This comes from my friend Craig. Rather than put it up as a comment, I believe it deserves its own post.
“Chuck Close, whose work I greatly admire, suffered some sort of disabling neurological condition similar in effect to a stroke (diagnosed a rare spinal artery collapse-JC). He speaks of the rest of humanity as the “temporarily abled” as opposed to the disabled, for we all eventually succumb to the erosion inflicted by the tides of time. His condition has ironically, perhaps, pushed his painting into an almost transcendant realm which I doubt it would otherwise have achieved. The ultimate test of character is how well we deal with the challenge. Chuck has done about as well as anyone could posssibly hope to do, as you will see if you can get your hands on the movie made about him not long ago. It is a two hour documentary by a woman who moved into his studio for something over two months and filmed him painting a painting from beginning to end…along with interviews of other artists, curators, etc. A marvellous document of art and the power of the human spirit.
“The other story comes from an elderly Hungarian couple I met in Toronto. He grew up in considerable privilege in Budapest – a private railcar to travel to Vienna for the opera, for instance. He was jewish and when the Nazis came the family was forced out of their home and their factories were expropriated, though he was kept on to continue to run them. He recounted how he was taken to a prison one day, brought into a windowless room with one light bulb hanging from the ceiling and with a guard was left standing before and man at a desk, Goebbels I believe – one of the names you would know. This fellow eventually looked up and looked my friend over for a long time without saying a word. Finally he asked, “Aren’t you afraid?”. To which my friend replied, “I see before me an obviously well educated and refined German gentleman, therefore I have no reason to be afraid.” The “gentleman” laughed, told the guard to bring another chair for his “guest” and then leave. The two then got down to business. The head of the SS was shaking down the well to do families and wanted their Swiss bank acct. numbers. My friend denied any accounts and still managed to survive the Germans and the Russians, as did his wife, who had her own stories of Hell. At the end of this narrative she said to me, with such controlled force of will that the words were like hot metal struck by a small sledge hammer, “All that is expected of us is that we must never, never, never give up.” They eventually emigrated to Canada where he was given a job as janitor in a school. He went on to build from scratch one of the largest lumber companies in the country and to live in the style he was born into.”
