Please feel free to share stories and memories you have of Bob Anderson here. Use the “comments” button just below this post. You may need to log in to Wordpress or create a username and password to do this. Alternately, you can email carolynp at mail.utexas.edu with stories and photos to post on this page.
Several years ago (it could be as many as 10!), Bob was preparing a large wall drawing for the Faculty exh. This was my favorite body of his work and I had encouraged him to take the opportunity to do a major piece and was delighted when he agreed. We had given him a huge wall—8’ tall, maybe 14’ feet wide—and he was making a marathon drawing during gallery open hours, and spoke about the process during a noontime gallery talk while he was still a few feet from completion. He was very much “in the work and in the moment” when he spoke, and just started tracing some of the imagery, talking about what had been in his mind, about how his energy had built and built…it was a wonderful stream-of-consciousness talk, very parallel to the work and seemingly true to it. My favorite part of the talk came when he reached a certain place in the drawing, looked at the marks, and said something like, “Yeah, well, this part was a real pleasure, I was remembering this great sexual encounter I had the other night, yeah, it was amazing…” and he smiled and was lost in the memory for a minute, then laughed and just continued. It was a wonderfully unguarded moment, I think it surprised a few people in the audience around him, and I remember thinking “Go, Bob!”
-Annette Carlozzi
Now that I’ve been teaching a few years, I realize more and more how important the Profs I had at UT were to me and will be forever. It’s amazing how many people you touch when you’ re just doing your job. Or, in Bob’s case going well beyond it.
Please give my love to everyone there and know that I am thinking about all of you, and Bob, very much.
-Nina Rizzo
For my blogfan, mentor and friend, Bob Anderson. <http://calamityjaneish.blogspot.com/2009/06/for-my-blogfan-mentor-and-friend-bob.html>
Bob died. He was a good friend I like to think, and a great, absurd man. I am sad. He read this blog just about every day, and used to quote me to myself when I was his teaching assistant. I quoted him too, because he had a blog as well. We both knew too many of the mundane details that comprise a person’s life and in the end, our conversations went like this;
A: I ate the best Ethiopan last night at….
B: Yeah, I know, I read it on your blog. I went there 2…
A: Weeks ago, yeah I know.
(We both drum our fingers on the table)
B: Have you read this Chris Ware?
A: No, can I see it?
I can’t believe he’s gone, partly because he was and remains a kind of emblem of Austin for me. I mean, he was everywhere, all the time, supporting his students, his colleagues—I’m pretty sure most of UT enjoyed a bit of drink with Mr. Anderson at one time or another.
His visage is just so burnt into my brain, his long hair a nd consistently mischievious smile; a soundtrack of truly spooky noise music playing in the background. He loved that stuff. He was a big part of my life at UT, and he really supported me and his other students in their art-making and basic life stuff. He listened to me complain about so much stupid shit over the years, and I acted all the more dramatic and ridiculous because he was so calm and understanding about it all. I really felt I could tell him anything and he would remain amused yet without judgement. He was equally non-judgemental towards his students’ art, and he was a great teacher, and he loved it, and he loved his students.
Here’s some amazing stuff about Bob, I wish I could remember more, because I really enjoyed some of the weirdly wise things he said over the course of our 4 year friendship:
Every year on Halloween he stayed at home dressed like some kind of ghost and scared neighbor children when they came to ask for candy.
At Nohegan he wore a balloon hat and made intricate little pen drawings on rocks. They were totally fucking beautiful and bizarre.
He made drawings for all the grad students during their oral exams. He made one for me just months after I purchased a drawing of his at Arthouse’s 5×7. I think I was kind of pissed that I spent 75 dollars on a drawing, only to have a similar one given to me a short time later. He told me afterwards that he made it with a blue ballpoint pen bought in Berlin, where I am now living. Somehow t his seems important.
His three drawings were the only things adorning the walls of my room while I lived in Austin, and I’m pretty sure they are the only pieces of art I didn’t lose or mistakenly put gum on over the years.
He swam every day, and was a fellow Pisces and sometimes we would talk about how fucked up we were because of our sign. We both had a lot of nightmares about sinking ships. And if I remember correctly, he was a glider in his flying dreams, while I was a flapper. And I might be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure he chose invisibility as his preferred superpower.
He came to every party I ever threw. I remember having a robot party with Erin Curtis and he wore a Mexican Wrestler’s mask. I’ve never been sure how he misinterpreted our robot theme, and frankly I don’t remember him giving much of an explanation but he was never really the most orthodox thinker (or costumer apparently).
