Page 2 - The Michigan Daily - Sunday, April 7, 1985
Artist: Without discipline, you'don't make it'
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N BRIEF
Compiled from Associated Press and
(Continued from Page 1)
intended to provide companionship for
the lonely, daydreaming doll.
"There is no gallery in Ann Arbor for
outrageous art, says Musselman, who
has sold some of his work to the
progressive Neither Nor Video Art
Gallery in New York's Greenwich
Village.
H OUGH FRUSTRATED about
rejections from local galleries,
Musselman is undaunted. He says that
any "artist has to be judged. And it's a
hard thing on anyone."
Some artists "don't make it," he ad-
ds, because they lack the disciplinie to
keep at their work despite such rejec-
tions and the necessity of, finding
paying jobs in the meantime.
With deep-set eyes, a thick
moustache, and a receding hairline,
Mussleman looks like an unlikely artist.
He speaks in a gentle and thoughtful
manner, though exhaustion is evident
in his tired voice. When a reporter
phones at 11 p.m., he apologizes for
sounding incoherent, explaining that he
had just come home from one job to rest
before going to another.
In addition to spending 20 hours a
week in his studio, Musselman cooks at
the State Street Deli one day a week and
cleans Joe's Star Lounge, and the Ann
Arbor Art Association.
And though his works might not be
hot sellers, he also finds time to'turn his
artistic talents into a profit-making
venture. One way he manages the com-
bination is by picking up items at flea
markets and antique shows for re-sale'
as well as for use in his projects.
"When an artist sees a pile of gar-
bage," he says, "he sees the different
colors while others see just an ugly pile
of trash."
" oHe also makes and sells seasonal
items such as fabric Christmas
wreaths, black Santa Claus Christmas
tree decorations, ear muffs with sewn-
on faces, and hand-stitched fabric heart
pins. Modeling for portrait and figure
drawing classes and working as an art
instructor supplement his income as
well.
This past week he conducted a three-
day workshop in Japanese kite-making
to six and 12-year-olds.
He says he doesn't mind these art-
related jobs, because through them he
learns about problems people face
which become themes he can incor-
porate into his work.
In 1982, for example, Musselman
volunteered to teach a series of courses
on different crafts such as stained glass
painting and sand art to emotionally
depressed patients at University
Hospitals.
"It had a therapeutic effect on the
patients because they discovered that
,they could accomplish something and
that made them and myself feel good,"
he says, adding that the most valuable
lesson he acquired from the experience
was that despite mental or physical
handicaps, "we're all the same."
"He is genuinely involved and en-
thusiastic about art and has a very free
and creative approach which works
beautifully with people-especially
kids," says Seid, who hired Musselman
to teach kite-making to youngsters.
M USSELMAN'S own interest in art
began with a doll-making class he
had in elementary school, though un-
doubtably acquired some of his talent
from a family of extraordinarily ar-
tistic people.
With a father and an uncle who are
able carpenters, an aunt who paints, a
cousin who is a basket weaver, a
brother who is a wood carver, and
another uncle who is a taxidermist,
Musselman admits that he is certainly
inspired by their work, although none of
his relatives sell their artwork for a
living.
Musselman decided to break with the
family tradition by attempting to make
artwork his primary livelihood, even
though he lacked formal education.
"People can make it without a degree,
but it's a hard way to go," he says.
"With little money," he says of his
move to Ann Arbor, "I was selling my
blood twice a week for six months and
livingout of my car for eight months."
Now Musselman can afford a comfor-
table home, largely because of odd jobs
and because he has learned to com-
promise his "outrageous work" for
mass-produced consumer gift items.
Though Ann Arbor hasn't been very
receptive to his art, Musselman intends
to continue to work here because he en-
joys the suburban atmosphere.
But Musselman says he hopes to sell
some of his work in Chicago soon, and
in 1987 he would like to open his own ar-
ts and crafts store here in Ann Arbor.
