Ted Degrazia Portrait By Henry Redl Circa 1980-2013 #1
by David Lee Guss
Title
Ted Degrazia Portrait By Henry Redl Circa 1980-2013 #1
Artist
David Lee Guss
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
Ted DeGrazia chose two self portraits from a portfolio of 62 examples of his most representative work spanning 1925 - 1980; two oils - "Selfportrait," 1946 and "Selfportrait," 1965.
They are as moody as this melancholy portrait taken by Henry Redl, circa 1980-2013.
"I paint a lot and it's a hell of a lot of work. I paint what I know, the poor people. That is who I am. That is what my work is about."
Ted was described by writer Rick Lanning as "artist, desert dweller, sometimes prospector, adventurer, movie maker and philosopher."
The definitive account of Ted's bout with his terminal prostate cancer is by his muse/biographer Carol Locust as written in her 2004 published, "DeGrazia - The Rest of the Story."
Shortly after he gave a revealing interview (including the telling of "tall tales" to Lanning about being married seven times and fathering 23 children) published in "Desert Magazine" in August 1981, he visited Carol (a Cherokee) seeking tribal remedies for pain in his leg and knee, as he distrusted conventional medicine. She applied salve to his leg and knee.
"I put my hands over the knee and could feel nothing unusual in the joint. The knee had red energy, there was pain, but the red also extended upward to the hip area. Then I put my hand over a part of the body that was trying to heal itself, I could feel unusual energy. There was no such feeling over the knee or the leg, yet pain reflected red in the energy."
But the pain would not go away, "encircling his knee, following the bone up the spine and into the arm and shoulder areas." None of her herbs that reduced pain worked.
Ted got progressively worse and he couldn't hold his tools in his fingers even after she placed her hand under his elbow.
Ted finally saw a doctor who diagnosed prostate cancer which had caused pain in his leg, shoulder and arm spreading "to the spinal column and was attacking the nerves."
Radiation and chemotherapy treatment caused fatigue and nausea. His beard thinned out and his body hair fell out; with Ted twice remarking wistfully that the thinning beard resembled "an old mare's tail."
Ted's body was simply wearing out from the untold puffs on cigarettes, sleep deprived "all nighters" working in his studio, far to numerous business trips to Phoenix and periodic, excessive bouts with home brew Yaqui brandy or mescal.
Carol, with their son Domingo (Mingo), attended the funeral service. A contingent of Apaches from San Carlos stood silently to honor their friend and brother "when the Yaqui Pascola led the procession up the small incline behind the gallery. Heads still up, shoulders still back, no expression on our faces, we watched as Papa's box was lowered into the ground, listened as prayers were offered.
When it came time to put dirt over the box, as in Italian custom, men of the family took turns putting a shovel full of dirt on the box. Mingo went forward, a small, thin boy, and took the shovel. He put dirt on his Papa's box, then came back to stand by me. His little head was up, thin shoulders rigid, and I heard him grasp for breath several times, but still he shed no tears.
I cannot erase the picture from my mind with the shovel, his little boot digging into the soft ground for dirt, the small arms pouring dirt over the box holding his Papa. his heart must have been breaking, yet he let no one see his grief."
Ted's view on death was that of his fellow Apaches who saw death as a friend.
I'll let Ted have the last word: "You are put into this world to live, to work, to create and to enjoy God's riches, You are also here to endure and to suffer. Any other way would be against God's plan.
God is the beginning and the end. He can rock you in his arms or drown you at the end of the universe. He is God. God is everywhere and stands for everything that is good and beautiful. A flower, a beautiful sky, love. God is life, but God is also death. A forever peace."
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April 24th, 2014
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