Vincent & Theo My Dream Brothers

Vincent & Theo My Dream Brothers

Since I was 17 and saw my very first art exhibit on my own Vincent has been a hero, role model, a guide, a person I used to remind me of when I was going to far in my life.

Since then I have read many books, articles, gone to several exhibits of his work in the US, the Netherlands, including the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and several others around the globe. I have 3 cheap prints on frames hanging in my house that I bought many years ago.  I also own several books including:

Time-Life Series of Art Collection (complete set)
Letters of Van Gogh (complete in one paperback book)

Last night I went to the Cine theater in Athens to see the recent movie about the last days to weeks of his life that is a completely painted movie, first ever.  65,000 paintings by 100 artists to create the movie.

Go to YouTube to see any of the wonderful videos that tell the story about how the movie was created in the past few years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CQKHWvK8Ro



I walked out of the theater greatly INSPIRED once again
at a very low period of my life.

This is the introduction, a rough, explaining how and why I have chosen to write another book about my life and how I have seen parallels: positive to horrible to Vincent's life.

Vincent tried many occupations to find one that would truly allow him to grow and share his love for life.

I have tried 8 professions since I was 16 years old also searching for the best profession to maximize my abilities, traits, skills, knowledge, experience.

He became famous beginning shortly after his death.

I have not become famous.  I have received several awards, at least one in each of my chosen professions but no fame.

For a short time of a couple months I did become mildly infamous for taking one photograph after being told "do not photograph secure areas" by a security official in Abu Dhabi.  That I will share later or you can do a Google search for my name and UAE to read some about that on your own if you choose.

Here is one url that will lead to 7,010,000 HITS

https://www.google.com/search?q=robert+alan+black+uae&enablesearch=true

Here is what the first few hits typically look like.


For years I have begun many books about my life or aspects of it.

This one I am choosing to use the TIME-LIFE book:
The World of Van Gogh
1853-1890

https://aristosbooks.com/products/the-world-of-van-gogh-1853-1890-time-life-library-of-art?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=googlepla

I began buying the series during my Junior or Senior year in architectural school and ended up buying the complete series which I have read all of them at least once.  This one about BROTHER VINCENT I have read several times and am reading it again not at nearly 74 years of age to help create the stories of my own life.

Now beginning on page one of VINCENT's book:

As I shared with two people I met just before the film began last night, most people know the "STORY" about him cutting off his EAR and giving it to a prostitute as a gift.

The movie and book both begin with that "STORY" which is only partly true.  He cut off a piece of the lobe of his ear but the world swears he cut off his entire ear.

No I have never cut off any of my body parts.

Have thought about it though some times.

"Van Gogh's work is of an extremely personal sort."

So has much of my work as a

cartoonist

graphic designer
news writer
architect
interior design
freelance writer
professor
speaker
trainer
consultant

also been of a personal nature. At least the work I have been the proudest of.

"It was his method to fuse what he saw, and what he felt, as quickly as possible into statements that were revelations of himself."

Over my life this has been a tendency or habit of mine.

I have struggled with holding myself back so many times.

Yet during my speaking, training, teaching or every day conversations I find myself being extremely open or as HOT business books often label that as BEING TRANSPARENT.

Though I know as most people discover quickly most people are not willing to listen to such openness for very long if at all.

"When he sought to express (himself) directly to other human beings he met only misunderstanding or hostility."

So has my life been filled with examples of similar results.

People generally will not openly speak and definitely not openingly, sincerely listen to someone who does.

"While he was alive, Vincent, was regarded as an exceedingly difficult, obstinate and even frightening man."

Not sure my life or personality has been seen in that extreme yet I have seen so many eyes roll or people walk away physically or mentally. 

Simply being that open is rarely accepted in any of the 93 cultures or 49 states I have traveled and worked in since I turned 5 years old.

"He was often inclined to belittle himself."

"He signed his works Vincent not Vincent van Gogh."

Once I discovered that in 1961 at the age of 17 I began usually doing the same.

I have wanted to be known as "Alan" not Mr. Black, Dr. Black, Robert, Robert Alan Black or any of the usual nicknames.

In 1971 I began using my full give name in print for both aesthetic and legal reasons.  Most of my heroes had been 3 namers.

Frank Lloyd Wright
Robert Louis Stevenson
Henry David Thoreau
Edgar Allan Poe
and many others

I grew to dislike my usually spoken name
"Alan Black" and have for over 47 years
said my name is Alan, a simple 4 letter word

My name badges from the nearly 4,000 conferences, institutes, conventions, workshops I have attended and in many cases presented at since 1976 all have my name as

A L A N



Many of my habits, customs, rituals I have borrowed from my heroes, mentors, greatest teachers and integrated them into my daily life.

Vincent's name was not his alone.  His mother had a still born child also that she named Vincent Willem Van Gogh.  That story was brought out in the LOVING VINCENT movie as well showing a typical scene in the cemetery where the first born was buried and this mother would daily take flowers to put on his grave.

Vincent was never the love of his mother but a reminder of her first dead baby.

My story is a little happier than that yet not completely.

