: What nationality were your parents and grandparents?

HB: My mother's side of the family are [sic] Ukranian and

oriental, and the oriental has been mixed in all around. Don't

put this in any official record, my mother is prejudiced now and

doesn't admit the oriental, she did before. But a physical

anthropologist said to me at a seminar on physical anthropology,

and in the middle of the conference, it was a seminar, so it was

round table, he said, you might not know it, but you have a lot

of oriental blood. And after the seminar I went up and asked

him, and he said, "Faces are my specialty," and he said,

"your proportioning shows the oriental blood." He said, "It's

not like you've got the slant eyes and its classic..."

I: No, you've got blue eyes and blonde hair...

HB: Right, he said, "but the proportioning, let me feel your

head," and he said, "Oh, you've the flat spot here and the bump

here" and all of this other stuff. And then he asked me...

I: Do you remember his name?

HB: No, I don't. And he said, "Did you ever have a purple spot

down at the bottom of your spinal column?" And I said, "Yes." And

also hair that went all the way down. I remember as a little

child sitting, you know like you sit on the john and you scratch

in the morning?

I: Yes.

HB: And there was a fine line of hair all the way down my back.

Well all of those are oriental ... the spots disappear and the

air falls off, etc. My dentist, for instance, once said, "You

have a weird mouth." And I said, "Why?" And he said, "Well, I'm

not try8ing to be insulting," He said, "It's that you have the

teeth structure, the shape of the mouth, it doesn't go back like

a Caucasian, it goes back like an Indian." And I said, "Well,

there is a reason for that. I have oriental blood." And he

said, "You know, like, it just puzzled me in you as to why you

had this, for a Caucasian, mouth structure."

I: So, now both your...

HB: On my mother's side it's a mixture. From the Ukraine area,

which you now, all the hoards came through to get to Europe. You

know it's not just the breadbasket, but the highway. And, on my

father's side, an American citizen of Irish, English, Scotch and

French decent, and they met in China. And, this is one of my

favorite... They met in China, they married in Chiangai. Then my

father who was with the U.S. Navy was sent on a world tour with

the China Fleet. And, my mother found herself pregnant and alone

in Chiangai. And my mother was a wetback into China because

there was no work in Manchuria and at that point there were alot

of problems, the Ukranians who had gone back to Russia, and

Russians also, and they hit the border and all of their

possessions were taken away and they were put into concentration

camps because the Russian Revolution of the Communist Party

Government, whatever you want to call it, was zenophobic from the

beginning and they didn't want people coming and saying, "Hey,

wait, it's better out there." So even though they tried to lure

all of their former citizens back, once you got there, they did

the same thing they did in World War II with the prisoner's of war

who were returned and sent to concentration camps. So

fortuneately my mother's family had not gone back. But by then,

everyone was very hostile in the Orient to Russia and there was

some problem in Manchuria and they didn't want any Russians there

or people with any nationality and so if you claimed a passport,

you were going to have to take a Russian passport even though you

were born in Manchuria and then, already many countries wouldn't

let you into the country. So, my mother simply did as the

Mexicans do to the States, she was a wetback. She went illegally

into China where she could work. Well, once she met my father

she didn't become an American citizen but she got papers of

protection. She could travel.

I: Your father was the American...

HB: He was with the Navy in the China fleet, but he went away for

a year. I didn't meet my father until I was about two years old

actually because it was longer than a year. So she decided to go

home, because here she was all alone in Chaingai. And someone

said to me later, because when I met my father we had a big

fight, I was very spoiled, I was the first grandchild, my

grandparents adored me, carried me around the house, was sure I

was going to starve to death because they had faced starvation.

So everytime I opened my mouth they put in a spoonfill of borscht

and I must have been about thirty before I could tolerate

borscht. I finally found out why. So when I met my father, and

my memory goes back very far, and I remember standing below a

table, with beautiful lace tablecloths and everything and telling

my father, this man, that I wanted an apple from the top of the

table in Russian. And, he just kept smiling and saying something

in some language that I didn't understand. The point was I wasn't

getting the apple, and I got everything I wanted, so I didn't

like him. And someone said to me, "Oh, but your father came

back, they don't usually come back." And I said, "But they were

married." [Much laughter] But they had been legally married

which is why my mother could go to Manchuria, because she would

have had trouble crossing the border. Anyway, that was why it

was an ignorant family. Now...*497...came to the United States

right before Pearl Harbor and the rest of the family didn't and

didn't survive. But, my father died in the war shortly after we

arrived. And here was my mother in a country where she didn't

speak the language...

I: Your father stayed in the Orient?

HB: No, the war was then declared, remember he was in the Navy?

I: Where did he go?

