Working with Dali Text
In the six years I worked for Dali, I was utilized on more projects than I can remember. Starting as a simple assistant who washed brushes, prepared paint, did research, and ran errands for Dali. After the first winter, Dali made it clear that while he was away, I was still working for him, to find artistic projects and anything he would be interested in. When he arrived the following winter, I had done more paintings to show him, and he started to have confidence in my artistic ability and had me start doing preparatory drawings and some help with painting. The number of projects was numerous, and he always had more for me to do. I would often show up at the St Regis, he would escort me to a studio room, give me instructions, and disappear, for the most part, not to be seen again that night. Helping with collage works, he would leave me with stacks of books to cut useful images of butterflies, scientific structures, and molecules. Dali had worked with Rowlux materials years before I met him, but when Dali realized I was from Connecticut and Rowland Development was also there, I became the de facto representative for him and made several trips there. Rowland manufactured two kinds of material: a lens material that had tiny microscopic parabolic lenses printed on both sides. This thin flexible plastic had a relief of about .5 to one inch. This came in a multitude of colors with metallic backing and without. This is the material that Dali's Tristan and Isolde Lithograph was made with. The other type has about an eighth of an inch of acrylic on top of the lenses, which not only magnified the effect to around six inches, but also made the lens images animate, move with your viewing angle. It was my job to experiment with the materials to produce a better effect than they presented alone. There were so many projects it will take pages more to get into just what I can remember, and that will come in the future to the site. It is also interesting to note that Warhol asked me to jump ship to work for him and leave. The works shown here represent a small portion of the projects I participated on, but those I have a record of.
Some of my very favorite moments with Dali would include afternoons at the Plaza's Palm Court, where Dali and I would sit and have tea while the strolling violinist would play Dali's requests. Also refeverred to were any meetings with Carlos Alemany where Dali would show elaborate watercolours of new jewel designs and Carlos would bring out from the vaults incredible stones to use in them. Sunday afternoons were always a treat as Dali would play a game with me of drawing classical figures on the day's New York Times. The challenge was that the drawings had to be done between the words in the blank spaces. Dali would always win, but often bent the rules. The last project I did with Dali was to paint several of the tiles that make up Lincoln's ear in his incredible Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea Which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln (Homage to Rothko
