Margaret Gornick

I grew up in National City. It is a small town south of San Diego. It has suffered from an inferiority complex for years as it is surrounded by other cities and has no way to expand. San Diego has had its own issues with inferiority. So while San Diego booms into the millions, National City remains at about 50,000 people. When I was growing up, National City was even smaller. But even if it were a small city, it had resources that upon reflection were extraordinary. One of National City's treasures was Margaret Gornick. She had an artist studio in her garage where she painted and more importantly she taught.

She had about a dozen desks where students would come and learn to paint. From the very first day, we painted with oils. No crayons, watercolors or pastels. Oil paint, the real thing. Just like real artists. We didn't paint by numbers, we painted by the instruction of Mrs. Gornick. If we had difficulty with a detail, she would come and show us how to do it. Most of my pictures have her hand in them. I can't take all the credit for these pictures I painted but that was how we learned. Hands on. She would teach us about color, light and mixing paints. We had to paint color wheels. She taught us how to move the eye to the center of a picture.

In addition to teaching us the techniques of painting, Mrs. Gornick would teach us art appreciation. Most all of what I know about fine artists I learned from her. When I had art history classes in school, they were a breeze as I already had been exposed to most of the artists we studied.

When I was in high school I went to Europe with a church group. We saw all of Europe in 10 days. REALLY. Ok, so we tried. Anyway, when we reached Florence, the first site we went to that morning was the church Il Duomo that had at that time, Michelangelo's last Pieta. We walked as a group up to the statue which back then, had no screen, no barrier, we had total access to the work. Since it was unfinished you could see the chisel marks left by Michelangelo. It was like we was coming back tomorrow to finish it. So out of the rough rock, you see Christ and Mary and perhaps Michelangelo himself coming out of the rock. I stared. I circled the work, looking from top to bottom, side to side, totally lost in the marble. Before I knew it, I was alone and an hour had passed. My group had left and I was in a strange city without a clue where I was, needless to say, I found my way back to our youth hostel after a day exploring Florence on my own. Now, you may ask, why did I bring this up in the middle of my story about Mrs. Gornick? Because it was from her that I learned of Michelangelo. I learned how to appreciate his work. Appreciate it in a way far beyond the physical depiction of people he accomplished.

In 1960 I started studying with Mrs. Gornick. I was 8 years old. I studied with her for four years. I quit because I thought I had better things to do which wasn't true. In 1960 we had that great political campaign between Nixon and Kennedy. Mrs. Gornick started a painting of the new president before the election. By the first of November 1960 she had everything finished except the face. She had painting the body standing in front of the Rose Garden and the White House. After the election, she painted in the face of John Kennedy.

Mrs. Gornick died long ago, but her work lives on in all her students. I have found an art dealer on the internet that claims to sell her paintings so perhaps, you can buy an original Gornick. I would like to see that painting of the president again. Most of these paintings I did in 1963. The clown is my last painting with Mrs. Gornick, and like President Washington's famous portrait it is unfinished. A few years ago I went to New Orleans. I saw patios that looked like my painting. I am forever grateful that my mother sent me to learn from Mrs. Gornick.

In Praise of Cookie

When I was a very little kid, my brother had a dog named Cookie.  My brother would call Cookie, "Precious".  My mom got mad at him for using such language for a dog. My brother soon left for boarding academy and I assumed the role as Cookie's owner.  Cookie was a mutt.  She was the best of what muttness is.  She was a medium size dog, black with a white stripe down her nose. She was as smart as a dog can get. If she were any smarter she would become a human and cease being a dog. When I was about two years old I noticed that when Cookie had to go she would just squat and let it loose.  That seemed to be a better method than holding the mess in a diaper.  I copied her style but it didn't go over with my mother.

When I was older I would take her with me when I was given an errand to go to the corner store and pick up some food item.  The corner store's real name was Meese's Market but we never called it that.  Anyway, Cookie would walk with me down Palm Avenue always staying by my side.  We didn't use a leash in those days.  When I would get to the store, Cookie would sit at the entrance and wait.  She never would come in the store because I told her not to.  Often the butcher would give me a knuckle bone for her and when we would get back home, Cookie would spend hours gnawing on the bone until it was clean. The other dog we had was Candy.  Candy was a purebred cocker spaniel.  Candy liked to sleep in the road which wasn't healthy.  Candy was stupid and didn't care.  Palm Avenue didn't have sidewalks in those days and the side of our home was lined with olive trees.  Candy loved the dirt under the trees. I think she liked the mess the olives made as they rotted in the dirt.  Cookie would never allow Candy to have her knuckle bone.  Even if all the meat were cleaned off and the bone had no value, Candy was not allowed to touch it.  If she dared, she paid for it.  Cookie didn't put up with any guff. Occasionally the butcher would give me two knuckle bones and Candy would get her own. That didn't happen too often as I didn't want to appear greedy.  Knuckle bones didn't costs anything in those days.  Sometimes if I were lucky, I would have a dime to buy a pack of Hostess Twinkies.  They tasted better back then.  I can't say for sure if they were better, but the Twinkies I have eaten today don't seem to taste like what I remember.

Sometimes one of my father's patients would come to our home to get some medicine.  I remember this one patient who had a sore toe and was in need of some opiate to take the pain away.  He opened the gate and limped up to our porch.  He had a real exaggerated limp as to emphasis the dire pain he had in his toe. As he neared the porch, Cookie came out of nowhere and suddenly the sore toe was cured and the man galloped out of the yard. He had no limp at all. We all had a great laugh of how Cookie cured the toe.  Cookie loved to chase cats. That was one of her great joys.  Once she took after a cat but the cat didn't run.  The cat was a lean tom that didn't see the need to flee the oncoming dog. Cookie walked away from that encounter with a scratch down her nose.

My father always wanted a Saint Bernard so he bought one.  Cookie had a hard time playing second fiddle to the big dog and soon started wasting away.  When Cookie died, I dug a hole in the back yard and buried her with full honors. I wonder if the current owners know they have a pet cemetery on the property. When my brother got married he called his wife "Precious". My mom got upset because she remembered he called his dog that.