this is a story that started a while ago with an interview in 24 October 2018 …..
It’s almost midday. The rain of the past weeks has abated and Brisbane is cloaked in jacaranda blue skies and the steamy air of a sudden summer.I am visiting an old friend artist David Forbes. He is in The GARU unit of Prince Alfred Hospital. He’s in physio when I arrive. In my mind and memory the room is spare, green and Dave says it reminds him of One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest. It is functional with an array of equipment to help patients learn to walk, breathe and function. It's a far cry from the creativity and colour of Daves studio.
We hug for a long while and then I release him to continue with his session.
Miracle by Dave Fiorbes
I met Dave and his wife Janelle 27 years ago when they were living on Tamborine Mountain. They had two small children and Dave had just finished a full body cast of Janelle’s seven months pregnant body sculptured in resin and back-lit with neon. (Miracle)
David is the son of a Californian attorney and was 12 during the Summer of love in 69. He studied Art at Berkeley and the University of Santa Barbara. After he graduated he won a scholarship to attend a residency in Maine. This is the lucky break aspiring artists dream of.
His paintings are atmospheric, abstract works that play with the way that light works on the landscape. He planned to develop a body of work and get a show to kick start his career. This was in between riding a motor bike across 49 of the 50 states of the US and travels through Canada and Mexico.
Always a touchstone of bravery, he laughs as he recites his litany of near death experiences; jumping out of an aeroplane in high school with a jammed parachute, missing a flight back to the States from Mexico because the taxi driver got lost only to discover later that the plane crashed and all on board died, travelling through the streets and highways of the Americas testing the land air speed limit, missing the turn off to a road that is then struck during the San Francisco earth quake killing all driving along it at that exact time and location…
“So do you think you were brave, bold, careless or reckless” I ask…“Reckless, wild, not wanting to follow the rules” he says without hesitation.
And yet his paintings failed to secure him a show, they were deemed to be too ‘quiet.’ Undaunted and still interested in light he moved to Wisconsin to learn the art of bending neon. It is for his sculptures in neon and public artworks that Dave became known.
He has been possessed by an all consuming passion for the arts since he was in the 7th grade. He is 62, and has devoted over 40 years to his arts practice.
Dave Forbes was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1998, not long after we met at the age of 41. The children were young, David & Janelle had just moved to Brisbane for more art opportunities, not to mention health reasons.
Dave was well and truly a master of neon & sculpture by this time. Soon he could not control the use of his hands well enough to sculpt or to paint. The passion had to shift slightly, but Dave was determined not to let the fire burn out.
From 1997- 2013 he taught digital art at Brisbane North Tafe and was special needs arts teacher at Bremer Tafe until that was no longer an option.
I have known him so long… he and Janelle have travelled all over the world ….. never letting a celebration or an opportunity for adventure or fun go by….its a lesson
So here I am having found my way through the hospital labyrinth. Here Dave is, Parkinson’s shake pronounced, voice trembling, pleased to see me and the irony of the setting and the poignancy and purpose of the meeting not lost on either of us.
It’s sometimes difficult to make out what Dave is saying as the tremor affects his speech. People often discount Dave because they think he doesn’t comprehend or they can’t connect. But his mind is still razor sharp.
I don’t want to take written notes because I want to hold his gaze so I record our talk…
When did you first find out you had Parkinson’s? 22 years ago
What was you life like before that? I grew up in California went to University of Berkley and studied art and science- couldn’t decide if I wanted to be a doctor or an artist.
How ironic, you chose the path of the artist, but here you are in hospital surrounded by doctors. When did you get interested in art? In the 7th grade I designed the year book cover- very psychedelic with wild lettering
What did you major in when you were studying art? After the first semester , I canned the pre-med and went in for straight art. It was a pretty regimented path, do this do that…I’ve never been one for regimented so I transferred to UC Santa Barbara. Did all my undergraduate study there. I could do whatever I wanted, welding, ceramics- tactile learning andprint making. In my final year they offered me a scholarship to Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture I studied under David Hockney, Louise Bour-geois Frank Stella….That was when I was painting-
You thought of yourself as a painter then? Yes
After this study and residency, what direction did you think you would go in? Selling and showing work
So you set about creating a body of work What were you exploring? They were abstract works derivative of the landscape.