He introduced me to some of the most perverse comics ever. S. Clay Wilson I remember in particular. Man, it was so disgusting and so good. I remember really vividly his excited and naughty expression as we poured over some of those lurid pages. I mean there were others too, Charles Burns and company—that was kind of our daily ritual. Sometimes he would copy stuff he thought I would like and put it in my box at school. Really grotesque woodcuts of birthscenes and the like. In return I would lend him some of my favorites like Dick Tracy and Flannery O’Connor. He loved Flanne ry and Evil Dead II and The Exorcist and all of those other things that are dark and ridiculous and poignant.
When he met my mom he told her some really sweet things about me, giving her a false picture of me as a better adjusted human being than I was at the time. As a consequence, she always asks about him.
In the fall of 2007, I TA’d his shared class with Michael Mogavero and it is that time that I’m trying to hold on to the most. When he came back from Italy to resume teaching he was like a changed man. I mean, he was fucking ecstatic. Definitely the happiest I ever saw him. He talked about his trip all the time; the wine, the students, the swimming, the conversation, the beautiful Tuscan landscape. Right now actually, I am drinking red wine and remembering him talking about those Italian days of wine and ping-pong. He loved friends, and I think he made some good ones in Italy.
Thinking about him so much today, I realize how many friends the man had. Every one involved in any facet of the arts in Austin knew Bob. That’s lovely, I am not trying to eulogize him really (although I think Bob would find something inherently funny in that) but it is really beautiful how many lives and currents he was connected to. Bob was a sweet, sweet, sensitive man and even though I’m so far from Texas I can feel how acutely painful his absence will be. God Bob, I really will miss you. I’m trying to download Evil Dead II right now but it’s not working.
“…I didn’t have occasion to interact with
Bob very much, but I had the clear impression that he was
around-the-clock devoted to his art and his teaching. It’s a very
great loss to the department and to UT”.
-Richard Shiff
Bob was a great friend and mentor. I will never forget a particular day in his Drawing Foundations course. I was struggling with a head study in ink and was repeatedly crossing out my failed attempts. As my frustration mounted, Bob said “So, you’re going to be one of those multi-media artists.” At the time, I was one of those, still mostly keeping to the computer lab. It would be a while before I turned, eventually ending my time at Texas in an independent study with Bob. The reasons are long and complicated, but what Bob said in that Foundations course somehow clicked. Bob had a unique way of challenging you, not by his own standards or expectations, but by your own. He pushed for you to dig a little deeper into yourself. He could do this because he did it with his own work day in and day out. There’s so much of Bob in every densely knotted mark he made on paper and canvas. Even Bob’s tableau for life drawing classes were intricately his own. Who else would put a life model inside of a glass coffin? He not only taught us how to be our own toughest critics, he taught us how to be generous of spirit. For that, I am forever in his debt.
-Zach Bucek
Bob Anderson was the first person I met in the Studio Art Department at UT. After a year as a chemistry student, I wandered into drawing class in a cloud of confusion about what my major, and life, should be- I wanted my future to make sense. So there’s a very tall, very pale, angular man with something on his head (not a hat) reading absurdist poetry (or his diary?) amidst a precarious pile of junk, the air filled with drones and screeches from a boom box …and I thought “is this what art is?” Bob nurtured all the things that felt authentic even though they didn’t make complete sense. He planted the idea that eccentricity had a proper place amongst intelligence, passion, and rigor. And he totally reassured the nineteen-year-old version of me that my latent strangeness as a person had found a home- that I had made the right choice to become an artist. I will always feel thankful and remember him for that. RIP, Bob.
- Daniel Dove
“I didn’t really know Bob and never had the privilege of taking a class with
him, but I knew him peripherally as a student at UT. He’d always give me a
warm smile or say hello when we’d pass one another in the hallway at school.
And many classmates of mine who’d taken a class with him always had such
great things to say about him, so I felt like I knew him in a way.”
- Mindy Briggs
FROM FACEBOOKS AND BLOGS:
there was once a red and a blue and together we made purple. I guess I am back to blue.
We will all miss you Bob. You were truly a great friend and some of my fondest memories are with you.
Thanksgiving won’t be the same without Bob’s dirty rice. Kent and I loved that.
That makes me smile, I remember Bobby and you as a little girl being silly at Thanksgivings..
