cineSOURCE magazine

Brief History of Modern Lovers Commune and Ancient Currents Gallery
by Doniphan Blair

In the '70s, Islam was open and world travelers headed east to India; shown here in Iran (lf-rt): David W., author Doniphan Blair, Darko R., and Jimmy F. photo: J. Millich

THE NEPALI SHAMAN SAID I NEEDED
stability so I journeyed back across the Great Salt Desert and three continents to San Francisco, where I enrolled in the Art Institute, taking film courses, mostly.

It was the fall of 1974 and lonely. The hippie scene had self-destructed a few years before, and art students searching for identity tend to clump into territorial groups. But David H. wasn’t an art student.

I met Dave through an ad on the school bulletin board about renting a room at his place, 2205A Pine Street, for $20 a month. It was tiny and windowless so I declined, but Dave was a nice guy and a great guitarist, and we became fast friends and had many adventures.

I was trying to make movies, and 2205A Pine seemed like good place to shoot one. Among its dozen, rambling rooms, it had a big storefront and an actual Japanese tea room with tatami mats, in the small back house.

That's because 2205A had been home to Takami Sakurai, a painter, sculptor and friend of Yoko Ono from Tokyo, until he decamped to Paris. When the last of Sakurai's entourage moved out, vacating a large room in the back house, above the tea room, Dave invited me to try moving in a second time.

The Modern Lovers Commune, as depicted in a March 1975 birthday card to Vachel Blair, including the inscription: "The Modern Lovers cordially invite you to come and crash anytime, at all. Bring your ol' lady, too. Love Sharon (H.), Don (Blair), Nick (Blair), Nick (S.), Mike (T.), Dan (H.), Dave (H.), Susan and Bill (latters' last names unknown)". illo: D. Blair

I did so with alacrity and my new beloved, Sharon H. We reveled in our first month there, almost alone but hardly lonely. Dave was home in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for an extended Christmas break, and our other roommate, Bill W., also an Art Institute student, was a hermit.

San Fran had a pleasant, low-watt vibe back then, with low rent and population density but still well serviced by the many remaining hippie enterprises. There was little of the annihilation I had seen three years before, when I first visited San Francisco, in December, 1971. Haight Street was almost entirely boarded up from Masonic to Golden Gate Park; the boards were covered with crazy graffiti, so much it often overflowed down onto the street; and the streets were swarming with junkies, speed freaks and cynics. Gentrification would only metastasize a decade later.

Having recovered from my own freak out in India, and having crossed half the earth, hitchhiking, mostly, I thought I might be more adept at the hippie game than the Haight Streeters. Indeed, I thought I might be able to create a functional family where basic needs were nurtured, artists accepted and drug deliriums dodged.

Within a month my beloved younger brother, Nick, and esteemed childhood buddy, also a great guitarist, also named Nick (also called Little Nick or Nick S.), hitchhiked out from New York, and we setup shop, including building a sleeping loft in the storefront. Unfortunately, when Dave arrived three weeks later, driving a car with HIS new girlfriend, Susan, and HIS younger brother, Dan, I realized he wasn’t interested in—indeed, he was utterly opposed to—the commune I was suggesting we form.

We came by road, hitchhiking almost the entire planet; here Nicholas Blair and Pammie C. start a trip south, over two thousand miles to Mexico, circa 1981. photo: L. Baer

One shamanistic duel later—suffice it to say it involved Dave, me, LSD and a Ouija Board—and The Modern Lovers Commune was born during an electrical storm, the night of the spring equinox, March 21st, 1975. Ancient Currents Gallery arrived a year later when guitarist, motorcyclist and gay girl Strut scrawled those words in motor oil on the wall of the storefront and hung up some paintings she found lying around.

For the next dozen years, we waxed and waned as well as tried to paint over the motor oil and solve the hippie conundrum of creating art in paradise. Our community sometimes expanded to almost twenty as we hosted friends, family and travelers from around the country and the world, and mounted scores of art shows and performances. We also produced four bands (The Etherial Double Band, The Cannibals, Too Much Fun and Ravishing Ice), one feature film (“Sammy Delerium”, sic, unfinished) and two children (Irena and Eva), born in situ.