How did you put yourself through art school? I put myself through. I would go for 2-3 semesters and then take one off and work to support myself. I was Vice President of an art supply store- doing a catalogue we had one of the first computers to work on which had 4 mb! That was the early days of the digital age.
So at the end of your training did you get a show? No I think my work was too quiet.
Were you a quiet person yourself? Yes
So your work didn’t fit into what was expected at that time. Yes….That was the thing about modernism, I didn’t have the checkered history
So you ran up against that thing of people might like your work but you don’t have a name, but its hard to get a name….so what did you do then if you found it hard to get a show? I kept on painting…But paintings take up a lot of space, especially when they are 6 foot square so in 1978 I moved into a warehouse in Oakland. 40 foot of walls and win-dows! It had a drop floor, floodlit with light, I could paint all day and all night. I began working with neon. First with the paintings to add a dimension of light but the neon overshadowed the painting. So I decided to explore neon sculpture which was consistent with my interest in exploring light , reflection and the play of light on the landscape and surfaces.
How fantastic to have a the warehouse to experiment with light and neon and a light working space large enough to explore angles and distance. Did you learn about neon while you were at university? No I learnt from one of the best neon people in America. In Northern Wis-consin Neon Workshop run by Dean Blazak , his son Michael Blazak now helps me with the fabrication of my work here in Australia. (learning neon art )
So how did a wild boy from California keen on breaking into the Amer-ican art scene end up in Australia. Janelle.
Janelle grew up on the mid north coast of NSW. Like many young Australians she was on the move heading for a working holiday in the ski fields of Banff. She stopped in San Francisco on her way through and looked Dave up.
She had met Dave and his then second wife while they were travelling in Asia some time earlier. Dave had been sick with kidney stones so knew his way around the local medical system. At breakfast they got to talking to Janelle, who had a burn on her leg that didn’t look good, from a motorcycle injury a week earlier. Dave connected her to his doctor who could speak English. The burn was bad and needed dressings changed twice a day. Dave helped out. The three grew close. They travelled to Surabaya and Jakarta but it wasn’t a comfortable time for westerners travelling in Indonesia, being mistaken for being Dutch in the early 80s so the trio headed to Singapore, indeed they hung out in Raffles drinking gin and playing pool.
There was an attraction and a great fondness between them , but Dave was married so they kept their distance.
From there they parted ways. Dave and his wife returning to the States and Janelle going on a seven month trip through Asia including a 31 day trek to Annapurna. After stopping briefly at home in Australia she got on another plane for Canada with a short stop in the US.
Out of the blue, Dave gets a call from Janelle on her way to Canada.
By this time Dave had separated from wife number two and so they had the opportunity to spend a short while together, and before Janelle headed to Banff .. Dave was smitten. He would join her in 32 days. He sent a post-card each day with the number of days left on it it before they would meet again. The final postcard he slipped under her pillow!
After her work stint in Canada was up the two drove down the coast to San Francisco. Returning to the Bay Area barrios of Oakland, specially the notorious Fruitvale district. He was living in another warehouse, making art until the earthquake of 1989 happened.
Then came The smell of bodies, collapse of roads, people in a state of total breakdown They moved out of there and up to the Hills at Piedmont. They lived there for a couple of years . Janelle was a chef so she got work in various places, made pastries, making bread.. They got married in a vineyard, in the States, got pregnant and life, it seemed, was turning a corner for Dave and his arts practice.
Janelle went back to Australia to visit her dad who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Her dad wanted to live until the baby was born. Dave came out to be with her , he closed his business and came to Australia with the plan to bend glass. They lived in Scotts Head with Janelles family for a year, during which time Billy was born and Janelle's father died. Then they moved to Tamborine Mountain.
I asked Dave whether he was fit and healthy at this point. Yes, but when I was at lunch with my mom before we left the States I was pouring a cup of coffee and my hand shook. Initially I wasn’t concerned … it’s the kind of thing you pass off as a pinched nerve or something.
But it continued.
