Autobiographical reflections

What do Queen Isabella I of Spain, philosopher and Critique of Pure Reason Immanuel Kant, Russian leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, and rock guitarist Peter Frampton and I have in common? We were all born on the same day, but not in the same year of course. In fact, if Queen Isabella I of Spain was alive on the day of my birth, she would have celebrated her 497th birthday, Immanuel Kant his 224th and Peter Frampton would have needed to wait two more years to see the world through his very own eyes.

There are, certainly some significant differences between all of us who share this birth date. The most vivid difference perhaps lies in the fact that none of them were born in Poland. As someone born in a communist country, I have to admit shamefully that as far as I remember, my childhood was truly wonderful. To this day, I strongly believe that every child should experience life in some kind of "communist system" before adulthood. After all, the sun shined there as intensely as everywhere else, all schools were free as was healthcare. There was to some degree a strong desire to acquire material possessions, but since there was not too much to choose from, most of us redirected our interests elsewhere. Very early, we also learned to separate successfully true and important news from propaganda. Something young Americans continue to struggle with!

During that time in my life, my artistic activities included the Academy of Art in my home town of Lodz, where I held my first individual exhibition. I have no recollection of the details, but it did give me the opportunity to win a local contest in which I designed a poster commemorating the annual Student Theatre Festival in Lodz. At the time, this win was a very big deal to me.

In 1973, I traveled to the United States of America for vacation. Like millions of future American citizens, I never returned home. For the next six years I focused mainly on developing my communication skills, trying to understand and later take advantage of the social, political and economic structure of my new homeland. My artistic soul was put on the back burner. In 1979 I opened Studio 702, a company specializing in the creation of artistic objects and utilitarian designs made primarily out of glass and acrylic; also, sometimes known under their brand names, Lucite or Plexiglas.

For the next fourteen years, my commitment to this project was unequivocal. With the help of talented employees, Studio 702 crafted and produced literally hundreds of furniture and art pieces mainly for local interior designers, professionals from various creative fields and private buyers. Regrettably, very little documentation of these pieces exist today. If they were to be aggregated, the common trend would be their frosted glass finish. An artistic style that would place my name next to famous French designer-artist Rene Jules Lalique. Today, to document all the work from my past would be an enormous undertaking. Perhaps, only equal to that of discovering who killed President Kennedy, or who was really behind the 9/11 tragedy.

Located in the gallery district of Chicago, Studio 702 contained both a work space and a gallery on two floors. This setup provided little need for external exhibition of my creations, with the exception of the one in Poland in 1987. I wrote about the significance of this event in my introduction to the upcoming "My Life in the Orient" exhibition.

In 1993, I was burned out and said goodbye to Chicago by selling my acrylic and glass company. From there, I bought a brand new four-wheel drive car and headed "south of the border". From a personal level, spending the third part of my life in a different culture seemed to be a natural progression. The idea of marrying a Latina woman and eventually letting our two kids build sand castles on the beach, while my wife and I took care of our beach bar wasn't completely off the table.

Meanwhile I developed another passion. I started to paint on silk. This passion began in Guatemala's most beautiful city of Antigua where I lived for about half a year. It later continued for two years in Trujillo, a small town in Honduras discovered by a famous Italian sailor named Christopher Columbus in 1502 during his last trip to Americas. In 1996, Trujillo was the host of its first and to this day last art exhibition. Supposedly, local residents were saying that if 492 years ago Columbus would predict that some "Polak" would be throwing an art exhibit of his silk paintings in this town; he would have chosen to land somewhere else instead. Honestly - I don't believe in these rumors.

Two years later, I had another silk painting exhibition but this time in South Pacific region of Mexico. A charming costal village of Zipolite, where after moving from Honduras I was lingering on and off until the year 2000. I remember that this particular exhibition made one German tourist very angry because I refused to sell her one of my paintings. "Seniorita, muy pinturas son por exibicion solamente" - I unconvincingly tried to explain to her in my "fluent" Spanish.

Between 2001 and 2003, I headed back once again to the "country of excess" where I opened a gallery in Chicago called "Indochina". It specialized in Southeast Asia's sacred as well as secular and tribal imported artifacts. This endeavor brought mixed results. With the US invasion of a second country in the Middle East, I intuitively knew that euphemisms like "war on terror" or "support our troops" would drive most Americans to turn towards nationalistic sentiments and look at any foreign culture with disgust. My concerns were correct and when the slow deterioration of American economy added to this picture, only one solution remained. I closed "Indochina" with a spectacularly successful "going out of business" sale. With that, I was ready to go somewhere else one last time.

Well... at least I was under impression that this going to be my last time.

Between 2003 and 2006, I once again headed back to the country of "cerveza, tequila and siesta". At the beginning, everything seemed to be going according to the plan. I settled down in Zipolite in very nice bungalow, with a three story cathedral rooftop located just steps from a truly magnificent beach. In the front of my bungalow I opened a small open-air movie theatre where for three seasons my favorite movies were played predominately for gringos.

Also from time to time I continued to paint on silk. Then in the middle of 2006, social unrest developed in district of Oaxaca effectively reducing the influx of tourism and making the high season slightly over one month long. A time to go? Definitely.

Presently, I reside in Thailand. A place I visited for the first time in 1986, a period in time when Ferdinand Marcos was overthrown in the Philippines. Since then a large number of subsequent visits have reinforced my belief that perhaps this is my last "relocation". I intend to continue my interest in tribal aspects of local life, in part dependent on the degree of success from an upcoming exhibition at The Society for Arts in Chicago.

In short - I am very fortunate to have lived my life thus far on three continents; and as a creative individual I like to think that I am an artist who is consistently inconsistent.

Marcos Malinowsky
Chicago, April 22, 2010