A couple months ago, out of the blue, I got a phone call from an old friend, Ali Jabarzadeh.
Ali was calling from Iran and he is a fellow artist, one of the finest painters I've ever known. He was one of the first people I met when I came to NYC to attend the grad painting program at Queens College In 1976.
He was a small ,wiry, young man, with incredible energy & passion for painting, & we became great friends.
So many nights we spent painting in the old gym that was broken up into the student's studios. These were the days before the revolution in Iran & there were a lot of Iranians in the program & indeed in other departments throught the school. What was so impressive about them, besides their obvious energy & intelligence, was their political activity. They were determined to overthrow the Shah & be the genesis of a new, free country.
I had spent two years at West Point before resigning to become an artist, so listening to what these kids had to say about the Shah, their resentment of US support for his regime, the injustice of the occupation of Palestine, etc., was quite an education. I came to respect these kids. They were full of life, and brave. I used to joke with Ali that he and his friends would be like George Washington & be the fathers & mothers of their new country.
Then we were out of school & the revolution came. Ali fell in love with a girl from Brooklyn, a fellow painter & a great girl, Pam. They went to Iran, & Ali tried to get a job as an art teacher. But he wasn't allowed to teach the way he wanted & they came back. He got a job teaching at a college upstate, but that went bad too, as you'll see in his letter. I lost track of them after that & when he called, I hadn't spoken to him for several years. It was good to talk to him, but too short. He sent me a letter later and I replied to him today. I'm printing both letters here as a diary. It hurts a lot to think my country could attack his and that people will die. It also hurts that things could have all gone so bad since we met so long ago.
Here's his letter to me:
March 10, 05
My dear Joe; Hello
It was a pleasure for me to talk to you a few nights ago (In Iran we are 8 1/2 hours ahead of NY time).
I hope you have the time to paint as much as you want. I know being a painter in the US and supporting a family is tough. That is why Pam & I did not want to have children, & when we could afford to have a child, it was already too late for Pam. Now we are extremely involved with our paintings, and have no desire of having a child anymore.
Joe, you asked me for a photo of painting. I looked last night I couldn't find one suitable to send to you. I have to wait until the last days prior to our trip to Italy, before I shoot slides and photos of our painting. When we come back I'll send them to you.
As you know I am not at all prejudice, and I hate to live where there's prejudice toward me. I mentioned the story of Tibor De Nagy Gallery !!! I truly feel sorry for pejudice people. As a matter of fact I DO NOT consider them to be human beings.
When we were living in upstate NY I got a job teaching studio and Art History at Marist College under an alias. After a while I could not stand being called by a name other than my own. I let them know my real name and nationality. Right that summer they took away my Art History courses; (They said that I was not qualified to teach them even though I had been teaching them for a few years, and I had excellent students' evaluations!!!) I took them to court and we battled in court for almost two years. (They had also made a number of prejudice remarks toward Iranians).
Even though my case was strong enough that my attorney took it on contingency basis, I did not win the case. The only condition set was that they could no longer take away my courses. By then, I no longer wanted to teach in that environment ( This was only an adjunct position) So I had to do other jobs and Pam was teaching in high school and also had an adjunct position at a different college.
In 1991 when the court battle ended was a week before the final exams, I gave the exams, and decided to come back to Iran ( in 1991). Since then we have come back to the US a couple of times to get shows but at no avail. I want you to know that at the time that I was using the alias I was accepted to five juried museum shows and I received the Yaddo grant, but as soon as I started using my own name again all activities stopped with it!!
The bottom line is that we are now in Iran and envolved in painting and our financial situation is very good, so we can paint all we want. I don't believe we would ever come back to the US again, but we'll both be delighted if you can come to Iran for a visit. We'll take you to [Istehan?] which is very beautiful with lots of places to see, such as the Shaking Minarets. Herb Aach had visited this city a long time ago (God bless his soul and our dear Rosemariie Beck's soul.
Dear Joe, you and Kathy have been extremely good to me and I'll never forget it, aside from that we were good friends in grad school and I still consider you a good friend and I wish you the best of everything for you and your loved ones.
Dear Joe I am enclosing this letter with a package of gifts as following (they are all handmade) 1- a pen holder - 2- a copper vase - 3- 4 pillow covers, 5- 2 boxes of sweets.
Please send the set of pink pillow covers and one of the boxes of sweets for Kathy on my behalf, and if you can provide me with her address, I'll send her a letter, otherwize please thank her for all her hospitality to me. Pam sends you Warm Regards. When you have a chance please write back, but since we're going away from mid-April until mid-May, please try to send me a letter in early May.
Affectionetelly,
Your friend Ali
My address is:
Pam & Ali Jabarzadeh
Here's my letter to him:
My Dearest Friend Ali,
I can't begin to tell you how great it was to speak to you on the phone & then to recieve your package and wonderful letter. Thank you so much for the gifts & treats, Sylvie is getting pillows to go with the fabrics and the kids loved the sweets. Sylvie & I did too.
I don't really know how to get things to Cathy now but I'll try.