HB: He was in the Pacific and he was torpedoed and spent quite a

few days on a raft or whatever they survived in, and so was given

shore leave for awhile, shore duty, and was guarding a military

installation secret weapons which was sabotaged and as a result

of not coming out to find out what was going on and staying in

his post, it was winter and they had cutoff all heat and light

and everything and they thought he'd come out and he didn't until

he got neumonia and as a result of that he died...*519* So, my

mother was all alone in a country she didn't understand and with

me...

I: And no relatives?

HB: No.

I: You were an only child?

HB: Yes. And so, my mother had not been a good student, she just

wasn't interested, she was a very simple person. And, in fact,

after a while we were in San Francisco, and on Sundays, the only

thing we could afford to do was to have a picnic and go over to

the park. And I discovered the DeJong Museum and my mother

didn't know about museums. So, every Sunday I dragged her to the

same museum. She could have made her life more interesting had

she said there were some other museums around here and she was

bored to death. But I was fascinated, you know the Greek

exhibition and everything. Every Sunday after the picnic she'd

say, "What would you like to do now?" And I'd say, " Go to the

museum."

I: Were you in school at this time?

HB: Yes, but they didn't do those things or something, I don't

know what happened, but they didn't do it. And, in fact, my

introduction to art was givin a list and told to memorize these

people's names and I remember that the names included Rembrandt,

Michaelangelo, Titian and you were suppose to memorize what

century and what country and it really seemed like a big bore.

Because you weren't even shown pictures of there work, I just had

to memorize a list of names, nationalities, and centuries and

that was my introduction to art.

I: What year was this, what grade?

HB: Grammar school.

I: Really, my grammar school didn't have anything...At least you

got introduced to the names, that was an improvement to mine...

HB: So, I drew all my life. I do not remember when I started

drawing. I do know that by the time I was seven on a military

base in Norfold, Virginia, the neighborhood childred would come

and say, "Draw me a horse, draw me a cow, draw me a man, draw me

a father, draw me a mother." And, I would draw them and the

reason I remember is I got into terrible trouble because if they

didn't say draw me a father going to work or something, I drew

the figures nude so they could put the clothes on them. Many

kids were using my figures like paper dolls. And, one mother

came and accused me of being a degenerate and told my mother that

I had a filthy mind and all and I listened to this whole

conversation because I couldn't figure out what she was talking

about, I was about seven, because I drew a nude woman. And I

remember trying to tell her, "But your daughter didn't ask for

clothes." And, my mother a little bit bewildered because she

knew I wasn't degenerate, but not knowing how to handle it and

being totally unaware of the fact that everybody was asking me to

draw. At that time I was also writing plays for the neighborhood

gang. Everybody was older than I was, but we would meet on the

street corner, I would rope off a section of line, and they had

to pay a penny to sit in my section. You could have sat on the

other side, but everybody sat in the section you paid a penny for

and they even got crowded, all the adults came. And we would

rehearse all week, and I always made up the plays but my

imagination is always running completely all over everywhere and

so I tell everybody their parts and in between acts I would come

out and describe the scenery, you know, "This is a castle, and

the walls are hung with red velvet and there's a chandelier here

and the lady, and we had no costumes, she's wearing this

wonderful dress in satin, with lace, everything was always very

elaborate and everybody would listen to all these descriptions.

And then they'd come out and do the play and then I'd come out

and tell you what the next scene looked like. And every Saturday

morning all the neighborhood adults came and paid their penny.

I: You are living on the military base, just you and your mother?

HB: Yes, my father's on the boat. I know from a very early age I

was drawing, when I got...I didn't know exactly what a university

was but I wanted to go to a university. Because I was looking

for answers to eternal questions and I thought that maybe they'd

have them at the university and I could find out. Because my

life was... I didn't seem to want what other people wanted, and

by then my mother had remarried and it wasn't a good situation

for me, and life didn't seem worth living if it was going to be

on the terms that I saw around me.

I: Your mother remarried when you were how old?

HB: Thirteen.

I: An American?

HB: Yes.

I: A military person?

HB: Yes.

I: Someone she had met while...

HB: Yes, and a man with whom I never got along, and that is a

comment on both sides because I probably wasn't the child he

wanted, because he couldn't understand me either, and so it was

really miserable. Even with my mother there were problems, she

said that I had frightened here all her life, because she had

wanted a little girl who would play with dolls and instead I

constructed dolls or constructed doll houses and always wanted to

read and she said that she just didn't understand what to do with

me. So it was difficult on both sides. I wasn't the daughter

she wanted, she wasn't the mother that would have encouraged me,

in fact, she discouraged me because she decided the best way to

keep me level headed was to tell me that what ever I did wasn't

very good and that it could be done better. She didn't realized

that you can only take so much of that as a child and you begin

to feel that nothing you do is any good. And I felt very

isolated. And this is why the world was beginning to be a very

unpleasant place for me.

I: Her parents remained in Manchuria?

