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A Tribute to a Dear Friend and Kitemaker. .
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Most of you probably didn’t know that bill
had a soft spot for Las Vegas.
Once or twice a year (at
least), he would run away from responsibilities in
Lubbock, take
Betty Street in
tow, and spend a couple of days in Vegas.
Not the casual gambler, but certainly not the high-stakes
high-roller you might read about, bill was loyal to
Circus-Circus, where he knew the pit-bosses by name, chatted up
the waitresses, and polled employee-friends on where the hot
dollar-slots might be.
I note this facet of bill’s life because it’s typical of
the unexpected faces that you might not have seen from bill.
I knew bill was
kindred spirit as soon as I met him – it was at the American
Kitefliers Association Convention in
Newport, RI
in 1986 – here was another who had chosen geometric patchwork as
a statement for geometric kites!
If you have the issue of
Kitelines
Magazine from just after that Convention, you’ll find a two-page
spread with one of my first kites featured.
But you’ll also see me talking with bill and
Betty Street at
the moment the photo was taken.
From that moment, he began teaching, encouraging, and
mentoring me, just as he had done for so many others as an art
professor for so many years at
Texas Tech
University.
He quickly re-enforced
the ideals I had tried to make my own; quality workmanship,
dynamic use of color, and fierce individual creativity.
That personal
thumbprint was bill’s measuring stick for his students’
work.
Those years in the
late 1980’s took bill and Betty to kite festivals around the
world and we were all lucky to see the new creations that flew
out from the pair’s machines.
After an invited trip to
Malaysia,
he was so impressed with the kite culture; he looked for a way
to repay his hosts for his life-changing experience.
Establishing the international kite retreat at Junction,
TX began that payback.
For ten years, bill helped to bring the world’s best to
this out-of-the-way art campus.
Even one “junction experience” is liable to top your kite
memories (chasing armadillos, THE BAT CAVE, tubing, blow darts,
baseball and Mrs. Sato, Jurgen and the box), but the long-term
effect of this international exchange cannot be underestimated.
bill began moving away
from making just one great kite at a time and started
concentrating on series of kites – kites of different types that
all had the same unifying image – his
Owl Series is
as fine a group of kites as exists.
He was one of the first to share his patchwork techniques
to the German kite-fanatics who descend every year on the Danish
island of
Fano.
His expertise as
educator came forward in countless workshop situations, with
children or adults.
He was a great listener and kept his own creative juices flowing
with ideas from his classrooms.
Just a couple of years
ago, Stan Swanson (Condor Kites, if you’d forgotten) and I
travelled to Lubbock
for an evening to honor bill.
He was the first head of the Art Department at Texas
Tech, so it was appropriate that he be honored
(remember, he started that department over thirty years
ago), yet nearly every subsequent art department head was there
in attendance that evening.
Not to mention the numbers of students who also made the
pilgrimage. This
show of respect and love for bill brought this student to tears.
Knowing bill as we
did, seeing his kites, his trademark red jumpsuit, and corncob
pipe, we might forget that bill had a career as a fine artist
before most of us knew him.
His rope sculptures give insight to his patience,
craftsmanship, and creativity.
(They used miles of rope in their fabrication, and Stan
always laughed, thinking about bill’s local ranch-supplier,
asking, “how much do you need!?”)
You might also not have known that after a stint in the
Air Force, stationed in
Palau,
bill went back there as an artist and amassed a notable
collection of carved “storyboards”.
These he gifted to the
Mingei Museum
in San Diego.
I think the trait that
binds all these varied facets together is the trait of giving.
As mentor and teacher, bill gave support, knowledge,
friendship, and criticism to his students.
To friends, he gave almost constant insight in to the
life of a true Texan gentleman.
As art advocate he gave sizable and notable collections
to the Mingei
Museum and the
Drachen Foundation, not to mention years of service –after his
formal retirement – to Texas Tech.
bill will be missed by all, but for those of us lucky
enough to know him, we know that there will always be some of
bill inside us. We
might even have to learn to runaway to Vegas now and then – it
might be just the tonic to push us to that next great project.
Scott Skinner,
Colorado Springs, Colorado
August 25, 2009
bill passed on quietly at
his home in
Lubbock,
Texas
on Saturday, August 8th, he will be missed by us all.
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