Kent’s favorite memory, fun in the pool with Big Kid Bob & the giant waves/splashes he could make. The laughter/joy that could be heard for miles. We miss you much our Bob………
A sad day. Sail on, Bobby.
I will miss you Tall Bob, you were, what I like to call, a friend.
a great and dear friend.. I am overwhelm.. I miss him so much..
sail on, you will be missed so much…
Judith is shocked and saddened by the passing of Bob Anderson…….(Bob you’ll be greatly missed by your friends and students).
Bob…thanks. for just being you. Godspeed.
R.I.P. Robert Dale Anderson. Good Soul with a heart of gold. You will be missed but loved by all you have touched with your wonderful personality and teaching.
Peace, my heart, let the time for the parting be sweet. Let it not be a death but completeness. Let love melt into memory and pain into songs. Let the flight through the sky end in the folding of the wings over the nest. Let the last touch of your hands be gentle like the flower of the night. Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a moment, and say your last words in silence. I bow to you and hold up my lamp to light you on your way. ~Rabindranath Tagore
“Everything that Bob did he did at an intense level. He taught with intensity, he played with intensity and he collected friends with great enthusiasm. Added to these characteristics were four plus decades of intense studio practice. Bob was an artist who created images of great intensity. Even in a small 8” X 10” pencil drawing there is a universe of information.”
- Ken Hale
Bob’s long, lanky presence always exuded a deep thoughtfulness and a deep kindness that could immediately put me in a calmer state of mind. What a shock to hear of this. The last time I saw him was, of course, at an art opening, supporting the work of young artists and peers, as he often did. I think I can safely say that he was truly beloved in the art and education communities. Condolences to all that knew him. We will miss him dearly.
- Luke Savisky
I knew more about Bob from his life on Facebook than from the years that I was involved in art. I could tell that he was loved by students and respected by the faculty at UT. His intense brain like drawings were labyrinths that could be scary at times if I went there, but beautiful and fertile too. Bob went too soon, but I think his death was foreshadowed by words and phrases that he posted on various sites. I will miss you Bob.
- Camille Lyons
Bob was a great teacher, artist, and person. I was fortunate enough to have him as a professor in the early 90s. He will be sorely missed.
- David Wyatt
Back when I was a student at UT in the late 80s, my friend Bob Jordan and I temporarily occupied the Flood gallery, painted the walls blood-red, and called it the “Blood Gallery”, filling it with the dark, tar-and-organic material-heavy works (and some creepy hidden sound-loops) we were producing at the time. The day this opened, the body of a UT student was uncovered outside Matamoros, the victim of a group of “narco-satanicos” who only got caught when they decided to add a white boy to their string of victims. UTPD questioned us “on suspicion of Satanism”, even confiscating a few pieces (which were never returned). Bob responded in an appropriately absurd way. He made up fliers, anonymously, and placed them around the art building and in the mailbox of each faculty member. They were red, and featured the famous Eliphas Levi image of the head of Baphomet in a pentagram, along with a bunch of text announcing something to the effect of “We worship you Satan/ We dedicate all our art to you, O Dark Lord”, etc… After witnessing the dumbfounded reaction of the powers that be (including several professors) to our show, it was an unforgettable feeling to have some unsolicited collaboration from a faculty member and respected artist. I will also never forget his mischievous smile, which he seemed to carry with him just about everywhere he went.
- Bart Farar
IT IS WITH SORROW THAT I HEARD OF BOBS DEATH.
I ALWAYS FELT COMFORTABLE AND CONNECTED TO HIM WHILE I WAS AT UT ART DEPT.WHAT WAS HE IN THE FACULTY PERFORMANCE PART OF THE SHOW? AN ATHLETE. I DONT REMEMBER..MAYBE SOMEBODY HAS AN IMAGE OF THAT
WE DID AN INTERNET SITE TOGETHER BEFORE I KNEW WHAT THE INTERNET WAS.
HE ORGANIZED IT AND INCLUDED ME…DONKEY SOMETHING……
SO KIND AND FUN AND BRIGHT AND SUNNY AND INCLUSIVE AND NON-JUDGMENTAL…I HOPE ALWAYS TO REMEMBER HIS SMILE AND WILL FOREVER INCLUDE IT/IT’S MEANING IN MY MEMORY OF HIM.