He plans to eliminate some of the jobs
not related to art so that he has time to
participate in at least two art fairs this
year.
"I'm at a turning point in my art
because I now have enough original
designs to embark on a small-score
mass production of my gift items to put
out on the market," he says.
"I'm shooting for 1987 because that's
when I'll be turning 30 and that will be
my goal," he adds.
Are sleeping out of a car and working
long, exhaustive hours as a cook and
custodian in the meantime worth the
reward?
"I'll go crazy unless I release the ar-
tistic part of me," he says.
United Press International reports
d
Naked man
... stripping away from materialism
Fabric designs
... clashing the new and the old
Sect alliances in Lebanon shifted continually
(Continued from Page 1)
have died in violence in a country that
measures 130 at its longest point and 67
miles at its widest.
Alliances have shifted so many times
that even some Lebanese forget what
was behind one battle or another.
Syians have sent troops, Israel has in-
vaded, United States and European
peacekeepers have come and gone, and
the war has persisted.
Lebaiese fondly remember their
country as "the Switzerland of the Mid-
die East." Israeli Deputy Prime
Minister David Levy recently
described it as "a country gripped by
madness where bloodletting is a daily
occurence.".
HOW AND when did one become the
other? Any among the dozens of an-
swers offered is partly true, partly a
contradiction.
Take the view of Antoine Dagher,
manager of the Printania Palace Hotel
in the the Christian mountain village of
Brummana east of Beirut. When asked
who was responsible for the unending
conflict, he shot back: "The Syrians,
the Israelis, the Soviets, the Americans.,
the K.G.B., the C.I.A. We don't know.
Somebody, not us."
The counter explanation to Dagher's
is that the war is only an outgrowth of an
ancient conflict between Christians and
Moslems. But in the last 10 years,
Moslems have killed Moslems and
Christians have killed Christians.
NOT THAT violence is something
new in Lebanon. The Old Testament
book of Habakkuk, 2:17, warned the
Israelites, "for the violence of Lebanon
shall cover thee."
Lebanon's strategic position on the
Mediterranean between Africa and
Asia allowed the ancient Phoenicians to
found a shipping empire and send their
cedars to build the temples of Egypt.
But this also meant the country was a
welcome prize to many armies.
It has been conquered over the cen-
turies by Egypt's Ramses II,
Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Alexander
the Great of Greece, the Crusader
Baldwin, the Moslem warrior Saladin,
the British Army under Gen. Edmund
Allenby, and the Israeli Army under
Defense Minister Ariel Sharon. Among
others, that is.
THE STRUGGLE between Maronite
Christians and Druse over who would
control Mount Lebanon is at the center
of Lebanon's internal troubles.
The Maronites, followers of the
Syrian hermit monk St. Maroun, came
to Lebanon to escape persecution in the
7th century. The Druse, a schism of
Shiite Islam, arrived in the 11th century
for the same reason.
A war in 1860 between the Maronites
and the Druse was ended through inter-
vention of outside powers, including the
French who've had ties to the
Maronites since the crusades, and the
English traditional allies of the Druse.
SHIITE Moslems, scattered
throughout the country, now are the
larget religious community. The
Greek Orthodox and Sunni Moslems
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have traditionally inhabited the coastal
cities. Then there are Greek Catholics,
Armenian Orthodox and Armenian
Catholics, Syrian Catholics, Roman
Catholics, Syrian Jacobites,
Nestorians, and the occasional
Presbyterian or Episcopalian.
This was the mix to be dealt with in
1943, when Lebanon was struggling for
independence from France, which had
taken over rule of the region when-
World War I ended 400 years of Turkish
reign.
At the time, many Moslems wanted
union with Moslem Syria and some
Christians wanted to maintain ties to
Catholic France for fear of being
swallowed up in the larger world of
Islam.
LEBANESE nationalists, a rare
breed, prevailed. An unwritten
- national covenant" evolved. It
decreed that a Maronite would always
be president, a Sunni prime minister
and a Shiite parliament speaker.
