Prologue

Prologue

In-progress.

I intend to share, here, my autobiography. It consists of two parts: (1) my memoirs, and (2) what I am calling KVS, for the two major women in my life, both now deceased … Kathleen Ann Zorko, Versus Sarah Louise (Sieler) Fairchild. "Versus" is not meant to indicate a competition or rivalry between the two women in life or in my heart -- there was no such thing -- but to indicate the different roles they played in my life and development as a person, in particular as relates to the arts.

Each revealed things in my soul that are essential to understanding who I am, or who I was in life. … which reminds me of Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now. I think of Kathy in connection with fantasy & surreal art, and Sarah with revelatory art, both of which are, in fact, creative arts and in some respects the same. Both of them reveal a numinous side of reality. These are the two sides of my mind, art, and personality nourished by these two women. Buffy sees such things as positives and negatives, light and dark -- emotionally and in terms of value; I do not. I see them both as positives -- each unique, beautiful, and valuable in their contributions to life.

Note, Kathy created a reality that she then inhabited. Sarah, my wife 15 years later, on the other hand, inhabited a reality that she then discerned, thereby creating it. These are two very different, but equally numinous things: creation vs revelation. A cloud seen from two sides, as Buffy St. Marie might say. Which makes sense: Kathy was a graphic artist whereas Sarah was a poet; Kathy was pagan, and Sarah was strictly Christian;Kathy applied the numinous, thereby embracing it, whereas Sarah discerned the numinous, thereby creating it – things which I loved about each of them. Yet really, each approach results in the discernment of the luminous in life.  If they had been Japanese, I would say that Kathy was more Shinto, Sarah more Zen.

Everyone is different and all are incomplete when described in words or in art. In description, however, is where we can learn something of them that matters. These, my memoirs and the historic effect of these women on me, are an essential part of my self-portrait, my description of myself, and two of the most important influences on it. One might say I've looked at creation from both sides now; I really don't know (C)creation at all ... but it knows me.