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by Nina Beckwith FEATURED UCSF ARTIST | NINA'S ARTS NOTES 1st appeared 8 June 1998 Poets On Parnassus -- Part I: Anthony Sebastian
Anthony Sebastian is one of UCSF's outstanding clinical investigators and spends much of his time writing technical materials. As he describes it, "I'm constantly analyzing data and working with statistics and writing carefully composed prose to teach what I've learned as clearly and unambiguously as possible. That's an art in itself and something I love to do but it's quite restrained in some ways whereas poetry is an opportunity to go anywhere you want in any form or style that just happens to strike your fancy. " Sebastian has been part of the UCSF family since l961, as medical student, intern, resident, researcher, and in his current posts as professor of medicine and co-director of the General Clinical Research Center. He has loved poetry and written it since childhood; it was always, he says, "a personal, private recreation, to re-create the mind after one's daily activities, never with any ambition to publish." It was David Watts, physician, poet and UCSF history of medicine professor, who inspired Sebastian to take part in Poets on Parnassus campus poetry readings Watts organizes and in the poetry workshops Watts conducts ("we give each other feedback, encouragement, and frank critique," Sebastian says) and persuaded him to publish this delightful and very San Francisco poem in a 1994 Poets on Parnassus anthology: STREET SIGNS honeybees harvesting rosemary blossoms a red-tailed hawk soaring low the van's night-chilled engine straddling silvery streaks counting spider webs Sebastian's realm, the General Clinical Research Center, is an NIH-sponsored unit in Moffitt Hospital with its own nursing staff, inpatient and outpatient facility, research kitchen, and core lab where some 50 investigators, all faculty members from the four UCSF schools, are involved in as many as 60 active research projects at any one time. Sebastian helps to administer the operation, he explains, "and that's a nice balance in my life because I can devote a good deal of my time to facilitating campus research enterprise by helping other people to get their projects developed and installed here at the Center so that our staff can help to implement them." Sebastian's own interest centers on human physiology, "the grand exploration of how we work," he calls it, particularly on the balance of acids and bases and electrolytes and other minerals and ions in the body that affect different systems and conditions. At this point, he is focusing on bone metabolism and disorders of the bone such as osteoporosis, and working with colleagues on the role of acid-base and electrolyte physiology in the pathogenesis of high blood pressure. For Sebastian the computer is a lifeline. He is physically disabled and mentions that "I've been in a wheelchair for 20-plus years, and before that was quite restricted in my ability to move about. So a certain part of the world is not accessible to me, swimming or climbing or basketball or other things people get their release from. So my release is from reading and writing. "Technical writing is trying to capture in language the realities of what you're studying in physiology, the concepts that tie together the information acquired in your research. You don't really understand it unless you can explain it to someone else's understanding. In poetry it's the same thing: first in my head and then in writing it's capturing in language some process, some activity that's occurring in the mind." Sebastian found that a graphics program he uses for research data, graphs and the like, also has some "freehand" features. "I can't use my hands very well, can't sculpt or paint or watercolor so I move my cursor around like this." As he speaks he creates a lovely line drawing by rotating a little trackball on the keyboard instead of a mouse. All of Sebastian's writing and drawing is done with a wand held in his mouth.
And this is one of his designs. ART BY THE BAY Fort Mason Center is one of San Francisco's very special places. From its huge warehouses and piers many of the servicemen and women and much of the materiel for World War II's Pacific battles were shipped out. Now they provide wonderful spaces for 50 environmental and educational non-profits offering every kind of arts activity, from the Blue Bear School of American Music to SF City College's courses in ceramics, painting, sculpture, and other arts. And for several of the city's most interesting small museums. The Mexican Museum is now showing Common Threads: Textiles of the Americas through August 16, with over 60 textiles tracing the economic and artistic tradition of weaving from South and Central America and Mexico to the US Southwest. Also a slide show and demonstration of Mazahua Textiles. (Building D, Wed-Fri 12-5, Sat.-Sun. 11-5; $3-$2; first Wed. 12-7 p.m. free, phone 202-9700. The SF Craft & Folk Art Museum shows Forty Years/Forty Pieces by June Schwarcz, whose innovative creations in sculptural enamelware have won her the highest acclaim among international metal artists. The maker of these beautiful artworks celebrates her 80th birthday right after the show opens. (June 6 - August 9 in Building A, Tues.-Sun. 11-5, $3-$1, $5 families; phone 775-0990) The Museo Italo-Americano or Italian American Cultural Center continues its exhibit of North Beach artist Peter Macchiarini's sculpture, jewelry, and photographs through June 14. Venti Anni/Twenty Years, four exhibits of photography and painting documenting the Italian-American experience open June 17 to September 6 in celebration of the Museum's 20th Anniversary. (Building C. Wed.-Sun. 12-5, $2-$1, first Wed. 12-7 p.m. free, phone 673-2200. Italian language classes, too.) Look at art and take it home, too! Works of over 1,000 Bay Area artists are available for rent by the SF Museum of Modern Art Rental Gallery in Ft. Mason Building A. Included are paintings, sculpture, photography, and works on paper. Phone 441-4777. Right on the Bay, Ft. Mason offers spectacular views, plentiful free parking, and easy MUNI access. Call 979-3010 for information on events at the Bayfront, Cowell and Magic Theaters, and more exhibits. The famous Greens vegetarian restaurant and Greens-to-Go are also there, plus a Friends-of-the-Library bookstore. Nearby are the picturesque Gashouse Cove sailboat harbor; Marina Green, paradise of joggers, kite-flyers, and picnickers; and a procession of cafes and restaurants along Chestnut Street. * * * * * HAROLD PINTER TO A.C.T. As the last play in American Conservatory Theater's '97-'98 season, artistic director Carey Perloff stages Old Times by Harold Pinter, the playwright who gave us The Birthday Party, The Collector, and The Homecoming, among other works which have profoundly influenced contemporary drama. Pinter also wrote screenplays for such films as The Go-Between and The French Lieutenant's Woman. Old Times, called "a mysterious fugue on memory, marriage, and sexual power," received critical acclaim at its London premiere by the Royal Shakespeare Company and at its New York run. For this production in the beautifully renovated Geary Theatre, Graham Becket and Michelle Morain are featured as a married couple living quietly in the English countryside, with Pamela Reed as Anna, an alluring woman from their past. Single tickets from $11-51, available from the Geary Box Office, 749-2228, online at www.act-sfbay.org, and at BASS outlets. Five lower-priced previews are scheduled June 11-16. On Thursday June 18, there will be a "Bring What You Can/Pay What You Wish" performance at 8 p.m.; tickets on sale at 6 p.m. Pay any amount when you bring a donation of canned fruit, juice, tuna in water, or cold breakfast cereal for Project Open Hand. |
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"I
find that poetry has a wonderful effect of clearing the palate of the mind."