LINDA MARY MONTANO
I was one of his many online friends and knew him as ‘jimbobazooka’ for the last 6 years. I still expect to see him at Barton Springs, talking about what he was going to make for dinner and how much studio time he was going to put in before he went out to water the plants and then possibly go swimming again. I didn’t know him as a teacher, even though he taught and was a mentor to some of my closest friends. I just knew him as that funny guy I’d always expect to see around the halls at school, or on the internet, or at the pool or Central Market. The one with the hat and would smile when I said, “Hey Jimbo!”. I think it’s safe to say that we all love him and can’t believe he’s not around anymore.
Melissa Mims
Bob Anderson is a friend. I’m not sure that he realized that i was never his student. His support of the fresh up club was unsolicited and very much appreciated. His laugh is pretty memorable. He leaves behind a distinct body of work- hope the public has access to his drawings somehow. Very cool dude.
- Dave Bryant“Bob and I became friends at our first introduction. We both showed at Space Gallery in LA and we were both westerners so we had some big things in common at the start. Last year we saw each other for the first time in a few years it was if we had never been apart. Our mutual friend and gallery owner, Ed Lau was then very ill and a show at Cal State Pomona in Ed’s honor was in the works. Sadly Ed died before the show but the show happened and I am so happy to have exhibited again with Bob.
Like many other artists, Bob first introduced me to email and websites. He helped me set up my first email account and became an important mentor as I grew to an appreciation of what could be accomplished with this great tool. Sometime in the early 1990’s, UT formed a committee to explore University policy and practice for what was then an emerging technology. I joined this committee, headed by the Provost’s office, to insure that no policy was made that would constrict creative, visual arts explorations. I asked Bob to join me and for a year we attended meeting after meeting with the Vice Provost. We sat patiently listening to hours of talk about potential policy recommendations. From the arts our concerns were most directly focused on copyright issues especially as related to appropriated imagery and to ensure opportunities for artists creating web pages through the UT domain that might contain imagery deemed obscene or other wise challenging to web users all over the globe. Through the web, academic freedom issues normally thought of as framed by the classroom were now immediately available to anyone anywhere. Bob’s wise position through all of this was the “best policy was no policy” and that was what eventually came from the committee. There were simply to many on “one hand and then on the other hand” issues to coherently form policy especially when in came to the future use of the internet by creative individuals.
When the committee came to discuss the arts, Bob assembled a thoughtful, comprehensive review of artist’s web sites for the whole group. His honesty and creative integrity also required that he present examples of his own “body image” web work to the committee. At first there was shocked silence in the room as his images filled the projection screen. But with Bob’s patient and thoughtful presence, the silence in the room melted and the whole committee, including the Vice Provost, came away with a new understanding of the potential creative use of the web. Because of Bob, they gained a deeper respect for the arts and artists at UT.
Kymberli and I loved Bob and we are still working through the terrible thought that he is gone. What a terrible loss for everyone..
-Richard Thompson and Kymberli Contreras
I was sad to find out that Bob Anderson had passed away. Though I didn’t know Bob very well, I always respected his work and knew people thought he was a very good teacher. The landscape of Bob’s that you showed me the last time I was in Austin was memorable, and I have thought of it often. My condolences to you and the rest of the UT art department.
-Leeza Doreian
June 2nd, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Bob Anderson: Quiet Intensity
My wife, Mona, and I have known Bob Anderson for forty years. Over the decades we have been in awe of his talent. From as far back as the late 60’s Bob was building a professional career that artistically melded the California “Funk” with the West Coast assemblage aesthetics of Wallace Berman, Edward Keinholz and Bruce Conner. His influences also came from the 15th century from such artist’s as Hieronymus Bosch and Martin Schongauer, and the 19th century lithographs of Rodolphe Bresdin. Bob’s career has never slowed down. Even last week he was arranging for his next exhibition with Nancy Whitenack at Conduit Gallery in Dallas. Bob’s artistic vision was unique and his drawings, prints, sculptures and more recently paintings are widely collected and represented in many important public and private collections from Los Angeles to New York City. Bob is one of artists who I have been fortunate enough to know who fully lived a life of art. Bob’s teaching methodology was an art form. Just ask former students who drew from the complex still life and model arrangements he set up. Just ask the hundreds of students who were subjected to his musical tastes. Just ask anyone who was fortunate enough to visit his studio and home.
Everything that Bob did he did at an intense level. He taught with intensity, he played with intensity and he collected friends with great enthusiasm. Added to these characteristics were four plus decades of intense studio practice. Bob was an artist who created images of great intensity. Even in a small 8” X 10” pencil drawing there is a universe of information.