Along with Big Nick, Little Nick and me—the anarchic ruling triumvirate (because we tried Sunday Meetings but found they stirred up more shit than they solved)—there were our girlfriends, Tootie A., Nina B. and Sharon, respectively (although, after some trials and tribulations, Nina became my best beloved baby moma), and various other group members.

We started with Victor the Argentine and Michael T., the Aleister Crowley expert, and graduated to Strut, her girlfriends and the two Davids (W., white, H., black—the first David H. had departed by then). Then we settled in for a while with Howard B., also known as Abdul, the drummer in our first group (The Ethereal Double: Big Nick on trumpet, Little Nick guitar, me bass). Soon there was Jim G. and Laurie, Lobo the Spaniard, Pammie C. (whom Big Nick would eventually marry) and many more.

Doniphan Blair in his Fall of Love Series, shot taken Palenque, Mexico, 1977. photo: N. Blair

Ancient Currents Gallery eventually presented over 75 art shows and performances, from beatnik poets Bob Kaufman and Allen Cohen to our second band, The Cannibals, fantastically-fronted by the brilliant, beautiful Nina, barefoot and in tribal paint. Nina also taught us the yoga and Hindu mysticism which our world traveler contingent had neglected to study in India, but she had learned from the great Owen W. in New York.

Our art shows started avant-garde in 1977, with the Fuck Art Show, Anti-Art Show and Art War Show, or in-house, with my brother’s graphic street photos from India and my colorful paintings of South America. We gradually grew more professional, with known artists, nicely designed and printed announcements and one feature article by Kenneth Baker, the revered local art critic, in the SF Chronicle. That was for the German-Egyptian Magical Realist painter I met in Peru and Brazil and who lived at the commune for eight months: Frank Fehling AKA Rashid al-Talik (1954-2019, RIP brother).

We featured the Bay Area photographers Linda Conner, Jack Fulton and Larry Sultan, Mexican Huichol art, the sculpted ceramics of Jun Ishimuro (also a fantastic flautist), whose quiet wife Cara became Cara Black, the now well-known "French mystery" writer, paintings by Holocaust survivor Bruno Lowenberg and Om Prakash Sharma, a well-known neo-Tantric painter and friend from our India travels, among many others.

The Ethereal Double Band and The Cannibals were followed by Ravishing Ice and Too Much Fun, all rehearsing in our low-ceiling, basement sound room, where we played nightly after full organic feeds to all comers (up to 20 a night) and drug dispensations, which attracted notable local musicians.

The Modern Lovers Commune circa 1977 (lf-rt) Doniphan Blair, David H., Alison S., Steve S., Tootie A., David W. and Nicholas Blair. photo: J. Slon

There was Sun Ra saxophonist Michael “Double D;” saxophonist Mark Melnick, who refused to jam with the likes of us but did teach us a lot about jazz (and tried to take over the commune one Christmas break with Michael M., a friend of Sakurai); Charles Thomas, a bassist living down the street who became a sideman and band leader around town; Bruce Green, the bassist for The Cannibals and Ravishing Ice; Lisa Rosenkrantz (AKA "Asil"), a still-professional saxophonista who witnessed an out-of-body Ethereal Double performance and joined on the spot; Ben Bassi of the popular '80s band Romeo Void; the older, black hipster Pelican (whom I saw a few years ago and was doing fine); multi-instrumentalist Jefferson Braswell; and many more.

Soon we were sending envoys around the world, crossing Islam to India and Central America to Brazil, where we felt the earth and its people—deeply, deliriously, dangerously, even—and brought back that insight, which is the opposite of cultural colonialism or tourist transcendentalism, since all tribes have travelers, traders and guests, some of whom fully move in and integrate. Indeed, Tepe Kahok, of a Xingu tribe in central Brazil, told me, "All my neighboring tribes have white members and one a French chief."

