Hatem placed his first painting on his easel. I sipped from a hot cup of coffee. His piercing eyes watched as my eyes rested on a large rectangular canvas depicting abstract lines and vibrant colors amidst rough textures and complex forms. Lines that squiggled and curved, ended abruptly in arrows. Other lines stopped with yet more lines intercepting them. Splashes of color pitting against color jumped off the canvass and into the room as Hatem explained the meanings of his artwork. "Sick....sick....." Old expired credit cards glued to the canvass and incorporated into the hues and textures of his artwork made up several of his paintings as he explained his distaste for banks. "Sick....sick...." Floating spheres with no shadows questioned Einstein's theory on everything. And each time between explanations and premises as he swapped one painting for another and then another came his puzzling chant, "Sick....sick...."
"Why do you keep saying 'sick, sick?" I finally asked. I could see that he had been waiting for me to ask that question. "Because", he said, "It is all in the mind." "Huh?" I piped. "Because nothing matters but our mind. If we don't mind, then it doesn't matter. People are starving. People don't have a home. Intelligent people have ended up living in the park with only their sleeping bag. The Chinese don't assimilate; they come to America and they are still in China. The Russians, who had nothing but Chernobyl, come to the USA and their minds are blown up. The Jews, who hold the highest positions in this country teach their children the importance of education. The Banks who control the money in this country aren't regulated anymore because the government is corrupt."
Who was this man? What was it that caused me to want to find out more about how he thought? How he saw life? Painting after painting, I sat there trying to discern his explanation of his art.
"What makes art art?" I questioned.
"I paint what I know." It was an incongruous answer.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Take Andy Warhol. He was not a true artist. He didn't paint what he knew. He was a graphic artist. He took photographs of Campbell tomato soup cans and of Marilyn Monroe and put color on them. That's not art. That's graphic design. Take someone like Miró or Picasso or Salvador Dalí.....those were great artists!" I sat there listening. "Someone commissioned Picasso to do a great piece of art. Picasso asked them, 'what is your budget? So they told Picasso the amount of a small fortune. Picasso accepted but first he asked for the money, so they gave it to him. Picasso then took a piece of paper, drew a picture on it, and then gave it to them. 'There is your great piece of art', Picasso said"
It was an introduction to a world and a mind over which I will never forget.
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