Even though his passion was drawing, either on paper or lithographic stones, it was Bob who brought many of us into the digital world. Bob embraced the internet and its artistic and social potential. Bob was a natural networker. His friends are located from coast to coast and beyond. He reached out constantly to give information to his friends and to stay connected. Bob was a supporter of his colleagues and a mentor to his students. He attended every opening he could.
Being well over 6ft. tall, Bob was impossible to miss. Seeing him at an opening, swimming in Barton Springs, critiquing students or drawing during a lecture always made me smile. If there was one thing you could count on, it was that you could not count on what Bob was going to say or do. Robert Dale Anderson will be missed greatly by his friends, family and former students.
Adios Bob.
Ken
June 2nd, 2009 at 9:28 pm
I saw Bob often at Gregory, and when we once happened to be in adjacent lanes, I asked him for advice on how to improve my swimming. His considered reply was ‘always remember to glide,’ and I will always remember the grace and joy of Bob’s long stroke.
Peace be with him.
June 3rd, 2009 at 2:31 am
You told me my colorwheel was all wrong. You played noise in hallways from your office. You ran me out of your other foundation classes. You told me consistently to stop pretending I was a design student. You did it all with your funny, devious smile. It hasn’t fully hit yet, but when I return in the fall to see your office cleaned out, it will. The art school will not be the same without the tall man with the white hair and black jeans. I will miss my teacher and friend greatly. Thanks for everything Bob.
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:52 am
The Polaroid photos that he snapped of all of us gave me a sense of fear and comfort. “Now he knows who I am, but at least he’s interested.” I have most of my sketches from the drawing classes that I took at UT in the early 90s. There are hundreds of them. But you can tell at a glance which ones I did in Bob’s class. One day, Bob started us with a whole fryer — a raw, moist, headless chicken, still damp and cool and dead. Later, he draped a white sheet over a large box, placed a large white plate in the center, and then gently put an egg on the plate. Try drawing that with the blackest piece of charcoal in your box. Well, at least that day we knew the answer to that age-old question, but I don’t think it mattered to Bob which came first. Farewell, Bob.
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:30 am
Bob taught the first drawing class I took at UT —and one day the model didn’t show up –and Bob being the freestyle dude he was- jumped up on the platform and did a few poses — but not feeling the excitement from the room and really wanting us kids to get some looseness and feeling–onto the paper he decided to drop instantly from a standing position to a reclining pose —with no warning - it looked and sounded incredibly painful— but you could tell by everyones reaction –that it achieved its objective– we were awake- open –and ready to be surprised –needless to say I made some strange drawings that year- that i still like– The feeling I always got from Bob then and whenever I was around him since was that he was up for it—whatever “it” was– and he convinced you to meet him there—RIP Bob
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:34 am
On my 30th birthday, Robert had a surprise pirate party for me and when I showed up, Bob was the first pirate I saw in full get up…wooden sword, black gear, and eye patch. Always there and always full force. He was so Bob and will be so missed.
June 3rd, 2009 at 1:50 pm
I first met Bob when I took his drawing class back in 2002. It met from 2 to 6 and I always arrived an hour early to get started. So did Bob. He would take so much care and consideration in setting up each still life. He would then proceed to make the class listen to DJ Screw or Throbbing Gristle for four hours. Bob not only taught me how to draw, but how to live. He found a way to do all the things he loved while simultaneously giving so much to others. From the very bottom of my heart, thank you, Bob.
June 3rd, 2009 at 2:30 pm
I met Bob in the Fall of 1989, when we became neighbors on Speedway. I had no idea of what I was in for, one of the most wonderful friendships, I have ever experienced to this day. Bob was a mentor to me in every way possible. If I told all the stories of Bob it would take quite some time. Here goes, besides Bob’s Sunday reading of the New York Times with coffee, we would go dumpster diving for hidden found object treasures in our neighbor hood. Some times we found great stuff, many times it was just a Sunday stroll around the block. We would talk and giggle about any and everything. One Sunday we hit the Motherlode, you never saw two guys get in a dumpster faster. We were chucking stuff out when there was a knock from the outside. Well you guessed it, APD, “Get out here right now”. We climb out explained ourselves and were told to be careful in the future. We laughed so hard as they pulled off shaking their heads at our lust for art materials. I shared so much with Bob and he with me, I miss him already!
My wonderful friend Bob!
June 3rd, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Here’s to the most positive, most undeniably supportive member of the University’s faculty. RIP bazooka….we will miss you.