We returned from our travels with great friends, trade goods and art and children, in utero.

The Modern Lovers Commune circa 1977 (lf-rt) Doniphan Blair, David H., Alison S., Steve S., Tootie A., David W. and Nicholas Blair. photo: J. Slon

I was accused of trying to dominate the commune, on occasion, perhaps because I found the place and started many of the projects, a notion reinforced by a prominently-placed photograph my brother took of me in Big Sur, appearing to fly over the cliffs towards the ocean.

“That photo doesn’t mean I think I'm the guru,” I would try to explain. “It means my brother is a fantastic photographer,” (the perfectly framed shot was taken as I leapt into the air).

I also thought that deluxe room and board, including a sufficient surfeit of drugs, should be enough to inspire a little assistance with some of those projects.

But when I got the joint jumping when the Nicks were touring India—I was managing the house painting crew doing an entire six-story apartment building, a great band with two piano players (both named Paul), two scintillating French girls (Daniella T. and Catharine B.), and the gallery, which had just declared "art war" and attracted its first reviews—it dawned on me: I have to hit the road.

On a three-week vacation in Guatemala, I ran into Catharine, the more brilliant French girl, and reimagined my life, making love with her atop a volcano overlooking Lake Atitlan. One adolescent excursion to India, I reasoned, would be hardly be adequate to illuminate the big picture, answer the eternal questions or satiate the wanderlust still raging within me.

Doniphan Blair appears to levitate in this 'decisive moment' shot by photographer Nicholas Blair, which came to symbolize his suspected domination of the commune. photo: N. Blair

We dropped like a rock into South America, hitchhiking two thousand miles to the border of Peru, where the private cars ran out, and busing it another thousand to Cusco, where the money did likewise. Learning to live without cash wasn't that hard since Catharine was a fervent frugalist, able to conjure complete haute cuisine meals out of almost thin air. Meanwhile, money does, in fact, equal time, meaning if you slow way, way down, your budget can drop to almost zero. I stayed south almost three years.

Regardless of the Nicks' and my absence from 2205A, the shows, bands and big meals continued with new crews, notably the filmmakers from around the corner, the Zany Eminators (John A., Chris W. and Eric Z.), the student photographer and boarder, Jack G., who took over 'mune management, his generous friend George F., and Jonathan S., an old New York buddy, fine filmmaker and perennial 'mune hanger-on.

Film both helped start and became a big part of the commune. Casting among members, I shot almost ten scenes of a 16mm feature, "Sammy Delerium", including the infamous party scene. Big Nick plays a coke dealer doing business from his bath until he realizes his birthday party is happening next door and staggers out into it, naked. Although duress from the time/money needed to finish and quality concerns dragged "Sammy D." down, it looms large in the archives as well as imagination.

A Doniphan Blair drawing recounting some of his central South American experiences, shown at his one-man Ancient Currents Gallery show, 1981. illo: D. Blair

The Nicks returned from their India adventure, where they also learned to live well broke, loaded with hash, trade goods and new friends. Soon the commune was cooking on four burners with Little Nick in the kitchen and Big Nick directly beneath in the basement darkroom he built, also used by Tootie, the talented Larry Baer and fellow art student (RIP 1954-'87), and South America hand and 'mune dweller, Gary H.

One way or another, we were determined to provide the post-hippie scene some fine art inspiration, world-traveler awareness and living proof of how hedonism, freedom and responsibility can work together, even flourish. Sometimes we succeeded; we certainly learned a lot; and we did create quite a bit of quality art and community.

After Nina joined me for a wild, one-year South America adventure, dear-heart Irena was conceived in an isolated beach town in Brazil, Caraiva, carried half way across the world and born at the commune on December 26th, 1980, with some help from midwife-extraordinaire Vonnie Garabidian. She also assisted best-blessed Eva, who came to us through the beatific, beautiful Dora M. and Little Nick on April 20th, 1981.

