WHY TO SELL THE GATES .
THIS LETTER IS DUE TO MY APRIL 2010 NEW ORLEANS TRIP EXPERIENCE AND THE EFFORT TO PLACE THE GATE SCULPTURE ARTIFACT THERE. IT IS IN RESPONSE TO THE LETTER OF INVITATION FROM Mr. MANJARRIS ORGANIZATION, AS I SEE IT, THAT PRESENTS ITSELF AS A NON-PROFIT AND WHY THAT EXPERIENCE HAS MADE IT CLEAR TO ME I CANNOT OFFORD THE PHILANTROPY THAT I HAVE BEEN ATTEMPTING FOR THESE 11 YEARS.
Link
My priority has been the science of what the Gates sculpture represents. The Gates were originally commissioned in 1922. This date 1922 was told to me by Mr. Sutton, the chief Cathedral administrator at that time, who first hired me about 1990 He was a serious student of Cathedral history and the previous Arc-Bishop . While, for nearly 10 years , I was a general repairman on call and had a master set of keys to nearly the entire facility except for the offices and Cardinal’s Quarters .
I was given the Gates artifact in May of 1999. See, Los Angeles Times January 31, 2001; February 1 & 6
Fast forward : ...In November of 2009 I had a meeting in Atlanta GA. with Ochberg-Fellows journalism society founder, Dr. Frank Ochberg MD who is a Freudian Psychiatrist and my honorable former boss.
1979-80, Link We meet to discuss the possibilities for public placement of the Gate artifact to include the project poem mission statement of my non-profit organization which was formed in 2008. He invited me to his home in Lansing, Michigan in Feb. 2010 to discuss it further.
Dr. Ochberg then introduced me by email (March 2010)to Deirdre Stoelzle Graves who is a director of a journalism group called the Dart society, for helping PTSD Folks ( medication and group support) for various aspects of trauma and misfortune. I asked her if I could visit in-person and she invited me to meet with her and her husband at their home in a very rural part of Wyoming for 3 days .
I made a 10k donation in March of 2010 (Link)as agreed, for journalism coverage to give the Gate story an update, dignity and clarity in order to help find a placement and She agreed. She then informed me after I made the donation that she could not do a story because it would be a conflict of interest since she had accepted the donation. She then said that she had lived in New Orleans (NOLA) and how much she loved it and she had many friends and professional associates there she had not seen in years and felt NOLA and the gate artifact to be a good match. She suggested we do a field trip in mid April to NOLA and said she would put the trip on her credit card and I could pay it back later.
We met in NOLA April 14. She sure was happy to be there again. We didn’t meet any of her friends or colleagues previously mentioned although she had made arrangements for us both to meet, for the first time, a man called Mr. Manjarris who was the head of a group that used NOLA as his Gallery to place sculptures around the city. We paid for his flight and picked him up at the airport. He told us everything is for sale. He also said he lives out of the State and due to the heat, did not work in New Orleans (NOLA) during the summer , so I would need bring the 3,000lb Gate assembly 3,000 miles by May 15 or he would be bored with it. He told us that, forgiveness is easier to get than permission with the city for his art choices and many artists want his favor.
He knew that I’m not the artist or creator of this historic artifact sculpture and I wasn’t interested in selling it. "Aquired by" ? New Orleans Scupture Project was not my intention. (Link)
He showed us around NOLA and said the best option of placing the Gates as a Garden sculpture was at the University of New Orleans. Wonderful !, but-then He said the average time of a placement is 2 years. I’ve been looking for a secure placement in perpetuity . Another reason for caution was when Ms. Graves told me I would need to proceed legally thru Mr. Manjarris group and he had told us, his possession would be 9/10’s of the law. He knew the average estimates to duplicate the Gates as originally hand forged, is 200k and this is before consideration of history, culture or the 2001 controversy. He also introduced us to a few of his private art collecting friends.
Ms. Graves sure did like Mr. Manjarris ability to give free rooms at the Sheraton Hotel ,even though I was to pay for all airfare, rooms, food and auto.
It seemed oppressive to deadline me to only have 30 days to deliver 3,000 lbs,3,000 miles without time to receive or review an agreement for any changes. And would the Christian cross on the gate be okay on the campus? His deadline got down to 15 days and I still hadn’t received any written proposed agreements.
Ididn’t really see much of Mr. Manjarris 40+choices of “art” for NOLA as being sensitive to that Fine city’s, culture, fashion, music, history, hope & dreams.
We drove around for 2 days, meals and talk, etc . It’s not okay to detail the insults and oppression, here . It seemed to me they thought this was my last chance or something like that. I may have been working on this for 11 years but I only had the proof of moral ownership for 1 year (link) * which has been a renewing factor for my confidence. The last day at the airport Ms. Graves asked me “how much more shit would I take from them before I walked away”
On 2 occasions Ms. Graves asked me to give the artifact to her for her proposed yoga retreat in Wyoming.
Mr. Manjarris told me he did not care about the mission statement peace poem. *(link)
I now see, I cannot offered to give side money and lease or purchase property, maintenance, security, promo for pedestrian traffic, insurance, utilities. It’s beyond my budget as well as interpreting various personnel motives.
Since, 9/11 I‘ve been donating an average of 90$ a month to Dr. Frank Ochberg foundation for PTSD. When I visited him in Lansing, he told me I’m to humble and he reaffirmed his atheism. Perhaps he is right about me, although, to be introduced to a Mexican family as a humble man is a good thing but I remain grateful to Frank forever.
Coincidentally, I received the letter of support from (link)* Dr. Daniel Ellsberg 4/3/10, then came the NOLA trip. The confidence of his letter was helpful. I came back to Portland 4/16/10 a bit wounded and don’t you know, I got a International film festival award, 2nd place for a music video I produced in 1995 *(link) 4/30/10, it has a great lyric to help heal PTSD for the broken hearted or cynical as well as a nice groove. So I was mostly healed from NOLA.
Then I decided to put a Craigs listing for a tech support person with e-bay to help sell the sculpture artifact. A couple of capable people answered, one of whom Mr. Wrought (link)* who ,by coincidence, has hooked up the Showofpeaceconcert.com Beijing China web site connection to get the project poem to the world.
Ms Graves and I are now okay with each other. I declined to pay for the 2k+ invoice she gave me from the NOLA 3 day trip. She can take it from the 10k donation. On the other hand She, nicely facilitated my photo with Mayor Ray Nagin, who was standing at the door of our hotel and both she and Doctor Ochberg gave their support to the poem, helping my confidence by having their names associated with it on the proposed plaque placement (link)*.
I will continue to work for humanity to know it’s beauty, so to be reflected in our environmental mirror
dhg 7/10
