Alex Nodopaka and Kathabela Wilson.
Alex Nodopaka, enigmatic, provocative and sensitive artist, poet, and friend, shares his unusual background.
His cultural artistic roots go deep into his childhood. His works in many media and all reflect his philosophic questioning and natural humor.
By Kathabela Wilson
A microscope on the artist
Your art and poetry have a sense of magic and foolery. Your sense of humor is unmistakable, yet we feel always on the edge of the unknown in a serious way, what are the roots of this unique sensibility?
Upon growing up I stumbled on Walt Disney through his marvelous cartoon comics shown as a routine before the main cinema venue.
Of course Mickey and Minnie Mouse spoke French at the time, since it was in French Morocco before the Independence of that country.
I have a happy recollection of my childhood: my father and I in a photograph in a lush Rabat public park. He was a painter. He drew in a lion coming out of the exotic bushes & made it into hand colored postcards he mailed to his friends.
Another place I loved there was Salé, the home of the infamous North African pirates. I roamed its canon-lined ramparts & fished off the nearby cliffs. We lived next to the original Hassan Tower where I spent innumerable hours climbing its steep rock steps with not a single tourist soul in sight. It was a thrill to throw rocks from its highest archer wall openings. In the deserted & dilapidated gardens below I recall admiring the miniature leather pouches hanging off ancient fig trees & the temptation to pluck some off but knew they contained amulets & talismans & were holy & taboo to touch.
Mapping the artist
So you grew up in Morocco, an unusual beginning, how did it happen and how did it influence your education, and later work?
We were United Nations Relief Administration refugees in Austria towards the end of WWII. Morocco was one country of choice for emigrants.
My parents chose it because of its close proximity to Europe & appeared ‘civilized’ according to the description by the French. Remember it’s 1947 & I am 7 years old.
My parents expected to return to Russia after WWII, which obviously never happened. So I learned my 5th language I progressed from Babble to Ukrainian to Russian to German to French. When I reached the age of reason I switched from wine to Vodka & suddenly spoke in more tongues… hahah!
A telescope on the artist
Looking back, how did your father and your environment affect your beginnings as an artist?
At the ripe old age of thirteen, my father, gave me for my birthday a book on the Dada movement by Andre Breton as by that time I already was an inveterate reader.
I kept that book for over 50 years. That year he also bought an incredible museum hand painted piece by Gauguin that he was enormously proud of. It was then 1954 2 years before Morocco’s independence from France. Surprisingly I kept on growing up and graduated to Cubism. My first experiments in drawing and painting in cubist forms were primarily motivated to disguise my pubescent interests in the feminine forms. Of course at the time I was not thinking in philosophical definitions of form and content.
A compass on the artist
What brought you to America and fostered artistic and poetic life here?
Soon I turned 18 and Morocco was independent and France wanted me to serve in Algeria since by then I had completed my pre-military training equivalent to the American ROTC. Coincidentally our visas came through in 1959 and my parents sent me alone to pioneer America for them.
I landed in Boston where as a typical late teenager I practiced my own independence by going to Boston University and ‘borrowing’ from my parents bank account enough money to buy that infamous ’57 Ford Fairlane that in turn allowed me to cross the USA by route 40 and route 66 meandering to San Francisco. In between menial jobs I continued dabbling in painting in various media until the call for higher education landed me at Berkeley, University of California where I joined the Junior year in architecture with its attendant slew of engineering and art classes. It is there that I received high grades in English as a second language, with my telling of exotic fairy tales from the Kasbahs and Mellahs and Ksars of Casablanca, Marrakech and Fez and Meknes and Tangier and my fictional poetry career began in earnest and continues to this day.
Pas de Cent
(The 100-step vs. the Two-Step)
By Alex Nodopaka
What if the magician materialized on the stage out of nowhere.
Well, not exactly. What if he floated down from a black twinkly
canopy gently landing next to the lustrous glass table where
a tall silk evening top hat would lay bottom up. What if to this point
there would be not music or words of any sorts with the whole affair
occurring in lifeless silence until the magician would levitate and
vanish head first inside the hat and at that moment the audience
no longer able to contain itself would burst like a 4th of July
exploding firework showering the spectators under a torrent of
liquid flames singeing their dazzled stares. And suddenly, in unison,
the spectators swallowed in flames would ooh and aah and rush
the stage to join the performance, somersault the platform diagonally,
leap through the air, blow French horns, drum the way of Gene Krupa
and blow the sax like Louis Armstrong, all dressed in pink tutus
their feet strapped in spit shine military boots leaping pas de dix par dix
to the sounds of a sousaphone in step with Josephine Baker
partnering with Sydney Bechet and Marcel Marceau with Edith Piaf.
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Check more of Alex Nodopaka’s art here.
Alex will participate at the “Maintenant at Beyond Baroque” on Sat., June 13.
Amazing life story is reflected in Alex Nodopaka’s rich art.
Thank you Kathabela for the exciting interviews.
So glad you’re having fun, Alex! : )
Remember this –> http://www.angelfire.com/poetry/bytasha/9.html
Wow! You are an interesting guy.
Alex Nodoplanka, how fortunate for your linguistic talents, your stories & art flowing in tribute to the humane places of your youth! Thanks, Alex & Kathabela, for this lovely introduction!