HB: In Manchuria. And for a long time we went through these

horrendous things trying to arrange secret escapes through the

Red Cross and then they'd fall through. Finally they wrote and

said, "Please don't try any more because it makes our life harder

and ...*672* were watched more, so my mother never saw her

parents again. And her sister's family happened to have been in

the Phillipines and they were caught and ...*677* So, the whole

thing was really difficult for my mother. She had one brother

who had immigrated to the States and we eventually spent a little

time with him, but he had a strange wife and she didn't like us.

And it turned out that she didn't like us because my mother had

married a military man and as far as she was concerned it wasn't

prestigeous enought.

I: Was she an American?

HB: No. She was also from Manchuria, or Russia. I just found

that out two years ago. She is dead now. She was a strange

woman. I lived in their house for a little while but it was so

cold all summer, it was just awful living there, so I decided to

go to the university to find out metaphysical questions,

existential questions at which point I promptly took everything

that anyone said was hard. But I also decided to take an art

appreciation course.

I: Why?

HB: Because I was drawing and I knew nothing about art.

I: You had been to the DeJong for...after Virginia you go to San

Francisco or vice versa?

HB: After Virginia to San Francisco.

I: And why did your mother decide to move to San Francisco?

HB: Because her brother was there. And that was the only person

in the whole world, after my father died.

[End of side A, tape one]

HB: One day I am going to build a house and then I'm going

to build a house. And then I'm going to have, you know, a whole

wing be just a studio and then there will be the wing where I

will live. And in the wing where I am going to have my favorite

works but at this point I have a limited amount of space and I

work slowly and I make up my mind slowly. Every so often, a

piece comes out immediately and I'm even surprised. Like, "oh!

How nice of you to show up!" But, I hang the work and I rotate

it all around the house and they hang in different spots and then

I come back and look at them again. Some pieces have taken ten

years to paint. I paint it. Take it away. Paint it. Put it

away. I know it is not done. I don't know why it's not done but

I know that it's not done. And sometimes the last touch and then

I know its done, and maybe fifteen minutes and it maybe two lines

and the previous attempt might have been two years before. So, I

use my space around me to actually look at the work over and over

before I put it in to exhibition. And I get really annoyed with

myself when its a piece under glass because I try not to frame

them until I think their done, but that's no guarantee that I

will think it's done and I often unframe also. That's why there

are no pieces hanging in my bedroom and that way I can get a good

night's rest because I would otherwise probably be eyeing it and

get up in the middle of the night and make a change. So, in my

room, it's the only room in the house with no work, ever, and

that's where I retreat to write and read and think, but not draw.

And so, I use all the space in the apartment, hang the work so

that I can look at it, criticize it and take it down and add or

do whatever I am going to do. So, one day I would really like to

have a real separation, an area that is just for me and in which

I will hang the work and look at it and all and then an area

where I can enjoy other people's work, too, but so far I haven't

had that happen.

I: I need to just go back to where we left off...

HB: O.K. So, at Berkeley...

I: You remembered!

HB: I remember because I took this art appreciation course...

I: At Berkeley?

HB: Yes. I had a scholarship and the whole bit and my approach

to what I was going to major in was I took every course that they

ever said was difficult with the idea that maybe I would find

what I was looking for and that included chemistry and alot of

unrelated courses.

I: You were open...

HB: Right. And as a result of that I created the first

interdepartmental major at Berkeley because we got to my Junior

year and I was still all over the place and there was a little

thing in the catalogue that said, "If you're an honor's student

and you don't like any of these majors and you can get the

professors to agree you can create an interdepartmental major."

I: What year was this?

HB: I graduated, I took a year off, got married at the end of my

junior year...

I: To a Berkeley student?

HB: No. From Princeton. And he was doing his Ph.D. and teaching

at the University of New Mexico.

I: He was doing his Ph.D. at Berkeley?

HB: No. He was doing his Ph.D. at the University of New Mexico.

He had gotten his Master's at Michigan and then gone to New

Mexico because they would allow him to do his project.

I: How did you meet him?

HB: Travelling alone on a Greyhound bus in the Southwest, the

summer between my Sophmore and Junior year. My parents had been

in Japan and they had returned to Orange, Texas. I hadn't seen

them. And they had not been helping me with college and they

sent me 200 dollars to fly. And I looked at the 200 dollars and

thought, "Fly, and be there in a couple of hours? No Way!" So, I

took off on a Greyhound but down the coast of California and then

programmed myself to go to Carlsbad Caverns**56 and the Grand

Canyon and I met my husband in Santa Fe. That is where we had

met and then I went on with my trip and we got together later.

But my last year of college, in fact I did my last year in one

semester, I took 26 units because my son was due, he was born one

week after I graduated. My classes were my professor and I. And

because they had never had an interdepartmental major the way it

was set up was at the end of that year, a question was submitted

from every department in which I had ventured, except things like

chemistry which I had only taken one or two courses in and I had

to past a written examination with one question from each

department and that examination which took about six to seven

hours to write counted for three units and the unit had to be a

"B" or I had no major. And so we pulled it all under what today

is considered an interdepartmental major, American Civilation.

