Painted Cardboard

Santa Cruz, 1977

After graduating from UC Santa Cruz in 1977, I moved onto a 42-foot lobster boat in the yacht harbor. My goal was to write a book, but the main character was a sculptor—and I knew very little about modern art. During my research I discovered (and became enthralled with) the playful mobiles, “stabiles” and wire sculptures of Alexander Calder. His use of color, sense of humor, and utter lack of pretention, all were qualities my protagonist ought to possess.

But to truly understand an artist’s life, I’d have to become an artist myself—and this would require more space than a boat cabin.

A row of red clapboard houses stood precarious on a bluff above Front Street. Answering an ad for a housemate, I knocked at one of the doors.

The four-bedroom bungalow was occupied by a lesbian couple. The month-to-month lease was held by Bonnie LaQuatara—a cautious, narrow-faced, but warm-eyed former addict whose newly taken last name reflected her love of New Orleans’ French Quarter. Bonnie and her partner interviewed me, then nodded at each other..

“You can move in,” she said, “on one condition: Don’t bother me with bullshit. Don’t tell me I drank your milk, or left dishes in the sink. But if you decide to go to the beach at 3 a.m. to build sand castles, feel free to pound on my door.”

My rent would be $75 a month for two rooms, one of which I could convert—as had Bonnie—into a studio. As a moving-in gift, Bonnie painted me this bird. It hung above my workbench, where I made art for more than a year. It was so much fun, such a total joy, that I abandoned my book idea completely and concentrated fully on creating sculptures.

We never did build sand castles together. Bonnie moved back to New Orleans. I visited her there in 1979, on my eventual way to Greece. She’d landed in a drab, cockroach-infested flat near Dauphine Street, and was drinking again. I drank with her for a few days, then left for New York.

Is she still alive? I wonder. I’d like to tell her that she changed my life. And that this bird still transports me, back through time and space, to that fearless, fecund year we shared in our now-demolished bungalow.