June 3rd, 2009 at 4:22 pm
you were the first professor i met at UT when i first visited the campus. “weird, friendly dude” i thought. it only got weirder from there. we had many chats up in the studios. as much about art as anything else.
i will allways remember our summer chilling in italy. you were so at home there at santa chiara. drawing, walking, swimming, teaching, eating, drinking and talking. your enthusiasm was contagious to myself and all the students.
we went to venice to see the biennale. walking around aimlessly, sitting and sketching with our new “magic” pens.
i remember walking into our small hotel room only to find one bed in the middle. we looked at each other suspiciously. i’m thinkin this oughta be weird
you stripped the bed revealing two twins, pushed them apart, threw the blanket to me and kept the sheet for yourself. opened that back pack, pulled out a bottle of red and two plastic cups.
i woke up thinkin how fast that converation deviated and took cool, weird, unpredictable directions.
you woke up and told me i snored.
miss you man.
June 3rd, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Bob’s workshop description from Nohegan 2006:
• 7pm at the Swimming Hole
• Floating for Non-floaters
• Hosted by Jimbobazooka
• Description: How to stay afloat.
• To Bring: swimsuit, towel
Special Notes: This is for beginners to advanced aquatic students. There must be at least three to four feet of water for this to work.
Bob had a great gift for physical comedy, relatively unrecognized by most. He also enjoyed campy horror films to like “Evil Dead 2,” which he found hysterical. I can still hear him hooting with delight while watching that film, outside, under the stars.
June 3rd, 2009 at 6:36 pm
In my first year as a grad student at UT, I had asked Bob to work with me as part of my committee and he kept up the bargain by coming by the studio often and stopping me in the halls to chat about my work. He tried to tell me about the funny things that he saw “wrong” in my paintings, bemused smile on his face, air coming out of his mouth fast and in bursts between sentences. Like a pressure cooker letting off steam. The “wrong” or awkward things made him laugh out loud. And his laughter seemed to signify there was a funny secret that he knew about painting that made him unable to contain himself. He would often tell me about when he was starting a new painting and how he felt about it. It was always his favorite time.
In the following year I was his teaching assistant for a foundations drawing class. One of the first days of class, he had the students doing action sketches and he had me up on the platform as the model. ‘OK’ he said, “You get up here and dance expressively around while the class draws you and when the music stops I want you to hold whatever pose you’re in so they can draw you.”
I was mortified, even mad at him. Here I am in front of a new class, desperately trying to gain their respect, and I’m supposed to show them my dance moves! He pops in some psychedelic screeching cd that was really hard to move to. I frantically try some of the ol’ junior high moves, which look really awkward and because I’m trying to do them too fast and I’m really nervous. Soon I’m throwing my body every which way, looking crazy and visibly sweating. During the class he has each student go up and dance, and each time the clumsy shuffling of feet quickly turns into a scene out of “You Got Served”. Everybody starts whooping and egging each other on… He’d suddenly won them over, (me included, though I wouldn’t admit it right away). Bob took the stage last, with the most impossible lanky-man dance that can only be described as David Byrne on PCP.
Bob had an unabashed and unapologetic humor that was enviable. He told you everything that he knew about something and would invite you to participate in the weirdest conversations.
He would yawn audibly when something was boring him (I thought that was awesome.)
He was a renegade teacher, a one-man swim team, a friend, a talented maker of beautiful drawings and paintings.
He will be sorely missed.
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:11 pm
I first encountered Bob thirty years ago at Space Gallery in Los Angeles, where he was a represented artist. At 6’5”, rail thin, pale and blond in a cowboy shirt and black levis, he stood out from the crowd.
A couple years later I moved to rural Oahu. Bob and I became great pen-pals. I saved all of his letters, profusely illustrated with amusing, sketches about art and/or inspired by his jobs, celebrity sightings at the Malibu Colony, taking care of animals and cleaning the Malibu Veterinary Hospital. I saved all of them. I even based drawing assignments on some of them.
He told me a few years ago he’d saved all of mine too, same reason. We were both obsessive drawers. He liked the sketches of my Alaskan-mix dog and her misadventures in the wrong climate, Polynesian food, weird household artifacts and the flora and fauna of Waimanalo.
In his letters, and much later, emails, Bob recommended books, artists, websites, teaching strategies, and taught me how to participate in art projects and network with artists on the internet. He introduced me to SITO, an early artists’ website and collaborative art project. He was more than a mentor, more like a genius older brother to me.
When we attended art events together in LA, or when I met people who knew him slightly (particularly later, when I taught at CSULB, where he had studied and taught) they’d occasionally ask if I was his sister, noting ‘a strong family resemblance’. I was flattered.