My theme was actually, "The philosophical, theological,

intellectual ideas that came with the earliest settlers and

continued to have a pervasive influence on the American caracter

and institutions and beliefs."

I: Wow. You weren't just interested in graduating, you had to

suffer first...

HB: That's right. I wanted to learn. I never lost the desire to

find something. So, when I took this art course I took it on the

basis of well, I'd like to know, you know, I'm always drawing and

I'd like to know why these other people--why did they draw? I

didn't really know what an artist was and I had only seen

reproductions. I think I must have only seen bad reproductions

because I could never figure out why people would want to own

paintings looking at the pictures in the books and I hadn't even

seen that many books. So one day the professor designed...first

of all I found the course bewildering...we saw slides and slides

and slides and he kept talking about technique and this and the

other thing and the whole thing did not add up to a painting for

me. I still didn't know why other people painted. I knew why I

did. Less could I understand why other people wanted other

peoples paintings.

I: Did you take painting at Berkeley or just art history?

HB: No. I took, it was an art appreciation course that had a lab

so we had to do some painting but that wasn't the main part of

it.

I: The point was to learn what oil was?

HB: Right. That type of thing. Actually we only worked in water

color. Since we weren`t painters, a watercolor was to give us an

idea of how to make a painting and it didn't involve too much

material or expense or the teacher, you know, suddenly stuck with

these people who were all left-handed and trying to get paintings

out of them, right? It was more to kind of understand what the

process was, how to see. And I was always at odds [?100] with the

professor there also, too, because I didn't see like everybody

else saw it turned out. So, one day he assigned an assignment.

We were to go over to the Palace of the Legion of Fine Arts,

which I didn't even know existed.

I: No, because you only knew about the DeJong!

HB: And compare two landscapes, one by Dabonnier [*106] and one

by Corot in which they had painted roughly the same section of

the Seine as it flowed through the countryside and we had already

seen slides. We were to write a composition as to how these two

painters felt about the scene. Maybe not everybody had the same

assignment, that was mine anyway, I don't remember now whether it

was everyone had the same two paintings...

I: Of the river?

HB: Yes. And describe why these two artists were different and in

how and in what, etc. And somehow in the conversation the

teacher had said, "You should see the originals." And I said

something about, "Well, I have the two slides here." Now,

remember I was on a scholarship. I was working to support

myself. I was taking unbelievably difficult courses all over the

place and he discovered in the course of the conversation that I

had never seen an original painting. And he said, "Well, you

will have to go to the museum." He said, "Because you won't be

able to understand from these slides." Because I couldn't. I

couldn't understand what he wanted me to write about exactly. I

didn't want to go because I didn`t have a car. This was going to

be two or three buses across the Bay, all the way across the

city, etcetera, etcetera. Plus I didn`t see the validity of the

reason as to why I had to see the originals when I had the

slides. So he said, "You have to go. And not only that, you have

to bring back the ticket back, the admission ticket."

I: "To prove to me..."

HB: "you have gone..."

I: He was not stupid.

HB: No, but he had a very belligerent student who started off

across the bay, really upset with him. Because I think it was

also the end of the semester, you know this was the end of the

semester term paper, whatever, and time was running out in all

the courses and here I was going to have to devote so much

time...

I: A whole day...

HB: Yes. So, I went, and I remember that I got to the museum,

still, you know, like grump, grump, grump, grump, grump. And, it

was a cold rainy day, so I was completely bundled up and I stood

in the middle of the hall to take off all this paraphernalia to

check it in and just as I was taking my coat off, I happend to

look up and there was a Manet that was on a panel, standing in

front. I think I stood there a solid hour. In one split second

I understood all the difference because the painting was alive I

knew the painting because it had been in the course. And I could

not believe it. The painting was alive. I suddenly understood

why other people wanted paintings and I stood there, I just

stood, because when I finally came to myself, I realized that I

had been standing there with my coat half off for about an hour

because it was an hour later, and all I had done was look at this

painting for a solid hour. So, then I got my coat and checked

it in and spent the whole day in the museum. I looked at the two

paintings and immediately knew why the paintings had been

paintinged by two different people, but really different people,

that they had not felt the river the same way, it hadn`t meant

the same thing to them and I got an A+ on the paper. I came back

and he said, "This is one of the most brillant pieces I have ever

read about what you saw in these paintings." And I said, "I owe

you many thanks and all of that."

I: "You were right!"

HB: So, then I graduated and had my son and applied for a

Master's in art which threw everybody out of the window like,

"But you have never shown any interest in art how come you want

now a scholarship for a Master's?"

I: Not art history?

HB: No, no art.

I: Fine Arts?

HB: Yes, fine arts. And I won the scholarship but at the same

time the Fulbright for my husband came through and went to Italy.

And so Italy became, because remember, I don't have a background

in art. So I saw my first Giotto without knowing who Giotto was.