Once in Australia I went to see a Neurologist who passed it off as a benign essential tremor. I was fit, I was healthy, by this time I have a wife and 2 young kids and I’m only 41. But he sent me to see one of his colleagues who took one look at me and said “its Parkinsons”. This shook me up a bit because up until now every time I went to the doctors about the shaking they all comforted me by saying at least its not Parkinsons..
But it was.
We had been living on Tamborine Mountain for three years when I got the diagnosis. So we decided to move to the city, everything was central, we looked for a house with a space for a studio underneath with three bedrooms and a big yard. We found a house and knew it would fit the bill and bought it without even looking inside-.
So you moved to Brisbane, the Parkinson’s had emerged enough so you couldn’t bend neon anymore or paint…How did you feel about that? What was happening creatively when you found you couldn’t do your art anymore? Well I knew I couldn’t make art the way I had before so you just find another way to make your art…which you can’t help but do.
There is no trace of self pity as he says this. Just the logical observation that he had to find another way.
So what did you do? I started with light boxes.
Designing them? I would get different people to make different components. I could do the conceptualising, the budgeting the rationale bidding for the work and I could contract out the other stuff
So during that period of time you did quite a lot of work, and you are still interested in light…Yes I made a series of large Lightbox works at Brisbane State High School,and produced a solo exhibition of works called Under the Radar-an exhibition at the Centre Beaudesert. I did public art works at the observatory at Charleville and some work in Inala: Cascades 13 disks with symbols of water. I got further into public art- sold a piece to the Princess of the Sea- the cruise liner- the luggage of Babel stories of travel and peoples different languages.
Did that have neon in it? Yes In the case…In the letters…I made the letters look illegible like they didn’t mean anything, and the numbers which we think don’t mean anything were binary actually do mean something….So I played with the whole idea
Luggage from the Babel series
So at this stage you can’t bend glass but you can make artwork and you are also now have a very young family and you find yourself in West End so you can be closer to medical treatments and things like that And the TAFE
You were teaching at TAFE? Again chasing the money - first it was the art supply store, then bending neon commercially, then teaching.
Was it rewarding ? did it satisfy you? Yes I got a lot out of it.
You had some pretty amazing clients didn’t you? I remember seeing Davida Allen at the opening of Under the Radar and you had taught her brother I think? You obviously had a good connection with people Yes. You know I ran into someone two months ago who was in my class he was a film director from Iran. He smiles… My teaching lives on.
And how long did you teach 12 years
What were you teaching Digital art and design- Not graphic design but design in digital media.
Though I have known Dave for 20 years I am getting an insight into his resilience, his need to express ideas and motivation to help others
What made you stop teaching? The Parkinson’s or the Education De-partment? The Education Department wanted me out..And they got me out. But I got a bit of super which went to remodel the house We made 2 flats downstairs and raised up the house
You adapted your life so you could make a passive income by renting out rooms? There are only five steps to the flat at the front. we thought there may be a chance that we might end up living in it. That was a few years ago
And have you been doing any work since then? I know you’ve been sick…Are you able to work? I was going to be marking QCS tests
So you have kept a role as an external examiner if you like? Yes
Is that enough? It’s all I can do, all I can get
What about making artwork? Is the tackling and living with Parkinson’s at the stage where it is now taking up all your time and energy? It is all consuming
That’s pretty intense isn’t it. So what now? I was looking at some grants- I had an idea for a show, but they didn’t get up. Money wise, I need to look for a show where I can afford the outlay of new work. Its a catch 22 situation…you need the grant before you do the work
I see- you need the grant so you can afford the fabrication. Maybe we should do something together? Just for the fun of it. I agree
I always wanted to do the prayer wheel project with some kind of message in it that when spun around like the
Tibetan prayer wheels but have them interpreted in different kind of languages.
What are you going to do when you get home? Climb up the stairs. (There are 21 stairs to the front door of Daves Queens-lander home in West End Brisbane)
How are you going to do that? I have a method. For everything there is a method, for walking, for everything. Everything you thought you knew, how to put a shirt on, how to get dressed, you gotta be thinking about all this crap.
