Cooperstown


I met Claude Pélieu just when I needed to meet someone like Claude Claude Pélieu. Iconoclastic, verbally outrageous, quick to identify sham, homeless (in a sense), above convention, given to excess, and an artist to the bone, he was a revelation to me, a tight, polite, ex-Methodist guy a few years out of Texas.I guess you could say I fell in love with Claude, not in any conventional way, but in a kind of mutual bonding of opposites. The love I felt for Claude and his wife Mary only grew over the years. They did not know that they gave me the most profound psychotherapeutic experience that I have ever had, and, in fact, Claude would have scoffed at the notion of psychotherapy. The therapy he did not know he offered was absolute acceptance of me as I really am. This fellow who broke all the rules actually lived a remarkably disciplined, even somewhat formal life. Up early, cleanly shaved, washed, and dressed, he soon was in his studio working without stop. Even when devastated by illness, he would struggle to his studio to work. His prodigious output of poetry, collage, experimental art, and postcard art (the local postal workers loved his post cards) ranged from fine, 20th century modern art to socio-economic, political commentary. Like all true artists there was something obsessional about Claude's work and his commitment. In fact (I trust he will forgive me), there was something of the prayer wheel about his constant, creative output. Claude hated malice, institutionalized absurdity, and willful ignorance, and while social and political statements in art may date and limit the statement of an artist, not so with Claude. His work delved the timeless and the universal in our experience. in a way Claude's work, to me, was like the Biblical voice in the wilderness. Though Claude's work was too controversial to be grabbed up immediately by the world that fact never interfered with this artist-prophet-commentator.

Oh! Claude, we need you now - need your voice! I still miss him terribly and need to say to him: Claude, come back! We need your prayer wheel against darkness, ignorance, and ignominy!


© 2004 - Sam E. Wilcox

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