I saw the whole...

I: And you saw it in Italy!

HB: And suddenly I saw the work in a country that for visual

arts is one of the greatest countries in the world through the

centuries. You can go to other countries for other things but in

Italy art has always been important. Italy was really my art

school in the sense that just I spent my time looking. And I

still didn't think of myself as an artist. I did some drawings

and such. And I remember, because it was raining and because I

had a little son, during the rainy time I would set up still

lifes in my little apartment and had problems because my son

would eat my still lives while I wasn't looking.

I: They were not so still!

HB: That's right. And so, a painter who happened, I was renting

the carriage house of a villa on the outskirts of Florence it was

called Dui Stradi [*179] and one road went to Sienna and one road

went somewhere else.

I: How do you spell that?

HB: D U...Oh, now I can't remember. It means two roads because

it was at the fork of a road and one went to Sienna and the other

went somewhere else, I don't remember where it went. And it's on

the outskirts of Florence. And there casually happened to be a

painter from California who was renting an apartment in the villa

and when he saw that I painted the same painting over and over

again until I got it the way I wanted it he said, "You are a

painter." He said, "People don't have this kind of patience."

I: Now, you had not painted...

HB: I had painted all my life, but this time I actually had some

brushes thanks to this course because I used to paint with my

fingers and cotten rapped on toothpicks. I remember asking to

take a painting class and my parents not thinking it was

worthwhile. I never had any material. I got ahold of some

watercolors and I got the watercolor onto the paper with any

technique I could and cotton swabs and my fingers turned out to

be the first, you know... And of course, I had had the usual

high school art couses that are required. And there again, the

art teachers were always saying, "Yeah, but you're not doing it

right." I never did it like other people did it, I had my own

interpretation of things. In that sense, Italy was really,

that professor at Berkeley, and then immediately I went to Italy

and Italy was my art school.

I: Did you take any training in Italy?

HB: I never had any training, I had a little son remember? I was

very busy.

I: Your husband was doing research?

HB: Yes. And I was helping with that. And also he didn't really

care whether I painted or not. He wanted me to help him.

I: After all it was "your" Fulbright. [Helen had told me in a

previous conversation that she had written the grant proposal for

her husband.]

HB: Right. And I didn't realize it at the time, he didn't want

me to have an independent life. It was nice if I painted while

he was writing because it kept me out of his hair. I wasn't

restless saying "could we go see this or could we go see that."

But it would have been just as helpful had I been passionate

about knitting or anything else it was sort of like, "Oh, how

nice that you are occupied." The way that I really got a start

was we came back from Florence and we went to live in Indiana and

one day my husband saw an announcement in the paper that a paper

had won a scholarship to go study in Florence and he said we

should call him up because we can give him addresses, etcetera.

So, we called this man up and he turned out to be a black

painter. In fact, I'm not sure we even knew he was a painter.

We didn't. He had won a scholarship. And it turned out that he

had won a Tiffany which is for minority groups. And so he came

in and we were having dinner and we found out he was a painter

and my husband said something like, "Well, you know my wife is a

painter." And, of course, I wanted to go through the floor and

none of my paintings were up, my husband didn`t think they were

worth anything, reproductions were on the wall and so, his name

was Bill Majors, and what could he say except, "I'd like to

see your paintings." And I said, "Oh, no. They are put away and

it's too difficult." Etcetera. I wasn't about to bring anything

out and show it to a professional painter. Well the whole thing

backfired. My husband said, "Well, I'll get them." And he got

them and I wanted to go through the floor or be someplace else.

And it backfired. He said, "Man, if your wife can paint like

this with no training how come you're not ***241***. This woman

can really paint." He said, "I don't know what you do but this

woman..." And he meant it. He went out. He bought me my first

set of oils. He came the next afternoon with a canvas and oils.

Because I had only painted in casein and water base and he said,

"You really are handling watercolor as you would handle oil."

So, he came with a set of oils. He set up a still life in the

basement. He took my two children and said, "We are going to the

park and we'll be back in four hours, you paint this." And he

had about two weeks left before he was to go.

I: Had he been a teacher of art?

HB: No. No. But he had an interesting background, too. He had

been a juvenial delinquent. And at fifteen he got tuberculosis in

the form that Blacks get it which is not the lungs it is like the

ganglius* and he had been in the sanatorium. And he had these

scars all over his body that looked like, and it was true, like

somehting had burst from the inside out. Because these ganglius

would burst. Well the year he was in the hospital, and he was

all of fifteen his mother came one time to see him. And he was

so bitter anyway and he so hostile that they could hardly handle

him in the santorium and a social worker came by with paints,

because you can do that while you are lying in bed. And that was

how he started.

I: Wow. Have you kept in touch with him?

HB: No.

I: Do you know anything about where he is showing?