A few years ago I attended a family wedding with Bob and met his actual sister, Thalia, a beautiful, disciplined and gracious spirit. It must run in the family.
Over the years I was able to purchase a couple of Bob’s drawings and prints, and on one of his last trips out here, he gave me one of his ink drawings on a rock from Skowhegan. I frequently bring his framed artworks, and an old set of slides of more examples, in to drawing and painting classes to share with students. I will so miss him.
June 4th, 2009 at 1:29 am
I also watched Evil Dead 2 at a party at Bob’s house. I remember we shrieked, “Who’s laughing now!” as the arm was cut off by a chainsaw.
Bob was a cantankerous professor, artist, and friend.
I was his TA on and off during my time in the Printmaking Department at UT. One morning when I walked into the lithography studio, Bob had arrived early and gone around the room with a roll of red tape putting X’s over all the spots in the room that were not up to his standard of cleanliness. It was one of my duties to make sure the room was kept clean, and on this morning the studio was filled with red X’s. X’s on the floors, walls, tables, cabinets, and presses. I told him he was crazy, and he just gave me that crooked smile.
Bob I will miss you.
You pulled me out of the background, pushed me away from the foreground and helped me find all the grays in the middle.
Your facebook status on Saturday read, “Back from the Springs, time to read and grill.”
A Successful Life.
With Love,
Stephanie Wagner ‘07
June 4th, 2009 at 11:37 am
In 1990, as Suze Kemper, DeAnn Acton, Ellen Bergen and I slaved away pulling yet another edition at the presses of the litho lab, a family with a teen-age prospective student suddenly appeared in the doorway. Bob blocked their way, saying, “You don’t want to come in here right now. There are a bunch of hard women working in here!”
In 1990, when I founded my own feminist art performance company, I would name it Hard Women. Bob was our biggest fan and supporter in our early days, never missing a single performance.
He taught me nearly all I know about the daily discipline necessary to spend a life as an artist. And showed me how to roll in madness, adventure and laughing until my eyes teared while doing it.
Thank you Bob. All of us hard women send you our love.
June 4th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
I remember asking you what your favorite kind of music was: you said “sound collage”. Excitedly and with little hesitation, you popped in a CD I’m sure you had in your bag all along. Screeches, rattles and nose. We all complained –
I secretly enjoyed it.
I remember asking you about your favorite artists: you said “Joel-Peter Witkin”. You showed me his books from your personal collection and while everyone looked away mortified; I was drawn in page after page.
I remember day in and day out you would make me laugh whether it was because you would play our silly games, wear your glasses upside down, or use a brutal honesty laden with Freudian slips.
I remember wondering if 20 or thirty years from now, I would be that same strange man, with strange music, strange interests, and strange idiosyncrasies.
I regret having never told you these things; I’m going to miss you Bob…
June 4th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Bob had a devilish yet innocent welcoming smile, that expressed internal honesty. I will miss seeing this expression of sincere pleasure directed at me or anyone he encountered. I am sure he is drawing the details of his current landscape. may be peace with him and us all.
June 4th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Sometimes when I have an especially complex, baroque dream, I will lie in bed for a while wondering why I cannot transfer such resplendent content, obviously generated in my mind, through to some artistic medium like pen and paper. Bob did not suffer from this disconnect, and had an obviously detailed and distinctive style, and amplified ability to imbue his works of art with his creative vision. But it was not through his masterful artwork that I learned of Bob. I first knew him through a “Web for Artists” course that he first starting teaching in the mid-90’s – Bob was certainly a pioneer in that area. In this course he would show us the various ways to hand-code a page (there was no Dreamweaver equivalent then), make simple animations, and take advantage of the non-linear progressions the computer naturally affords. While many of us would use these skills to simply showcase our analogue work, at the end of each course, we would all stare in awe at a few of the students who had managed to really fuse their talents with this new territory. These courses may as well have been called “rocket-science for artists” and we were launching drones into deep space – it was completely innovative what Bob was doing as an educator in this area at this time.
During this course I would also hear from other students about Bob’s impressive drawing and printmaking skills, which was hard for me to believe; Bob was such a perfect computer-nerd. It was a strain to imagine him doing anything else than typing out code on the projected display, and helping us understand the liminal demarcations of the Internet and the creative potential of this new realm. It must have been several months after taking this course that I first saw one of Bob’s drawings. It was truly as if peering into another dimension. I was transfixed, mesmerized. It’s hard to recall any other work that would captivate my visual attention for such a long period of time.