Christians would hold a majority in
parliament.
But the national covenant per-
petuated differences even as it held the
country together, and all the while the
equation was changing.
The Palestinians arrived in waves af-
ter the founding of Israel in 1948, after
the loss of Jordan's West Bank in the
1967 Arab-Israeli war, and after the
1970 "Black September" war in which
Jordan's King Hussein expelled the
Palestine Liberation Organization.
THE CHRISTIANS, the Moslems and
the Druse were building militias to
protect themselves. Tangled up in this
was outside Arab backing for
Palestinians using Lebanon as their
base to attack Israel, increasing Israeli
reprisal in South Lebanon, and the
flight of . Shiite southerners to shan-
tytown suburbs around Beirut.
This was the situation on April 13,
1975 when Pierre Gemayel, a
bodyguard, and two others were killed
at the opening of a church. In revenge,
fighters of Gemayel's Phalange Party
attacked a bus returning from a rally
and 28 were killed, most of them
Palestinians.
The fighting raged for 19 months. It
ended when the Arab League called for
an Arab "peacekeeping force" to take
over Beirut. Syrians had come in on the
side of the Christians, but they now
painted their helmets green - the Arab
League color - and made up the major
part of the force that entered Beirut on
Nov. 14, 1976.
ALLIANCES kept shifting. The
Syrians wound up on the Moslem side.
Gemayel's Phalange Party made
friends with Israel, which invaded in
1978 and again in 1982, virtually invited
by the Christians the second time
around.
The PLO was driven back from
Israel's border and out of Beirut. The
United States and its European allies
sent "peacekeepers," and a U.S.-
mediated troop withdrawal pact was
reached with Israel on May 17, 1983.
Then came another of what the
T hanese cal "rnnds" of the civil
Police crack auto theft ring ;
NEW YORK-Law enforcers arrested 21 people and cracked a multi
million-dollar auto theft ring that stretched through the southern United
States and Puerto Rico, authorities said yesterday.
Among those arrested were Anthony Perranti, of the Bronx, the alleged
mastermind of the ring-which authorities said specialized in stealing late-
model American-made automobiles in every New York City borough except'
Staten Island.
The ring stole an average of three cars a day, took them to a "chop shop"
garage where mechanics dismantled them, then shipped parts forrbc
redistribution, law enforcers said.
Bronx District Attorney Harid Merola said the operation brought millions
of dollars to ring members.
Authorities used wiretaps and television cameras to monitor the ring for'
the past 60 days, leading to the discovery that leaders-tipped tha
authorities were closing in on them-planned to relocate the operation
during the Easter and Passover holidays.
Iraq bombs three Iranian cities'.,
BAGHDAD, Iraq-Iraq stepped up the "war of the cities" yesterday, 4
raiding Tehran by air and firing missiles at three Iranian cities in attacks
which Iran said left scores dead and injured.
In Tehran, Iran's capital, the Iranian armed forces said in a statement
that their plans raided the northeastern border town of Ranya, inflicting
"heavy losses," and that Iranian guns shelled Basra, Mandali and eight
other towns along the warfront. There was no confirmation from Iraq.
An Iraqi military spokesman said Iraqi jets raided Tehran before dawn
yesterday in retaliation for an explosion the previous day in Baghdad. Iran
claimed Friday's blast was caused by one of its missiles.
The attacks on residential areas began March 5 after a nine-month,
U.N.-brokered moratorium on such raids. Baghdad residents call the
newest phase in the 4 year-old war the "war of the cities."
The Iraqi spokesman reported troops fired surface-to-surface missiles at
the Iranian border cities of Dezful, Nahawand and Ram Hormuz as part of a
campaign to force the Iranians to the conference table.
Iran confirmed the Iraqi strikes. .Iran's official Islamic Republic News
Agency said in dispatches monitored in Nicosia, Cyprus, that at least 40
people were killed or injured in Dezful, 24 killed or wounded in Ram Hormuz,
and 10 killed and an undetermined number wounded in Nahawand.
