The Ghost is Watching
A Tribute to Tio Giambruini, 1925-1971
The “ghost” in the photograph is a life-size plaster sculpture of a seated woman, which I made a few years ago, under Tio’s direction. I had been his student at CCAC in Oakland, in a very exciting Experimental Painting class, and was at this time doing small clay sculptures under his guidance, in Davis. One day, after I had completed a not very successful half-size figure in clay, he told me: “Nancy, this is what you’re going to do next. Go to the junk yard and find a chair. Any chair. Bring it here next time and make a figure to sit in it.” I looked at him in bewilderment. “Who, me?” “You can do it,” he said, laughing in his charming way, and went about his business.
The fact that he believed I could make a life-size sculpture, and that he understood I wanted to, overcame my own lack of faith. As if mesmerized, I went to the junk yard, found the chair, and built the figure. The hardest part was handling hammer and nails; I had never done it in my life. I was very proud and pleased when, upon its completion, he said, “Now, two figures.”
The exceptional qualities which I found in him here in Davis, I had already discovered some years before in Oakland. There, at CCAC, he was teaching a large, very talented group of young people the ancient methods and materials of painting. He showed us how to mix our own paints; watercolors, egg tempera, encaustic, oils, and how to prepare our own gesso boards and canvases. He and the high-spirited youngsters created a holiday atmosphere, stirring up a strange witches’ brew in a big cauldron, putting wax paintings on the radiators to see what would happen, working on the floor, at the easels, outside the studio in the sunshine, whistling, laughing, and singing. I heard him talk about “freedom within limits,” and agreed that this should be the goal of education. In that classroom he created a maximum of freedom within well-prescribed limits. And the results were impressive, even by his own high standards. I often told my friends about him and the way he conducted that class, so differently from most art teachers I had encountered. He was always there when I needed him, but not breathing down my neck. He never touched my work, nor that of any other student. He never criticized even my most awkward first attempts at painting. He intuitively understood what I was trying to do and casually suggested directions in which I might move. He would never tell me explicitly how to improve a painting, even when I asked him to. He was sometimes too subtle or abstract for me to understand. But always involved and wanting to help me; always encouraging growth and self-realization, and making the experience a challenging one.
It was not only as an art teacher that I respected him but, above all, as a human being. In working with him, even erratically and marginally as I did, I became aware of his guiding philosophy: a deep-rooted faith in himself and in all people, in all the good things in life, in Life itself; a healthy respect for work, and the understanding that obstacles much be overcome, that fear must be overcome. I once said to him, “This work is so frustrating!” He replied, “It’s only frustrating when you stop. You have to keep going.” I wondered what kind of parents, what kind of home atmosphere had produced such an unusually well-adjusted, productive, and loving person. In Tio was a rare combination of wisdom, courage and concern for others.
When he was helping me with my small assemblages of bones, stones, and pieces of wood pulled out of the mud, he once said, “Everything belongs somewhere. But this piece doesn’t seem to belong here. It’s all alone, not related to the others.” He had an unerring intuition about where things belong and what “works” in art as in life. As his friend said at his Memorial Service, “He had a vision of how the world should be, and he made us want it to be that way.” I would rather say he made me want to share that vision, to enjoy that sense of oneness and harmony that he felt.
The last time I saw Tio, a few months ago, outside the Art Department office, he greeted me as an old friend and asked, “How are your sculptures these days?” “Gone,” I replied. “Then it’s about time to make some new ones!” “For you, I could!” I said. He laughed in his charming way and the bystanders smiled.
If everything belongs somewhere, why is he no longer here with us, where he belongs?”
He is, and will always be.
The Making of a Ghost
After I had successfully made the life-sized plaster figure which I called, “The Ghost Is Watching,” Tio told me to give it a coat of polyurethane to protect it from the elements. I intended to place it outdoors, in our garden. But I was pregnant at the time, so he warned me not to do the work myself, as the toxic fumes might harm me or the baby. Andre offered to do it for me. But he never did. The sculpture was moved from TB9 to the far end of our garden, where it was sheltered and surrounded by greenery. It looked right at home there.
Soon the baby came and I had no time to think of anything else. The rains came, the Tule fog, the howling North Wind, and she sat steadfastly on her junk-yard chair, slowly decomposing.