What makes a life in art? What does it mean to pursue something with daily diligence and passion to an uncertain result? Art can be hard to measure in worldly terms. History may deliver a different verdict from the contemporary one.
It wasn’t long after I entered UCSB in 1957 as a 17-year-old freshman that I met Michael Dvortcsak. Mickey, as he was known, was probably the most vivid person I’d encountered. Though only a semester ahead of me, he seemed far advanced in this game of life I was trying to scope out. Witty, talented, athletic, charismatic, he lived in a trailer off the road from Goleta to Santa Barbara where he cooked, listened to music, studied, drew, played ukulele, and hosted girlfriends.
We soon became fast friends. But partly to placate my father’s hopes for me, I transferred to Stanford my sophomore year. My return to UCSB the following year probably had a lot to do with Mickey, who epitomized what Stanford lacked: inspiration, originality, unfettered imagination.