The 1983 painting by Blair of an influential psychedelic experience: the '77 Palenque, Mexico, mushroom trip where he envisioned his mature "Abstract Writing" painting style. illo: D. Blair

With two "milk mothers," we never heated a bottle nor even got out of bed at night (where the babies slept with), nor denied ourselves a night out dancing, luxuries it took me years to realize other parents did not enjoy. With two darling, joyful children—playing dress-up and tag, asking amazing questions— we finally became a village, creating biology as well as culture.

A bohemian dream life in extremis but how to pay the piper? We financed by art sales, starting with strange graphic jobs off the Institute board and ending up with an art gallery, although that had to be supplemented with welfare, boarders, house painting, film crewing and, of course, drugs—a river of cash that it is hard to resist dipping into and often a travelers' primary trade good.

After a year of dirt weed and bunk acid, we expanded to the best on the market, including the pure cocaine I sent back from South America in envelopes covered in magical glyphs, which always got through. Sadly, this stimulated the same dope demons and “short-term pleasure versus long-term pain” problems that destroyed the Haight.

Blair hitchhiking near Palenque's mushroom fields in garb which would be criticized as cultural appropriation but, in fact, indicated his voracious ingestion of the people, culture and actual earth of the earth. photo: N. Blair

But dealing was also instructive for learning math, notably the metric system, pharmacology and street fighting, like when we donned our Sunday best and drove our funky VW van out to visit the “friends” who took us down for two pounds of weed, a small fortune at the time. We got nothing, lecturing them on good business practices within easy gunshot, except our dignity.

We learned many hard lessons, that one being: Don't leave the front door unlocked if you are the last to leave.

Others include: coke consumption (do only after dinner and not enough to disrupt a good night's sleep), free love (it’s equally hard to avoid, when living in close quarters, as to accept, no matter how loudly one eschews attachment and jealousy), real estate (organize and buy the place immediately, especially if in a low-rent area—we didn’t and regretted it) and social contracts (write down what is provided to asked of individuals and the equity they could receive upon exit).

The art shows and bands continued through the mid-‘80s as we settled into having children and jobs and attending school, both us and the kids. By that time, some of our best creations came from the kitchen, where our cuisine expanded from pancakes and Strut's dumpster-diving to deluxe organics and curries, after the India freaks returned, or sushi, since Japantown was around the corner and we had some great Japanese friends like Jun and painter and guitarist extraordinaire, Takeshi Nakayoshi. The result: we served to 8-20 people fantastic feeds EVERY night for a decade.

The Cannibal Band, Nick B. trumpet, Nick S. drums, Nina B. vocals, Bruce G. bass, Doniphan B. guitar. photo: G. Halpern

Dinners were always preceded by chanting “om,” the trick we learned when exorcising demons during the Dave-and-me duel in 1975 which started the commune. Taking only 30 seconds, it serves spectacularly to relax you from the busy day and unify the group.

On two occasions dinner guests included activist, scholar and Art Institute teacher Angela Davis, who was impressed by Jonathan’s apple-turnover cake but not my "abstract aborigine" philosophy—"We are all native to this planet and users of abstract thought"—which appeared to erase white privilege. She debated me down masterfully until a fellow art student from Nicaragua stepped in to save my dialectical ass.

And there was much, much more: my South Carolina cousins reciting poetry, and also earning themselves a severe Davis dressing down, guest artists curating elaborate shows, like The Volm Group featuring art and music by Takeshi Nakayoshi and John Holms, visiting Zen masters like Yamato, who showed up carrying a chair and asking to meditate in Sakurai’s tea room, a twenty-piece brass band which camped in the front room for over a month, aggressive performances by Guiditta Tornetta, and art shows by most of the White Family—Stephen, another New York best bud, his brother Shawn and father Willard, all three painters, sculptors or both--not to forget the rest of our NYC family, Mark M., Steven H., Peter S. and many more.

