Rory White:
CLASS OF 1966
Chatsworth High SchoolClass of 1966
Chatsworth, CA
University of CaliforniaClass of 1975
Los angeles, CA
Canoga Park High SchoolClass of 1966
Canoga park, CA
Rory's Story
School
Briefly for now :
after a couple years at Canoga High then graduating from Chatsworth High with the paradoxical title of with "High Honors" . It's amazing I even survived.
I then, once again, surviving the "Summer of Love", went to UCLA, where I studied Asian and Occidental Philosophy and Religion, Mandarin Chinese, Art, and where I won the Regent's Scholarship, the highest undergrad academic achievement scholarship
(God is Gracious to fumbling idiots like me).
I took a 4 year leave of absence, living in Topanga Canyon from 1967 to 1973, worked carpentry and developed my art work, had exhibitions and commissions of my sculpture and etchings drawings (got into oil painting later).
then went up to UC Santa Cruz where i received my B.A. in Fine Art. (by the skin of my teeth again...but somehow learning quite a bit once again).
More recently, after taking a tremendous amount of graduate courses in psychology and sociology at Antioch University, L.A., I've been involved in an MFA (Masters of Fine Arts) program through Goddard College....
On the brightest side :
I have found great joy in my current work where I have designed, implemented and run an Art Project, for persons with homelessness or recent homelessness, schizophrenia, other mental diagnoses, HIV and AIDS, and other challenges, in the severe Skid Row sector of downtown Los Angeles.
Although this sounds "heavy" (or depressing) to others, it is a wonderful wonderful thing.
The people I work with are angels of God in disguise and are brilliant humans and artists, but simply have not had the lot to end up in middle america...but instead tasted homelessness and marginalization from society.
I have actually lived a fairly catastrophic life, with many many great calamities and hardships, and certainly wear all these psychic scars upon my countenance.
I have experienced great poverty myself many years, and opulence during other years. For 15 years my "day job" was selling paintings of art historical significance to museums and important collectors.
I am very spiritually focused in my life, and in irony, or not, to my years of study of Asian Religion, I now study mostly the Old and New Testament.
I am Christ centered in my belief and studies, but hardly what one would think of as a ...Expand for more
fundamentalist or of typical fundamentalist social or political (or judgemental) persuasion.
Furthermore I am very into my Judaism, and if anyone says my belief in Christ somehow cancels out my pride in my Judaism, they better be ready for a fist fight.
Anyway, I'm a combination of opposites, and have led a very very difficult life, but also am rich in experience, in deep love for other humans, and in my artistic abilities.
I was faithfully married for 6 years and hope to be married again, God willing.
Although i hardly am in the same shape i was as a youth i'm an avid Gym goer, althogh everythiing seems to get in the way of making my workout routine regular, but i am still basically seeking the endorphin rush of good regular work outs to calm my nerves after a dfficult day, and once again, a difficult life.
Lived in Big Sur California for 13 years where I owned my own home and land in the wilderness.
Now i live in a tiny but beautiful Art Deco and (Rent Control... Yay!!!) apartment, four blocks from the ocean in Santa Monica, which I have set up also as a painting studio, and library, as well as my, once again, very tiny but beautiful, abode.
ADDENDUM: aftetr running the Skid Row art project for 10 years, in which it very positively empowered artists challenged with homelessness, and won 2 Frederick Weisman Grants, an Annenberg Grant for an exhibtion, and for which work i was given the Eli Lilly Welcome Back (for persons helping those with mental diagnoses overcome societal marginalization and integrate their lives) "Person of the Decade Award"
in Washington D.C. (sounds pretentious, but i cling to these little pats on the back for all the kicks in the stomach live gives), I am no moving to Guanajuato Mexico to continue to work on my painting, photography and anti-poverty work.
it all sounds grand but the other side
of the picture is doing the work in Skid Row made ME more impoverished than ever, and i've basically led a neurotic life, and there has been richness in the eccentricity of my path and, once again, God has been exceedingly merciful to me, giving me meaningful work to do, forgiving my many sins and basically pretending (well i think the Bible uses other words) but God basically pretends i'm somehow worthy to receive these gifts....
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