Its a bit like someone learning to walk after a stroke- you have to consciously think about every thing you do. Makes me realise how unconscious I am. What you are doing is becoming conscious of every single thing you do. Those stairs are going to be quite a challenge. No I just back off on my time, slow down, go one two, one two, make sure of my grip, where are the stairs, make sure I am leaning forward , because I have a tendency to go back, there are fourteen steps to the landing then seven to the front door. One time I fell the seven seps and landed on a sculpture.
Ouch - almost killed by sculpture ! Would you put in a lift? No its $20,000. Too expensive and a lift takes you from somewhere to somewhere
Right you’d have to put in a landing for the lift. Would you move down-stairs? Its a possibility that’s only 5 steps. Billy is a huge help, he has worked out an exercise program for me, he helps me carry things, he shaves me, he cooks for me. (Billy is Daves son, once a Gym Junkie he is now studying to become an Osteopath)
How is that ? To flip the role of parenting your child, where you washed and cared for your child ,to you being looked after by him…How does that feel? Pretty bizarre
Must be quite a special bond that you create? Oh yeah
12 letters to my God
Here Dave tells with pride how Billy is now at university after years of being a Gym Junkie and getting all High Distinctions in Osteopathy. The pride is plain to see. Dave’s daughter Ella got her degree in International business and Mandarin and is working as a croupier at the Brisbane Casino. His wife Janelle holds a senior position in the Education Department and has a second job working 2-3 shifts a week at the Queensland Perform-ing Arts Centre.
Their house in urban West End was their landing site after they left Tamborine Mountain for better opportunities in the arts. Now the downstairs studio has been converted into two apartments. One they rent out to a dancer with the Queensland Ballet and the other is home for Billy and his partner but later may be used for Dave and Janelle should the stairs prove too difficult.
Dave is in and out of hospital. He has had surgery many times, one of which was filmed for the TV show 60 minutes. That episode inspired me to create 12 letters to my God as I thought about him being conscious throughout the operation as they worked on his brain…
I ask Dave how things are going with Janelle, how many shifts she is working, if she feels like jumping off the treadmill….Right now that is not an option.
The irony of his situation is not lost on Dave. The once wild and reckless life now constrained by learning how to put one step in front of the other. Our conversation is interrupted by the nurse checking on Dave’s leaving medication needs and the background noise of hospital life. He still works on public art pieces, creating the concepts and pitching for the work then having the works fabricated and installed by others.
Its his method, like learning to tackle a flight of stairs and adapt his arts practice to fit his physical constraints..
January 2020 It’s a year later, I never got around to publishing this interview in the rush and tumble of a hectic year that saw me producing a State wide regional arts conference and festival with a skeleton team and limited resources…. I’m frayed and stretched to breaking point. The event is a success but lands in the middle of the first of Australia's Bush Fires…..The weather is hot and the event site is scorched….in between rushing from one event on the program to another I see David and Janelle….They have driven for an hour and a half to come to the event and support me. Dave is more bent over than when I last saw him.
Janelle as ever is buoyant and determined. We sit down for a quick chat before I am called away for this thing or that. I don’t get to catch up with them again during the event. Instead I follow their lives on Facebook, marvelling at the adventures they still manage to have together.
This side of burn out. I am determined to reflect on the things that matter. As I type these words, I marvel at Dave and Janelles resilience and optimism. Their life matters.
Life can be a test and regardless of the hardships they pass the test with flying colours.
Its a good lesson for me.
November 2020 Article still not published. I’m back at work and in full swing as well as working on a series of my own works titled breath heart soul. Dave and Janelle come and visit me at the exhibition weekend. I am so glad to see them. Dave is frail but sparky. Janelle is still a powerhouse but tired.
May 2021 I’m reflecting on my impending celebrations for my 60th birthday…. How did that happen I was 20 only yesterday. I think about the people I would like to have around me and David and Janelle have become reference points in my life. I don’t get to see them as much as I would like but there is always warm feeling when we meet.
I am realising that time marches on and its time to start doing all the things I need to do. So here is this story …finally and with apologies to Dave and Janelle…but it’s a story worth reading…
At launch of breath heart soul L-R Michael, Bron, Janelle, Dave