This is the family story as I have learned and understood throughout my life:

My Birth - a NIGHTMARE or a GIFT

When I was born I was a nightmare come true for my mother.

She had been told after my middle brother was born to have a hysterectomy because our family doctor was afraid if she got pregnant a third time she might die.

Both her 1st and 2nd babies were huge at over 9 lbs each.  She was about 4'-11" and tiny in size.

She was scared by the idea of having the operation.  My understanding growing up is that she and my father simply restrained from sex or practice same sex when they did.

It was not a Sunday afternoon dinner conversation.

My collective knowledge came through bits and pieces of over heard conversations.

BUT....

She did become pregnant a 3rd time.  She followed every instruction from her doctor and her various women friends.

The morning of June 30th, 1944 she woke up. Prepared my father's breakfast.  Then told him she was going into labor.

Off to Saratoga Hospital he drove them.

Apparently I was in a hurry to be born and came out before our family doctor could arrive.

A young intern who was on duty and the nurses delivered me.

Later the young intern came into my mother's room to report about her new baby, her 3rd son.

Mrs. Black your baby boy is a healthy 9 lbs 10 oz. He has all of his 10 toes and fingers. His eyesight and hearing appear to be normal.

There is one concern.  Your baby may never be able to speak clearly enough to be understood.  He was born with a severe cleft palette and hare lip.

My mother and I never talked about the details of that morning.  Once again the story or stories I have learned came in bits and pieces overheard.  Looking back I know that not truly talking with and listening to my mother tell me about her feelings was a major mistake in my life.

After the intern delivered that NIGHTMARE News my mother probably cried and cried.  My impression or understanding has always been that she felt she had sinned and God had punished her with a deformed child.  An abnormal, handicapped child.

Later our family doctor arrived and learned of the stupid things that the young intern, I stress, young, had told his patient.

Quickly our doctor tried to dispel the false information, we would call it now in 2018.  I imagine the conversation went something like this.

Joan, your baby is fine.  I have a very good friend, Dr. Claire Straight right here in Detroit who is a world famous surgeon who specializes in correct cleft palette defects.  I will have him come see you soon and explain what he will do for your baby.

Later that week on Sunday the doorbell rang at 20529 Joann Street in northeast Detroit.

When my father opened our front door there stood on our tiny concrete porch a man in a Sunday going to church suit with a friendly face.

Good Morning Mr. Black I am Dr. Straight, friend of your family doctor.  I have come to see your baby son and your wife.

My dad escorted him to their bedroom where Dr. Straighth explained what the surgery would do and stressing that with speech correction after the surgery your baby son will live a normal life.

At least that is how I have always understood to be the story of the NIGHTMARE when I was born.

Now looking back over 74 years I can recall many DREAMS that have true since that totally prove that

EXPERTS DON'T ALWAYS KNOW ALL THE ANSWERS.

In July in Washington, DC NSA President Dave Gordon put the ribbon and CSP - Creative Speaking Professional medallion around my neck awarding the highest earned speaking award that the National Speakers Association has to offer.

The baby who would never speak and be understood was a professional speaker and has been since 1980.

I know my mother gave me a great deal to help make me normal perhaps because she thought she had sinned in God's eyes by becoming pregnant a 3rd time when warned not to by her doctor.

But looking over my life, examining it over and over for the past 50 years through self-reflection I do know that the only time I can remember that my mother hugged me was the morning I bent down on a knee to tell her that Jimmy, her oldest grandson had died of lukemia that morning.  A secret that her oldest son and his wife and the rest of us kept from our mother and father until that morning.

Lesson?  Actually many have come from that part of my life.

As a parent, husband, son often we keep secrets or tell lies that were wrong to keep or tell.

Vincent's father was a handsome man who was a mediocre minister and typically a stern man who often was cruel to Vincent.

My father was a handsome man with wavy hair when he was young. I always knew as a bald, mostly serious man.

His life was filled with challenges personally, professionally and difficult due to the times he lived

He was born in 1911 in Blythe, England a seaport and coal mining town.  By the age of 12 as the oldest son he began working in one of the coal mines as a cart boy.  Twice he left England to live in the USA.  When he was 14 his mother and 3 brothers were held in quarantine for 10 days before they were sent back to England because his mother was suspected to have TB or another deathly illness. So the family story goes she died soon after they returned.

When he was 16 his father, who had worked on ships as a repair man, an engineer took my father back to the US to live with his new combined family.  My father never returned to England.

My mother was one of 9 children, the 5th girl.  My memory from stories is that there were 5 or 6 girls and 3 or 5 boys.  During my life time I only met face to face 3 of the sisters: Aunt M in Toronto, Aunt Mary from Scotland who came to visit a few times in the US and Aunt Sally who also moved to Detroit to live.  My mother came to the US under a contract as an indentured servant for a family in Holyoke, Massachusetts.  After that contract was complete she moved to Toronto and then to Detroit like my father also because that was where there was work during the Depression.

After moving to Detroit my mother opened employment as a maid and cook with the Horace Dodge family in Grosse Pointe Farms.

My parents met at a party put on by my Aunt Sally's future in-laws one Sunday not long after they both moved to Detroit seeking work and a place to live their new American lives.