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"Varda
is the only artist I know leading a free life
today. He has reduced his needs. He only needs
to teach once a week. The rest of the time visitors
buy a collage now and then. He has no jealousy,
envy, or competitiveness." -Anais
Nin Diaries Vol.5 pg
87
"The
artists know the secret of freedom. June only
found freedom by living in a world of fantasy.
But Varda made his fantasy come true. His life
is the one I admire. When I left San Francisco
he had already aquired a ferryboat from which
the motors and wheels had been extracted, leaving
a poolike center to look into. Hew was befinning
to nake windows for the deck. With time the ferryboat
grew in beauty. It is moored in Sausalito, and
attached to it is a sailboat. Everything is made
by his own hands, with little or no money. He
makes a little income by teaching at an art school.
But he does not need much. He wears jeans, takes
showers army bucket style. If money is low he
does not hesitate to serve only fried potatoes
and wine. He cooks in an enormous frying pan from
the flea market, with enormous wooden spoons from
Mexico. He is a poet, sublime ragpicker who turns
everything into an object of beauty. He taught
me, in San Francisco, to admire a chair which
had been whitewashed by the sea to a pure bone
color." -Anais
Nin Diaries Vol.5pg
107
"I
learned from him this creating out of nothing.
I learnded from Varda, who made collages out of
bits of cloth...Varda also went to the junkyard,
and from discarded boats made himself a beautiful
Greek Sailboat. This is the power to create out
of nothing we need to restore ourselves...being
able to create something out of clay, out of glass,
out of bits of maaterial, out of junkyards, out
of anything is the proof of the creativity of
man and the magic of art. (73L)" -pg
185 "A Woman Speaks"
When
Varda sent Anais letters they were "on many-colored
paper, full of fantasy."
(Anais Nin Diaries Vol 5 pg. 178)
Letter
From Varda
Chere Muse Horizon
Known in this vulgar
Planete as Anais
Excuse delay.
A group of 4 dancers, admirers of yours implore
me to bring them and show them at your feet. I
ask 17 minutes of you time for the consecration.
May I???
I
am amazed by your diary. The more "vous mettez
votre coeur a nu," the more the innermost
core is veiled.
You
have been high priestess of the Eleusinian mysteries
in a previous life...
Please
let me know if this is possible.
-Anais
Nin Diaries Vol.5pg
153
[Winter,
1966-1967]
"Visit from Varda. He came with three young
women dancers, the three Graces I called them.
He looks ruddy and strong, althought he had a
stroke. He tells me this stroke delivered him
of the fear of death. "I saw wonderful colors,
like an LSD vision. It was beautiful. I had no
sense of parting from the world, just dissolving
in colors."... I take Varda's latest drawings
to a publisher who first showed interest and then
reproached me for not telling him Varda was a
West Coast artist, and therefore he was not interested."
-Anais
Nin Diaries Vol.5pg
37
[Winter
1971-72]
Well
known for his outrageous parties, with topless
dancers and many lovely young girls, Varda developed
a bit of a reputation as a dirty old man. Anais
defends him, "The comment on Varda was absurd.
Women have always courted men and there is nothing
offensive about Varda's courting of women."
-Anais
Nin Diaries Vol.5pg
196
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