The first extant statement of Doniphan Blair's Abstract Aborigine philosophy, whereby we are all abstract thinkers native to this planet, 1977. illo: D. Blair

There was also an endless assortment of physical projects: tearing out the cement backyard, building the marijuana greenhouse and then the roof room, led by Big Nick's carpentry, or rebuilding a trashed Volkswagen van, which took Howard and Jim months, and even more spiritual projects.

In addition to spirit possession, 2205A was conducive to falling in love or lust and even more into visionary states, both of the art and soul variety, such as when I was meditating in the back house one fine day and suddenly saw my dead relatives from the Holocaust—no drugs involved!

The list of events, ideas and personages goes on and on until January 30th, 1989, a few months after the new owner pealed off the roof, a Tawainese landlord trick, and let the winter rains flood out the last few residents.

A mustachioed and blue-velvet-suited Blair and daughter Irena about to introduce world-famous beatnik poet Bob Kaufman at Ancient Currents Gallery, November,1981. photo: N. Blair

By then, The Modern Lovers had scattered to the four winds, leaving me the assignment of emptying and scrubbing clean 2205A's 16 rooms. In fact, we had added four: the sound room, the dark room, the roof room and my brother’s tiny-but-lovely garden suite, all glass, although that didn’t inhibit his voluminous lovemaking. In this way, I would leave no trace for the next group’s founding séance (which was essential, since they turned out to be Romani fortune tellers). Meanwhile I collected all available evidence for the Ancient Current archives (images shown here are from the first 36 photos, paintings, show announcements I pulled.)

Then I hunted down and forced into a cardboard box our two semi-feral cats, Sneakers and Gris-Gris. When they started screeching and yowling, I sat down in the bare expanse, which once held so much life, and cried my guts out.

Then I left the commune for good—not, of course. Indeed, its dreams, dramas, projects and group comfort, as well as love, haunt me to this day.

Ancient Currents Gallery declared 'Art War' and issued 'The Art War Manifesto' in November, 1977 (art warriors: D. Blair, H. Bernstein). photo: N. Hedeen

But what precisely? What did it all mean: to our relationships to each other or society or the arts, to the capacity of extreme individualists to live and work together?

I’m still sorting it out, although I do live alone and run my art business as a "capital-mune," meaning I try to preserve the fun, collaboration and creativity of group effort and art dedication while living separately and simply paying people an adequate hourly.

Meanwhile, some of my commune cronies—particularly the millionaires, of which there are a few—stopped inviting me to their gatherings, viewing me, I suspect, as a liability. That hurt, especially during the Great Recession and the beginning of the bankruptcy/eviction proceedings, but I have come to sympathize.

Blair's 'Abstract Writing' style was fully formed by 1985, notably in this 15"x20" self-portrait of him leaving what looks to be the commune, four years before its actual closing. illo: D. Blair

First of all, there's the narcissism of small differences and everyone's dreams of love and the artist’s life, which they did their best to live, the commune remains a symbol of and I am still staggering on under the pretenses of. Secondly, no one knows what art is until the sale, so there's lots of indulgence and ego-tripping—a bill I apparently fit, especially given I've had so few sales.

Thirdly, it’s inherently hard to integrate artists into societies since the shaman's assignment—if you choose to accept—is stand outside, palpate the heart, dream the future.

I have no idea if I succeeded in any of this during my 14-year soul-vaulting stay with The Modern Lovers Commune and Ancient Currents Gallery at 2205A Pine Street but I can proudly say, "I tried." In point of fact, of course, I had little choice but to leap for that higher acrobatic rung and not curse the occasional crashing back to earth.

For more ideas from The Modern Lovers Commune and Ancient Currents Gallery see "Summer of Love Shows, Movies, Books & Festivals Beg the Question: What Went Wrong with the Hippie Intellectuals?"

For more images of The Modern Lovers Commune and Ancient Currents Gallery see Facebook: Doniphan Blair.

Doniphan Blair is a writer, film magazine publisher, designer and filmmaker ('Our Holocaust Vacation'), who can be reached . Posted on Sep 10, 2017 - 08:44 AM