From my first inspiring encounter with the sparkling particulate matter streaming through my childhood bedroom window, curiosity with light and a demand to “know” has been the impulse that guides my direction. My father encouraged those intuitive impressions helping me build something concrete and definite in my mind. He became the greatest inspiration in my life.
A first generation Armenian American, seeking foremost the shared good in humanity, Dad was filled with a quiet benevolence and infectious investigative zeal for life. It didn’t matter who you were, where you lived, or where you came from. It was what you saw from where you stood. He had been a world traveler, a sea-plane pilot, spoke four languages (his first was only Armenian, then English, French, and Spanish), was a self-taught student of science, chemistry, and alchemy, held three world patents in chemistry and engineering, and was a veteran of four businesses. After ten years owning and operating a hotel/ranch he built high in the Andean Mountains of Argentina, Dad returned to the United States, met and married my Mom, and after three years and the birth of my sister Karen, settled in Jersey City, New Jersey, to open a neighborhood dry-cleaning store. It was a skill he learned as the youngest son of the first large dry-cleaning plant in America created and run by Armenian immigrants.
When I was about six or seven years old, I remember telling my father I was bored. It was too early for my friends to come out and play. I didn't feel like riding my bike. I had used up all the “good colors” in my giant box of crayons, and my whining was growing more demanding. The toothpick in my father’s mouth began to slowly and suspiciously swirl. Though the pile of pressing was great, he set about gathering an assortment of items. I followed behind. Shirt cardboard from a high shelf, a battery from the counter’s drawer, a stapler, scissors from the sewing room, and a lightbulb from the supply cabinet were placed upon the pressing machine’s worktable. Added to the mix was a pull-chain and a small metal “thingy” from the mini tin drawers above the button box. After a few silent moments, he fitted a strange object on top of my head and pulled the chain dangling by my ear. The bulb on the flat surface of the graduation style hat lit up! He called it a “thinking” cap. I was delighted and spent the next few hours pulling the chain on and off until the bulb no longer lit, wondering the whole time, “How did Daddy know there was a thinking cap hidden in the store?”
My father gently instilled the discipline of analyzing the nature of any and every rising circumstance no matter how convoluted, difficult, or vague it may or may not appear to be. He saw an opportunity for discovery and learning everywhere. His innate respect for Earth, the environment, and a commitment to working in attunement with Nature’s laws was the impetus for his continuing scientific interests. (It also obligated him to develop environmentally safer dry-cleaning methods — an objective that continued to frustrate and fascinate!) But mostly, Dad delighted in nurturing the potential of that which was yet without discernible form. Even a seemingly insignificant pebble making its way inside his shoe could unexpectedly manifest a personality, quirk, secret back story, or dream! Between the racks of bagged or ready to be bagged clothes, beside the spotting table, hampers, pressing machines and puff irons, a funny story or a discussion of enlightenment could be prompted by the drop of a hanger. Science, the environment, mysticism, the origin of the Universe, or the ancient invisible community of tiny beings who lived behind the pressing machine, loved Turkish coffee, and came out only after hours to hold festivals and drink their precious black brew, were common topics.
From a very early age, the tools of this amazing teacher, were always available to me. What did not exist was imagined. What was not available was improvised. The store and storage areas became my workshop where my father taught me glass blowing, welding, wood-burning, tile work, plastic molding, and pottery. He patiently instructed me in leather-work and how to correctly sew my designs. There was also silk-screen printing, the science of refining metals, assorted engineering projects, and the creation of a small green house for cultivating plants. He even supported and indulged my fascination with precious and semi-precious jewelry design, its production, and the construction of high-end jewelry store window display. Endless sketch books were filled and canvases painted. My first “plein-air” painting studio consisted of a portable wooden easel, the sewing-room’s metal folding chair, paints, pallet, and one of Dad's precision chemical squirt-bottles, repurposed for water mixing. Everything was set up on the long cement ledge in front of the green picket fence separating the back of our store’s property from the four-story apartment building next-door.
Countless things have changed. The green picket fence has been painted over many times. The cement ledge is covered with seasonally changing flowers. A fish pond fills the area formerly occupied by my easel, and I now have three art studios. I’ve spent nine years in private art school, have degrees in commercial art and photography, have taken postgraduate courses in air-brushing, and have transitioned into the digital world of art and photography. My Dad and Mom have passed and our little dry-cleaning store has long closed. But this most prolific school, the preeminent place of learning, where Dad directed our lives with love and consonant purpose, still exists. When I get stuck or run out of the “good colors”, I slowly swirl my mind’s toothpick, remember the community of tiny beings living behind the pressing machine, and reach for the pull-chain on my marvelous invisible thinking cap. I may have to pull it once or twice, but it still appears bright in my mind! Perhaps because I never really took it off!
I’m glad to have you visit this website to share a bit of what I have experienced, imagined, and created. My hopes are you find something here that sparks a quickening in your heart and contributes to your personal journey towards Peace Profound! ~ Gail*
…Oh, and please be sure to come back to my website, as fresh content and collections are always being added!
