Six Snapshots for Michael Schnorr

 

Michael Schnorr was an artist, activist and friend.  He was a beloved teacher in the Art Department of Southwestern College in Chula Vista for 39 years, changing the lives of generations of young people. He was an exceptional muralist and instrumental in creating the monumental murals that cover the pylons holding up the Coronado Bridge that rises over Chicano Park in San Diego.  In 1984, Michael was a co-founder Border Arts Workshop / Taller de Arte Fronterizo (BAW / TAF), an artist collaborative that focused not only on the issues surrounding the Mexico / US border but to global issue of emigration, dislocation and inequality.  Michael travelled the world but had a particular love of Italy where he studied as a young man and Afghanistan where he counted among his friends, tribal leaders, rug weavers and kebab vendors in Kabul.  Michael took his own life by jumping from the Coronado Bridge on June 29, 2012.  I could not locate a single photograph I took of Michael when we were spending a lot of time together in the late 1980s through the mid 1990s. So I offer these images in his honor.

 

Six Snapshots for Michael Schnorr

1. Michael crashing on my sofa in downtown Los Angeles while he plans his mural for Skid Row. We visit an elaborate encampment under the Seventh Street Bridge that has existed for several years.  He runs to his car for tarps and cans of coffee to give away. We spend time with John Malpede and the crew of LAPD (Los Angeles Poverty Department); we get a royal tour of Skid Row as if we were insiders. Michael is fearless, talking, listening and laughing with dozens of homeless citizens as he sketches the corner where the mural will be.

2. In San Francisco, touring the murals on 24^th Street in the Mission District. We stop at a sidewalk sale, picking over books, records and cowboy boots. We both spot a homemade wooden serving tray with coins from around the world embedded in its surface.  A big copper piece from Somalia featuring an elephant’s head, a tin coin from Taiwan, a ‘half-anna’ from India, and six more pieces silver and copper from Cyprus, Curacao, Nicaragua, Argentina, England and France.  We both covet it, offering the seller more than the asking price.  Clearly I desire it more fiercely and selfishly.  Michael graciously relents. I still have the tray, use it often and am always reminded of his generosity, how he took such pleasure in the happiness of others.

3. Border Arts Workshop was doing residency / exhibition at Hallwalls in Buffalo. For several weeks the members of BAW/TAF had been working and collaborating with migrant farm workers all around upstate New York.  Because virtually all of the rhetoric around border issues such as illegal immigration and undocumented workers focused on the U.S / Mexico Border, BAW / TAF wanted to bring attention to similar issues that occur at northern border of the United States.  The exhibition opened on a warm and breezy evening.   Jenny Holzer’s Truisms were flashing on a large LED billboard that hovered over the pedestrian mall just outside the Hallwalls’ space. ‘Abuse of Power Comes as No Surprise’ ‘Action Causes More Trouble Than Thought’, ‘All Things are Delicately Connected’.  Standing by the window in one of the upper floors, Michael motioned for me to look out at something.  Standing next to him, I could hear his soft breathing as he gently tugged at his beard while observing the scene below. A group of 4 adults and as many children silently stared up at the Holzer display.  A moment later the children lost interest and ran around while one of the adults began to elaborately gesticulate toward another.  It was an enigmatic image, and for a long minute we were suspended in the space between image and meaning, our attention and breathing perfectly synchronized, until Michael whispered that the Truisms were being translated into sign language for someone who was deaf and could not read English.

4. Practicing yoga in the morning sun.  On the deck of his house near Imperial Beach in San Diego he is lying on his back with his legs flipped over so that only his shoulders and head anchor his body to earth. He holds the position for a long time. I am watching him from inside his house drinking coffee and coughing with bronchitis.  Completing the flip, he pushes himself up in the air and with a beatific grin on his face suggests that I stop smoking.

5. We drive into Tijuana, where the Third World collides with the First. He takes me to where the border fence runs into the ocean.  Michael jokes, “That’s to keep the Mexican fish from crossing over.”

6. Later that evening we visit one of the more popular gathering points for people who will attempt to climb the border fence once the sun goes down.  Border agents on foot and in ATVs can be seen on the U.S. side watching and waiting for the nightly cat and mouse game to begin.  The atmosphere is almost festive as the incandescent bulbs that hang from taco trucks and vendor’s stalls, selling bottled water and popsicles to those preparing to cross, warm the cool evening light.  Michael is intensely silent, he simply gestures toward things I should pay attention to, like the two brothers and a sister holding hands as they approach El Norte in the thickening dusk.

 

Mark Alice Durant