Other less analysed memories: Bob’s great nervous disposition when teaching – we were certainly never bored with Bob at the head of the classroom; the frequent stops to the corner coffee stand, exponentially fuelling his gesticulations and mannerisms; his quirky observations of work and style of critique – things that seemed so alien and irrelevant at first, would settle into arcane wisdom after much pondering; introducing me to coffee-beer! Why can I not find this anywhere else in the world?; he was a committed devotee to any student treading into uncharted territory – Bob was a great supporter of our Circus of Fools work. It was truly sad to hear of Bob passing away. He will surely be missed and not forgotten.
June 5th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
http://jimbobazooka.livejournal.com/tag/hula+hoop
came across this collaboration on Bob’s journal, October 2007.
June 6th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Verse which Bob seemed to enjoy, as quoted from Lewis Carroll’s poem, “Jabberwocky”, originally published in 1872 as part of “Through the Looking Glass, and what Alice found there”:
At one of the faculty exhibitions where Bob’s work was exhibited, I told him that some of his drawings were so intricate, mysterious, and thought-provoking, I was reminded of this first verse from “Jabberwocky”. When I recited the verse to him, he knew it right away and got a big grin on his face. We kidded about it almost every other time we visited!
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Gayle Bullock (wife of Bill Wiman, Art Professor Emeritus)
June 6th, 2009 at 11:36 am
RDA, on July 19th, 2006 at 12:01 am Said:
Well Salvador you have generated more light (generating info about the back side of an exhibition) and heat (warm and hot) discussions about what we all do and care about in our small town than anyone else in awhile . Good doing and seeing.
August 6th, 2009 at 10:04 am
[...] Ken Hale was one of Bob’s oldest and closest friends. The following is his statement originally published on the UT Memorial blog… [...]
August 9th, 2009 at 5:26 am
I just found out about Bob’s death and am truly heartbroken. Bob and I knew each other at Long Beach, and while we were the same age, he was two years ahead of me because I had to quit school because of the draft — being a C.O. I was sent by my draft board to work at Fairview State Hospital in lieu of going to Viet Nam. When I returned to school, I was two years behind my peers, and by this time Bob was in grad school, as I finished up my Junior and Senior year as an undergraduate.
Unlike some other grad students Bob recognized that two year hiatus didn’t mean I was stupid and we became very good friends, and it was to Bob that I owe anything I ever knew about Lithography. He taught me how to etch my fussbudget drawings and showed me how to print them as well. I remember getting up way too early to go in to school and help him Sponge for a ridiculously huge edition he was printing on an equally enormous litho stone, and I learned more that day than in all my other classes up to then.
Not only that, but I learned so much about contemporary art practice from Bob as well. He provided the inspiration to me to persue my own attempts to exhibit my prints and drawings and became something of a pathfinder for me when it came to the world of LA art. For example, it was his reception by Ed Lau that prompted me, years later, to try Space Gallery myself, and we exhibited there throughout the 80s.
He was also the one who provided me with the example as to what “success” in the art world might mean when he said his ambition was to be a “major minor.” He also said that his goal was to be a footnote in the art history books, no small thing, that.
He also seemed gifted in finding the cheapest place to live, always. And I’ve forever followed his example of trying to maximize my time off from my “day job” so I could have enough time to do my own work, regardless of how much other people might value it (or not).
We also continued to be friends thanks to another shared enthusiasm for Surrealism (when I moved to SF I gave Bob all my books on the topic, which included a number of rather valuable French first editions of Nadeau and Breton, etc.) and it was our shared idea, upon graduation to initiate a series of collaborative works on the model of the “Exquisite Corpse” — all through the mail, a collection of works that we finally exhibited in SF a few years back. You might have heard about that one.
What a grief filled life this is as we age, isn’t it?
I saw Bob last at a memorial for our friend and gallery dealer, Ed Lau, which must have been just before Bob died himself, and typically we waved but didn’t speak. An event that mirrored another recently when Bob had been in town to be in a drawing show downtown — I took off work to go see him and look at his beautiful, etherial mysterious dreamscapes. I was looking forward to saying “Hello” after so long, but in her blithe, oblivious enthusiasm, Geri Coates interrupted the first conversation I’d had with my old friend in so many years, whispering to me that she wanted to introduce Bob to “someone important for his career.”
Waving “goodbye” I never knew it would be forever.