I wanted to write sooner, but you said you guys were going to Italy & I didn't want a letter to sit in a mailbox while you were away or get lost. Italy's a great place to go as an artist, so I envy you. Where did you go & what did you see? I've been ther twice, but not for a long time. My favorite city is Venice (Titian, Tintoretto ) but i loved Assisi (the Giottos!) Padova, Orvietto, those little towns on hilltops, Firenze of course. I'm sure you guys had a great time.
I'm so glad to hear that you & Pam are well and are painting. I always loved your work, & am extremely curious to see what you are doing now. I'll bet it's great. Like i told you on the phone, I have one ptg (a guache) & one small drawing of yours & they have always been on my walls & given me pleasure. I still remember when you showed me slides of your landscapes from upstate & how impressive they looked, especially the color! I regret never getting to see them `in the flesh'.
Your story of what happened to you with your teaching job & the gallery is heart-breaking.
The people you were dealing with were complete jerks & what they did towards you in both cases was wrong & unjust. You, with your passion for painting would have been exactly the kind of teacher they need MORE of, not to mention being from another land, something the kids in this country are not exposed to nearly enough. If I can, I will try to find some way to get your work exposed here. Someday it will happen. You will probably say it's not important to you, but it is.
We looked up Mashad on the internet & saw some maps & pictures. Is this where your family is from? Did you grow up there? It looks like a unique & beatiful place. How I wish we could take you up on your invitation to visit! Who knows? Maybe someday we can do it.
There's been talk of American attacks on your country, possibly with Israel. I don't know if these are just threats or what, but brace yourself. If they do this, it will be yet another in a long series of arrogant, stupid mistakes. I only hope it doesn't happen, & if it does that as few anumber of people are hurt as possible.
I didn't used to think I was naive about my country, I mean I knew there was some bad & some good, but what we have done in the last few years is truly beyond the pale. Ali, I'm disgusted and ashamed at what my country has done. I feel I want to apoligize to you, indeed to the whole world. These are basically the same people who were responsible for Vietnam so we should have seen it coming. That's why i feel guilty. The people in this country who could have stopped it (and I'm one of them), didn't. I lived most of my life not thinking politics was that important, & now I realize how wrong I was.
I know you said on the phone that you don't care about it. I don't believe you. I know you, & i know you do care. I just want you to know that I care a LOT now. After 9-11 it was like I woke up from a long sleep. I started reading a LOT, more than i ever had before in my life. History, lot's of stuff about Judaism, Christianity, Islam, American Politics, Zionism, the Crusades, the history of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. So much of the problem stems from ignorance, & that obviously leads people to be susceptible to fear. I'm not as un-informed as I used to be, Ali. I remember how you & you're Iranian friends would try to talk to me about these things back when we were at Queens. All I can say is how right you were.
I know you were right about the Shah. I know that after your revolution, we paid Sadaam to make war on your country. I know the other governments in the region are supported by my goverment to oppress thier peoples & keep our disproportionate share of natural wealth flowing. I know we support the settlements in the West Bank of Palestine & enable Israel to brutalize the Palestinian people. I didn't used to think these things concerned me or affected me or my family...but I do now. But I want you to know there are other Americans, somewhere around half, who know & care about these things as well. The face of America that the world sees today is just the other half of america, and it's an ugy face. They have their own version of these events & issues & it is based on an incredible program of propaganda that plays on their fears & resentments. They are the fears & resentments of a spoiled child. Because they are not fighting for their fair share of the Earth's resources, they are fighting to increase their already unfair share.
The war against your country will be to restore the control and access to your wealth we enjoyed under the Shah & also to eliminate an enemy of Israel. The war against Iraq was similiar in those respects in addition to being a demonstration of their military power. Ironically, it has turned out to demonstrate just the opposite. The american army is close to it's breaking point, no one is joining up any more & they will reach a breaking point soon enough. There will not be an invasion of your country as they simply don't have the resources for that, it will be bombs & missiles, but perhaps even that can be stopped.
What happened at the prisons in Cuba & Iraq was an incredible dishonor to my country.
We will never be able to speak morally in the world again after this. But again, only half the country feels this way, while the other half treats them as traitors. There is a battle going on, a division in the country the likes of which I haven't seen since Vietnam, when we were just kids, only I think this is worse.
I can only tell you that when I learned what was happening, I got involved like I never had before. I began to make political art which I had never done before, & I got involved politically as much as I could. The election was so close, but it's just the beginning. As bad as this is, I still have hope that things are going to turn out right eventually. When you think of America, I hope you realize that there are good americans that believe in justice, that don't want to create an empire, and that we will win in the end.
Well, I see this is kind of depressing & I don't want you to think I'm so dark & angry. I just see two different futures that could come & it's based on what we do now. It's really about our children. I can't imagine what kind of nightmare their lives will be if something isn't done.
Ali, I remember how much you loved the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh. We certainly have that in common. I send you this collection of his letters. You may have read some of them. Enjoy them. He was truly a great soul. You remind me of him a lot in fact.
How I wish we could get together for dinner, You, Pam & my family & maybe some friends to talk about all these things. That would be wonderful. Maybe someday we can do it, somewhere. I forwarded your letter to Michelle Spark, Tom Burke, Charlie Parker, I hope you don't mind. I've lost track of a lot of others. Next time I write I will send you some pics if you like, please send me some. All my love to you & Pam.
Sincerely.
Joe