HB: No. Not a thing. Because what happened was he went off to

Italy and then I came to Mexico on a three week's vacation and

left my husband here. He went back and I didn't go back. I

kept the two children.

I: By this time you have two children? You and your husband

come here for vacation with the children?

HB: Yes. My second son was born six weeks after I got to

Indianapolis and then two years later, we had actually been in

Indianapolis a year before he saw this announcement and we went

for six weeks vacation to Mexico with the children and I never

returned. I simply didn't return, I stayed.

I: This was that trip?

HB: Yes.

I: And your children were young?

HB: Yes. At that point, they are twenty-one months apart. So one

was, let's see '58, '59, '60, '61, one of them was three and a

half and the other was two. And so I stayed in Mexico. And I

think my ex-husband didn't give anyone my address because I don't

know anyone from there and I didn't have their addresses either

and then life became very, very complicated because...

I: Now where are your two children?

HB: They grow up in Mexico but the first child, the younger child

who had been sick on the way down turned out to have

tuberculosis. So I was in a country where I didn't speak the

language, had no money, no money from my husband, had written to

my family and told them I was on drugs and he didn't even know

where I had left the children and please not to help me because

that would make me come home sooner. So, when I asked for help,

my parents whom as you know from my mother I had always been

weird and difficult and my step-father I'd never gotten along

with, and they believed my husband. And something like fifteen

years later I asked my mother but you knew me from my whole

childhood and I was always a very loving, responsible child,

alright I didn't play with dolls and I had this intellectual

curiosity that you didn't share and how could you possibly think

that I was on drugs when I didn't even drink? Why didn't you at

least give me a chance, a break, put a little confidence in me,

you knew me.

I: So, you were not in contact with anyone?

HB: No. And so, now I realized I could have gone to the Indiana

telephone directory and looked up some of these addresses, but of

course at that point I had a desparately sick child who had been

sick since he was born. I was told he was not be a year old when

he was born but now had tuberculosis which was followed by

rhumatic fever, which was followed by double-lobrin* pneumonia

twice within three months. His medical bills were more than all

of our expenses together and I was earning it all through

teaching at a job which gave me my papers but which paid no

salary practically at all and private English classes and I was

up all night with him.

I: What were you teaching?

HB: English. I was able to get my papers on the basis of that.

I: And moonlighting private lessons?

HB: Right, to make up the difference because when it was

discovered it was tuberculosis I was told I had to have a certain

kind of apartment. Wood floors, it couldn't be ground floor, it

had to be near trees, lots of sunlight, because my sons health

depended on it. So, my first apartment cost 900 pesos a month

and my salary was thirteen hundred and I also had to have a

fulltime maid to be at home.

I: And 900 pesos a month then was...

HB: It was an expensive apartment but remember it had to be on

the second floor, it had to be near trees, it had to have

sunlight and it had to be near the school where I was working so

I could come back and forth and check him every four hours. The

job I found was in the Zona Rosa so the apartment had to be in

the Zona Rosa too.

I: It wasn't at the Institute [Instituto Mexicano y

Norteamericano]?

HB: No. It was at a school where metro Insurgentes is now.

I: So, it no longer exists?

HB: Yes. They moved.

I: The first few years of my life here in Mexico were rather

wild. I didn't sleep. In fact, when we finally got over the

hump, he was about six. The next six months I fell asleep

everywhere. If not in motion, I would fall asleep. I literally

would fall in my soup. I was making up for six years of non-

sleep. I learned that I had to keep moving. I simply couldn't

get enough sleep. One of the family jokes is in Cuatlo* one

time, I got halfway out of the swimming pool one time and fell

asleep on the edge of the swimming pool, half in and half out.

Just fell asleep. I fell asleep everywhere for six months.

I: Stress.

HB: And the relief of finally being able to sleep because before

then, in addition to the fact that I was working ten, eleven, twelve

hours a day, during the night Bret wouldn't be breathing

correctly. I'd be getting him up. Putting on the vaporizer.

Holding him in an upright position. One year we went thirteen

times for oxygen to the hospital. I'd be three days on benches in

the waiting room. And so it was really terrifically fierce...

I: So, he eventually got healthy.

HB: Oh yeah.

I: For how many years was it?

HB: Six. Six years of his life. About the fourth year he got

better. What happened was, after the double lobrin* pneumonia, he

had to spend two months in Acapulco. And every weekend, a friend

stayed with him, I paid all the bills. Every weekend my younger

son and I would catch the midnight bus to Acapulco on Friday

night and arrive at dawn. Take the midnight bus back, Sunday

night. I never thought I could get so sick of Acapulco, but I

got very sick of Acapulco. But the friend who took him was only

21 years old. He was the only free person. First of all I

wanted to see my son. His name was Peter Kramer, and I

understand he has gone on to become a songwriter and is quite

successful, I've lost track of him. But, he was here on a

vacation, we had met and he was free. He adored Bret and he

agreed to take him down. And I paid all the bills and found a

place to say and everything, very lovely rooms in a home. But

apart from the fact that I needed to see my son every weekend to

be sure how he was doing, he couldn't manage one week's worth of

money at a time. By the time I would have arrived at dawn on

Saturday, their last meal would have been lunch on Friday. No

matter what amount of money, lunch on Friday was as far as it

would stretch. They were always waiting at the bustop very

hungry!! Waiting for breakfast because they would have had no

supper.

