Dennis Hollingsworth

Henry's Opening

Henry Taylor has a show at Sister Gallery, let's check it out:

It was a crazy night. Henry was on fire.

Henry's a people person, he could be a politician. Easily. I've watched him. He has taught me by example: he focuses on what is good about a person and lets them know that he sees it. Loudly. Repeaedly. Graciously.

But all this sounds too breezy.

How about this:

One night a while ago, Henry gave me a ride across town to a show. I didn't know him too well at the time. The word was that he was a good painter in ChinaTown, everybody's studio had his poster on their walls.

Respect.

He had a friend of his along with us and he introduced me by describing Tossa: "Their place in Spain is crazy great. You know what I mean? I mean, it's almost boojie, but it's cool tho. You know what I mean?" I thought, hmmm. Bourgeois versus bohemian. Have these guys chosen sides? Do they really believe in this 19th century dichotomy? Then I asked Henry about his history. I wanted to hear it from him and not second hand.

He told me about growing up in Central California. I went to undergrad school in San Luis Obispo, so I have a feel for what he was describing. Ventura, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, MoorPark. Central California. He painted as long as he could remember and in time, fortune smiled upon him and he gained the nurturing support of a patron who was smart enough to urge him to go to art school.

CalArts.

"What was it like for you there? I've heard it was an egghead place. How did you deal with the verbage? " He said he didn't. He said it was pretty intimdating for him at the time. He listened more than he talked. Moreover, he spoke with his painting and installations. They must have seen and respected the street in him. Henry's been to the places others timidly dare to dream about.

(A semi-not-safe-for-work glimpse of heaven here)

Later, I heard one his fellow students describe a church that he built behind the school. They would bar-b-que and party there. CalArts has a legend for debauchery ...real or not... a topic only described furtively whenever I had occassionaly found a witness to provide testimony.

(I think this might be a self portrait of Henry here. He wears the jester's cap but his eyes are wary. The street is like that. And he has no mouth, no voice. High theory art dialog has a tendency to wipe off a mouth now and then. Henry doesn't need it, especially in these times when world historical-cultural tectonic plates are shifting and crushing the coordinates the social structures worldwide. Better to see more than one speaks.)

The real nugget came when he told me of his work in a mental institution.

Ten years, he was an hospital orderly. I wish I could recount the stories he told me of those days, but 'm afraid that I would maul them. I can write of my response, though. I remember visualizing "One Flew over the Cukoo's Nest". Strange, that my first thought was of a movie. More vividly, I remembered my dad, who succumbed to clinical depression in his last days. I know the smells, the colors, the sounds, the texture of the air, the sadness, the fear, the way memories of better days flood into the wretched, horrific new-now... and the suffocating pall of the bitter juxtaposition of it all... feelings that one would only want muffled in the distance of time.

Henry told me of the people. He loved the people. As he described some of them, his eyes wold tear up as we drove across town. One woman would get in his face and call him a nigger. A racist or simply out of her mind... one or the other or both? Tourette's? I said something like "...that must have been hard..." but no, Henry said that she was a good person. There was affection in his voice. I could tell that Henry saw past the abberations to the soul trapped inside the madness. The tears were for the prisoners.

Empathy.

Henry is an empath.

A good man.

Later, I heard stories from mutual friends about the former inmates of the menatl hospital who would look Henry up after they were released. henry would take them out and buy them gifts. Clothes. Jackets. Things to help them readjust to the world. Henry has seen the hard edge. He's been there.

Henry is an empath. A good man.

(This is a little one. It could fit in the palm of our hand.)

Henry is an empath. A good man.

One last story.

The other night, a constellation of ChinaTown regulars happened to find ourselves belly up to the bar. The conversation was hot and skat and everyone was enjoying each other's company. The night stretched into the wee-I mean-wee hours where everyone who was left knew they had just burned the next day down - and now that all that remains is the task of recovering from the liberties taken with such relish that spent evening. Bleary. Inhibitions demolished, restrained only from similarly destroyed motor control.

Henry got into my face. I thought, what's this? A confrontation? A vainglorious mano-a-mano peacock strut? Henry's nose was less than an inch from mine, so much so that his eyes went all Picasso, Cubist period. Blinking black ovals slid one atop the other and still Henry got closer that our noses bumped and his eyes merged into one big glistening blinking Cyclopian orb. Was he going to kiss me? Was I going to learn another, hidden side of Mr. Taylor? Or was he going to riff in another great stream of consciousness free verse? I was hoping for that.

I stood my ground, game for what ever would come (within limits). My eye must have looked the same to him, Cyclop to Cyclop. he began to tell me of his cousin. A woman he loves, a childhood friend. he told me of the connections in the family and how everyone loved her so. He spoke of how much of a good woman she was. Then he spoke of the cancer that took her away in her youth. His gigantic eye was glistening, widening. He missed her so much. He missed her so much. The eye was wet, tears streamed. "You've got to remember these people, Dennis!" Tears wet everything, his face a river delta. "You've got to pray for these people, Dennis!" I held him but I didn't dare break the Cyclopian orb. "You've got to pray for them! You have to remember them!" I thought of the people I have lost in the past decade. I thought of the people he must have helped in the mental hospital. "You're right Henry." I envied his capacity to release like that, but two of us going down that road is too much. I checked myself with a trace of shame or regret, I don't know which. One of us had to be the emotional designated driver. I tried to comfort him but I know that I came up short. I made a silent vow to find a way to pray someday, to do it right. Henry slumped back and went into another part of the room in a heap.