Editor’s note: Former State University of New York at Fredonia professor and OBSERVER columnist George Sebouhian was preparing to write his life story when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2013. He died three years later, having left behind hundreds of pages of research notes, poems and memoir vignettes. His son, Damian Sebouhian, has taken it upon himself to complete and share his writings through a series of theme-based articles, each of which represents a chapter in the life and times of George Sebouhian, in his own words. (Note: During childhood, his father was known as Roy).

It’s hard to explain, but every person I met and every book I read promised to bring me to a world that would ease my sense of alienation and provide the exhilaration in life that I knew had to be there and had to be within me as well.

My math teacher, Mr. Recht was one of those persons and so was my grandfather. Another person whom I met during my years in high school was an artist named Anahid. I was introduced to her via my grandmother. I was younger and less sophisticated than her, but she didn’t seem to hold it against me. We hit it off and would continue to meet for the next few years at least once a month either on the phone or in person. She became for me one of the more important people in my life.

At the time, I was searching for something like the meaning of life, which triggered in me an interest in mystery and was as strong of an intellectual urge as my interest in sex. In the small local library in Astoria I discovered that right next to books on psychology (sex) were books on the occult. So began my sojourn in an area at least as exciting as sex. Through Anthroposophy and Theosophy, I read almost everything Blavatsky wrote, plus some things by Besant and the Rosicrusians regarding astrology, astral projection, palmistry, graphology, and numerology. I even attended evening meetings held by the Theosophists and by the Rosicrusians and always brought home their handouts, much to the chagrin of my grandmother and father, and even more to their chagrin was my purchase of a Buddha statue from the Third Avenue junk shop which I had saved for so long which I set up in my bedroom (shared with grandma and grandpa). Though my father never insisted that I do something “or else”, he did refer to my statue as an idol (he had been to what he called the “filthy East” and India in his travels) and though he was not a church-goer himself, or even a practicing Christian, he strongly urged that I throw out the idol. I didn’t throw it out, but I did hide it well, so it could still exercise whatever spell power I thought it might have under a pile of covers in a top shelf of a dark closet.

Despite my readings, I had not developed any beliefs to replace the Roman Catholic ones I was leaving behind. Instead, I had a strong thirst, a powerful curiosity about these new worlds that were opening up that became almost a painful excitement in the conversations with Anahid. She seemed a part of real life as I was beginning to know it. Anahid was sympathetic with the mystical aspects of human experience, particularly in relation to artistic creativity. Thus her close friendship with Alan Hovanness, the Armenian composer who “composed’ the music he “heard”.

Our sessions were explorations. I think I approached art, not just contemporary art, the way I approached the Occult, as being very exciting, but not necessarily something to have to judge. Thus when I confronted a painting called “White on White” I puzzled about it, and no matter how much I wanted to judge it, I found that I could not affirm or deny any position except that the title was exactly what the painting was. A white diamond shape in the middle of a white canvas. It was this experience that led to Anahid asserting her preference for “realistic” work, like paintings of her family members rather than clever paintings of geometric shapes like that of most abstractionists.

An occasion when mystic creativity came together for us was when she was trying to decide how to paint a portrait of Saul’s Conversion. After telling me how frustrated she was with the painting, which she hadn’t begun, in fact the blank canvas was in the same room on its esel where we usually sat. She left the room for a few minutes. It was hot, even stifling for a summer day.

While she was gone, I stared at the canvas and started to feel strange, frightened a bit, then chilled, but I kept staring and gradually a face began to form, slowly, in color, just the face, no body, no background, one side was tortured, deformed as if in great agony, the eye a mere slit. The other side was serenely symmetrical, as if in meditation, but with the eyes wide open. Both eyes stared back at me, unblinking, fixed. I looked around the room to break the gaze and then back to the canvas which, by now, was fading, finally becoming its original white emptiness. I jumped up, the fright had now suddenly grown as if it were a part of my body, I had goosebumps all over, too much to bear, but Anahid was back and I felt rescued. I told her what happened and she almost shouted, “That’s my painting, that’s it!”

After graduating high school I tried City College, but it had to be at night because I could not afford full time even though there was no tuition to pay. One of my $25 weekly salary I had to pay my grandparents room and board of $13, which left $12 for lunch and dinner, transportation, clothes, books, not counting the taxes and union dues.

The second year after graduation I enrolled in the Art Students League, taking various courses in drawing and painting. The best part of this experience is that I found that my ambitions far exceeded my abilities. Seeing a fellow student who could paint like Modigliani did it for me. Her faces and bodies were superb flat spaces of color accented with bold black lines. I was a failure.

So I joined the U.S. Air Force. The Korean war had broken out in 1950, and the reserves were being called up as well as the draftees which meant that my turn would come soon.

Next month: Roy Sebouhian in the Korean War.

Damian Sebouhian, a former OBSERVER staff writer, is a Dunkirk resident.