I: Bret was about how old.

HB: Bret was born October 31, 1959. So Bret is now 28. At that

point he was four.

I: These must have been great trips for him.

HB: Bret stayed down there. Bret was the two months in Acapulco

with my friend Peter Kramer. Jeffrey and I would go down and

meet them on weekends. And it was nice except it was very

exhausting, also then I would go straight from the bustop to

work practically.

I: Was it Acapulco that really helped Bret's health?

HB: What happened was he needed to be at sealevel. The doctor

said he must get to where it is both damp...Now for the recovery.

He had gotten well from the tuberculosis, then he went into

Rhumatic fever. He recovered from rhumatic fever and got double

lobrim* pneumonia. As soon as he got back, he got asthma and not

a psychosomatic, everything now irritated his system. We went

through another two years of just sheer nightmare. He was born

with an incomplete metabolism system so that is why he had been

sick from birth. Then we had two more years until he got the

asthma under control. Now he is completely healthy. He's an

athlete and everything else. Keeping him going the first few

years of his life were very difficult. They were...

I: Did they both grow up speaking Spaish?

HB: Yes.

I: That is their first language.

HB: Both languages are their first language because we spoke

English at home, I wanted them to keep their English.

I: I have a question. When you first came to Mexico and stayed,

you had not been here before?

HB: I had been here before for about a week in 1956.

I: Right before you were married? And, why was that? You lived in

California, you were close? It was a school trip?

HB: No. It was a summer when I was travelling alone. This was on

the 200 dollars also.

I: How far did you get into Mexico?

HB: Mexico City. Because when I met my husband, he was acting in

Summer Stock and the people, after the performance were going to

come to Mexico. And he had asked me to come with the group. I

had gone on to see my parents and I realized that, "I need to see

that man again." So, then I sent a wire to the theater in

Albuquerque saying, "I'll come." So that was how I ended up

coming to Mexico for the first time. We drove to Monterrey and

flew from Monterrey to Mexico City and flew back and drove the

rest of the way. That is why I had been in Mexico. That had

been why we came on a vacation. We both had liked it so much

then that it was, "Well, let`s go down for a longer trip now."

And that was how we came down.

I: When you came the second time for a six week vacation, had you

made contacts at all before?

HB: I had one friend, Margaret Randall*. Margaret Randall and I

were very good friends in Albuquerque. We used to bake bread

together, do our laundry together, all kinds of things. And she

was now living in Mexico. But that wasn't the motive. In the

sense that, I was looking forward to seeing her also and it was a

plus that she was here. She and I had been very, very close. In

fact when I was in Italy, my husband left me at one point and

then came back and when he left me, Meg originally was on her way

to Spain, and I thought I will just go live where she's living

and she will show me how to live in a foreign country earning a

living. By then, I already had my younger son. But she never

made it, she stayed in New York again writing poetry, became

famous as a poet. Came to Mexico, married a Mexican. In fact,

the one thing that miffed me was she sold our correspondence to

some university and its in some collection and I thought, "Oh my

goodness, that was personal correspondence."

I: She sold the correspondence...

HB: Yes. Not just mine. She sold her correspondence. But my

letters were in their with her correspondence.

I: And they are at UNAM?

HB: No. They are at some university in the States.

I: She had become a well-known poet?

HB: Well, she started the magazine El Corno Emplumada [sic

Emplumado?] which was the first bilingual poetry magazine. She

and her husband, the well-known poet, Sergio Mondregon* started

this magazine literally on a shoestring, they were desperate

every month for getting the publication out. Part of one their

fundraising at this point was to sell the correspondence because

this type of magazine had not been done in Mexico and it was

beautifully done and very well done in which they published

English-speaking poets and Spanish-speaking poets and translated

the poetry so that both audiences could appreciate both sides.

They did some outside work. Hermann Hesse actually gave them a

new piece to publish. Then in '68 when the whole problem came

with the students and such, she published a very courageous

denunciation of the government's treatment of the students.

I: In the Plumed Horn?

HB: Yes, and therefore, had to leave Mexico and ended up in Cuba.

I: With her husband?

HB: Originally with her husband. And they have since separated.

She stayed on in Cuba until very recently. She became president

of the writer's union which was very close to Castro, became very

pro-Castro, very militant. Meg was always very passionate about

whatever she engaged herself in and not really able to see both

sides too clearly. She always saw it very much as black and

white, never...And continued to see so. She was down in

Nicaragua. She had an exhibition of photographs she took there.

