Lana Jokel: How did you meet Neil? Mark di Suvero: I met Neil when he was painting in a basement in San Francisco. A beautiful Japanese girl showed up and gave him a flower that she had spent her last dollar on. He was so wrapped up in his painting that he completely ignored her for the hour that I was there. I didn't see Neil again until I came back to New York in the 50s-after Korea. He told me all these stories about Korea ... getting out of a landingcraft tank. It was sinking and the man behind him pulled his inflatable jacket too soon, blocking the exit for those behind him, and the men left inside all died. Neil's life was always like that. He wrecked more Porsches than any single human being I know! Lana Jokel: He had good taste! Mark di Suvero: He always had style! Eventually he lived in a loft with me and Bob Grosvenor in the early 60s before he knew Chamberlain. He painted with heavy impasto; black and white. He moved out, getting an apartment that cost him $12.00 per month! It was an improvement over the scummy place where all three of us shared one sink and Grosvenor used to piss in it. Well, Neil showed up back at our place two days later and said the wall at the new place was covered with silverfish-those little bugs-and he couldn't stand it. Neil definitely had style! We talked a lot about poetry too. He loved Haiku. He also loved Weyburn and the way Weyburn treated the human voice, it made a blackboard and fingernails sound sweet! That's the part Neil liked. He was freaked out by the music I would play-he couldn't handle Bach. Lana Jokel: What was Neil's background? Forrest Myers: Well, I had heard about Neil before I ever even. saw him. He had quite a myth in San Francisco for never having done much while he was there. He was an enigma, he'd been in the Marines and was. tough, as tough as Jackson Pollock! He boxed in the Marines--didn't do too well,.but boxed all the same. He'd gone to Japan and read Japanese poetry and was also a bartender. I don't think he was even in art school very long. Mark di Suvero: He grew up on an Indian reservation and he once told me that they gave him an Indian name but I can't remember what it was. He grew up with one parent who ran a trading post on the Navajo Reservation. Running a trading post selling liquor, it becomes pretty complicated! Neil had a real relationship with the Indian people. Forrest Myers: He really loved the land, you wouldn't believe how beautiful it is in Bluff, Utah. They call it the Valley of the Gods. Neil used to climb the cliffs and he was just a little speck up there. He was a real explorer. He made you feel more alive because he was so dangerous. When he got older he settled down to a point, but boy, when I used to hang around him, I had to keep my wits about me because things would happen really fast! He was in very poor health at the last. Kim Esteve: But, he never refused martinis! He was always going for it. I remember on New Year's Eve 1987, Neil and Babinski went to Hector Babenco's house on the beach at Camburi. After a late lunch and several bottles of 'Poire' brandy, the three of them were all drinking heavily. I had to leave, but later I heard that Neil got pretty loaded and decided to go into the ocean and give an offering to the goddess lemanjd (Goddess of the Sea), which is a custom in Brazil on New Year's. Neil decided at that moment that he was going to offer himself as the sacrifice. He disappeared for many hours. Later we found out from Bal3inski, who pulled him from the ocean, that he had been rejected by the Goddess of the Sea: his time had not come yet. Lana Jokel: Would you say he was self-destructive? Mark di Suvero: It wasn't purely self-destruction. When he set fire to the building I was living in, it was typical of him-this strong man, really strong man, had left an infrared light on for his kittens. He'd left it too close to something flammable and the kittens knocked it over, which started the fire. I found myself with firemen in the building breaking skylights because Neil was trying to keep his kittens warm! An ex-Marine painter who took care of kittens! Lana Jokel: Can you talk about his shaped canvas? Forrest Myers: His shaped paintings were great, but other artists were inspired by them and more successful with them. Neil sort of held back and didn't go into the limelight. He had terrible difficulties in reaching success for many reasons. One of the problems was that he could never be trusted by a dealer or collector; you never knew what kind of mood he was in. He had so many different sides. He was a Renaissance man, so charming and poetic, yet he was always getting into fights. Kim Esteve: He had a complex about wanting to be successful. He had this attitude that it was all there in the picture and if you couldn't see it, then to hell with you, and he wasn't going to bother to explain it. Lana Jokel: How many shows did you give him? Richard Bellamy: I showed him first at the Green Gallery before he went to Emmerich, and much later at the Clocktower-the show was co-curated by Ed Leffingwell. Mark di Suvero: I think the most interesting thing about Neil was that he was a total artist. He never thought of selling out and becoming a university professor or an advertising agent. He went through terrible periods of poverty because of this and when he did have money, he partied it away. Forrest Myers: Neil loved to drive. He and Larry Poons would test their cars up and down Park Avenue. Once Neil went through the windshield when John Chamberlain was driving up Park Avenue. Apparently, they were speeding, and it's a dangerous street with the median and the trees. Anyway, Chamberlain got t-boned by a cab and sent Neil through the windshield. Mark di Suvero: It trashed Neil. Was Neil's nose his own? It'd been broken so many times! Forrest Myers: Neil said it was-he said it stopped growing when he was twelve. And that 'scar, anyone else would be horrified, but Neil was proud of it. Neil came from the hospital with his head bandaged and this red scar across his face. It looked like he'd been in a chain-saw fight. He was just grinning, he loved that scar. He didn't even remember all that happening. Lana Jokel: When was his first show? Richard Bellamy: Around Christmas 1961, 1 had a group show that Neil showed in. Tom Hess asked who the artist was. Tom noticed the painting and thought it was good. It was very big and horizontal. Kim Esteve: I brought his black painting and the one with holes down to Brazil and everyone got all excited. The one with the holes sort of looked like the Concorde's windows: a jigsaw edge. It was aqua and yellow. Mark di Suvero: Yes, this was when everyone was doing serial art, which tended to be cold. Neil's art was never that way, he still loved color. Lana Jokel: How much of an influence do you think Brazil had on him? Kim Esteve: A whole lot. I had him down there visiting at one point and flew him up to the jungle. I had to leave, so he hung out by himself for several days and had a fine time. Forrest Myers: He was telling me he discovered this wonderful type of rum there made from sugar cane: cachaga. We drank a half bottle of that one weekend and he kept telling me how much he loved Brazil. Kim Esteve: Yeah, he said he had his three "p's" in Brazil: Portuguese, piano, and painting. He would do all three all day. Mark di Suvero: When I saw him before he left, I had never seen Neil so full of joy. What happened to him in Brazil was fulfillment. His work was being accepted, exhibited and collected. Forrest Myers: I remember being told by Mark that sometimes an artist is out of sync with his surroundings and he can try and try, but it's like throwing yourself against a brick wall. Then you can step over a border and all of a sudden you're understood. I think that's what happened to Neil in Brazil.