Reagan defends Nicaraguan aid
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - President Reagan said yesterday the U.S. gover-
nment spends $14 million dollars in very short periods of time and that he's
only asking Congress for "a few minutes worth of help" for the Nicaraguan
rebels.
In his regular Saturday radio address, delivered from his mountaintop
ranch near Santa Barbara, the president said he had received "encouraging
reaction" to his Nicaraguan peace proposals unveiled last Thursday. They
called for church-assisted negotiations between Nicaragua's leftist gover-
nment and the Contra rebels.
They also provide that a requested $14 million in aid to be channeled
through the CIA to the rebels be used only-for humanitarian purposes for 60
days as long as there was progress in the negotiations.
Medicaid investigates claims
state agency reprimanded him',
LANSING, Mich. - A Department of Social Service employee said his
superiors have retaliated against him for his role in an investigation of the
$1.5-million Medicaid program.
Mike Skuter, an official in the Liability Claims Processing Divison of the
DSS Office of Quality Assurance, said he sent a nine-page letter Friday con-
taining the charges to House Speaker Gary Owen (D-Yspilanti).
Skuter said the reprimands were made clear to him in at least one "fist-
pounding" session and in writing from three officials, including Harold
Gazan, director of DSS special services and a member of Director Agnes
Mansour's administrative council, The Detroit News reported.
Skuter said two other officials also requested in messages relayed by
Gazan that Skuter stop givinginformation to the committee.
"All of these acts against me have occurred only since it became common
knowledge that I was providing informaton to the legislative investigating
committee," Skuter wrote to Owen.
Gravediggers strike continues
SAN FRANCISCO - An 11-day strike by gravediggers has closed 18
cemeteries in the San Francisco Bay area with no new negotiations in sight,
causing scores of bodies to accumulate in mortuaries day by day.
All signs suggest the strike could be a long one. In 1971 a similar walkout
lasted four months and created a backlog of 1,800 bodies.
The bodies are embalmed and enclosed in caskets that are kept in-mor-
tuary basments and other cool places.
Virginia Daphne of Daphne Funeral Services said 70 bodies were stored in
her mortuary in the 1971 strike.
Beginning in the 1920s, San Francisco moved all civilian cemeteries out of
the city because of the increasing value of city land. They were moved to the 3
suburb of Colma, which has Wyatt Earp among notables buried there.
Colma now has 13 cemeteries, and 30 or 40 funeral motorcades usually cruise
through the city daily.
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Vol.XVC-No.149
The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967 X) is published Tuesday through Sunday
during the Fall and Winter terms and Tuesday through Saturday during the
Spring and Summer terms by students at the University of Michigan. Sub-
scription rates: through April - $4.00 in Ann Arbor; $7.00 outside the city.
Second class postage paid at Ann Arbor, Michigan. Postmaster: Send
address changes to The Michigan Daily, 420 Maynard Street, Ann Arbor,
Michigan 48109.
The Michigan Daily is a member of The Associated Press and subscribes to
United Press International, Pacific News Service, Los Angeles Times Syndi-
cate, and College Press Service.
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Sell your lofts, furniture, carpets and
other white elephants before you leave.
YEAR END SALE
April 17
*mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmue
-I_ want my ad in:
D April"17
Editor in Chief....................NEIL CHASE
Opinion Page Editors..........JOSEPH KRAUS
PETER WILLIAMS
Managing Editors.........GEOROEA KOVANIS
JACKIE YOUNG
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Movies..................... BYRON L. BULL
Music"-- - --..................DENNIS HARVEY
Books ........................ ANDY WEINE
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BARB McQUADE
ADAMMARTIN
PHIL NUSSEL
STEVE WISE
SPORTS STAFF: Dave Aretha, Eda Benjakul, Mark
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Business Manager...... ....... LIZ CARSON
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Classified Manager .:....... ...... JANICE KLEIN
Nationals Manager........JEANNIE McMAHON
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