And now has returned to the United States and is teaching in New

Mexico and is controversial. An article was just out in Time

Magazine this year in which they say she should be deported

because she gave up her U.S. citizenship very violently,

denouncing the United States. But that's Meg's character, it is

always black and white. And consequently, it can go black and

white the other way, I mean when she has a change about. I

happen to know her as a very, very fine human being and all of us

have the areas that we don't handle all that rationally, right?

I: We don't admit them.

HB: And, she broke the friendship with me because I said, and the

friendship broke, I mean I helped her with trying to get out of

the country and other individuals and...

I: Get out of which country?

HB: This country when the situation...and I said to her that I

didn't think that Castro was a god and that when Castro murdered,

or tortured or imprisoned it was just as wrong as when Bautista

or Franco or any other human being did those things and that was

enough to make me an arch-conservative, reactionary and off her

list. And that was the end of our friendship. She refused to

have anything more to do with me. I sent letters to Cuba which

were never answered. Sent messages with friends who travelled

and I never, ever, ever since then have gotten anything back. I

and John Birch ***571B, there we were, I, Franco and every other

reactionary arch-conservative.

I: When you first came down she was your only contact...

HB: My only friend.

I: And she was very much involved with the magazine at that time.

When did you start painting down here?

HB: Well, I never stopped painting, I had always continued to

paint.

I: You had so many extra hours during the day!

HB: Oh, yes right! I found that if I didn't paint, I got sick.

As soon as I would start painting, because I realized that my

desire to paint was complicating my life. That if I could give

that Up there would be a lot less stress and so I would try and

give it up for three months at a time and I would get sick. And

the only thing that ever took to cure me was to start painting

again. So, I decided it was really important to paint. What I

started doing was, I would try to go to bed when the children did

and then get up around **595 for an hour or two and then go back

to bed just so I kept painting. It was like preserving my

sanity. It was very necessary.

I: Did you ever go to school to study it?

HB: No, I've never gone to school.

I: When did you start to meet other painters?

HB: Very quickly because several things happened. As a result

of Meg I met Arnold Belkin at dinner at her house and other

painters and as a result of meeting an Argentinian poet whose

last name I don't remember I had so much trouble with his first

name, it was Izkiel*611 at that point...

I: How do you spell that?

HB: Like in the Bible. And he came over one day after we had met

at Meg's for dinner and spoke no English and I literally spoke no

Spanish except to get on the bus and that type of thing and he

came over and he through me in a total panic because the thought

of having him alone in the apartment with nobody who could speak

both languages just made me so nervous. But he mentioned party

and I agreed to go to the party because I thought well maybe

there'll some people there who speak both languages. So we went

to the party and at the party I literally met everybody. I met

Corzas. I met Franny Rabel, Belkin was there. It was in Corzas'

studio. I met Vita Giorgi. I met Leonel Gongora. I met, Cuevas

I think was there. Everybody was there and they did speak both

languages. The other thing was, I had already discovered the

event called "openings." I had never heard of an opening. I also

discovered that anyone was welcomed and since I loved paintings

and I was working all day long, and my weekends were for the

children basically but school at that time you had to work on

Saturday mornings, too. My only social life, remember I was

living right in the Zona Rosa, all the galleries were in the Zona

Rosa at that time. My only social life when Bret wasn't ill was

to go to openings but I never spoke to anybody. I may have been

the only person looking at the paintings because I didn't know

anyone. It wasn't a social event, I really went to see the

paintings. So people go used to seeing my face. One time...

I: It would have been then very unusual, a much smaller group and

an unusual face. Still, now it would be unusual but less so.

HB: One night I was at an opening at Sosa Gallery...

I: Asosa?

HB: Sosa. It doesn't exist anymore. It was on Reforma. He was

the first person to show Francisco Toledo.

I: What was his first name? Franciso?

HB: Something like that. I was at the opening and a man

approached me and he said, "Listen, we don't know who you are but

we've noticed that you show up at all the openings and we are

giving a party for the painter afterwords and we've all been over

here huddling in the corner and decided we would like to know you

and would you like to come and the party is just around the

block."

I: And which painter was this.

HB: I don't remember which painter it was at that point it ... I

was so startled and thought it was so nice and hadn't even

realized that people had been noticing me. I would simply come

quietly, had maybe half an hour to be at the openings, would look

at the pictures intensely, the paintings, the sculpture, whatever

and go home and I never said a word to anyone. I would just

look, smile and go home, and had not been aware that people had

been observing me. As a result of that party, I met many of the

foreigners who were working here because the party was at Jay

Wasserman's house whose now the director of the English-speaking

theater workshop and it was Jay Wasserman who spoke to me and his

wife at that time was Barbara Wasserman who is now in Florida and

is a very fine painter. And as a result of that party I met

Maxwell Gordon, Norman, I can't think of Norman's last name right

now he just died last year, but a lot of the foreign art colony.