Part one - the early years
A shot I took of Yacoubi shopping on First Avenue
A day or two later, when I was walking along Canal Street to see the fireworks for the 4th of July, who did I see walking towards me with a smile almost as wide as the handlebars of his bicycle but this same funny, olive-skinned man! I learned his name was Ahmed and he was from Morocco, a country I knew nothing about. We walked along together, seeing fireworks of all colors bursting above us, until we turned Nnorthward up Lafayette Street, my having accepted his invitation to go for tea.
I assumed we’d be going to a café, but once we were in front of the red door of 47 Great Jones Street, I realized we were going to his home for tea. Inside we entered into the quiet of the freight elevator, and after he pulled the heavy cable down and the big steel box lurched up under us, I suddenly and seriously questioned the wisdom of my accepting this stranger’s invitation.
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from CHAPTER THREE
Women in Love ...
From that time on, I was frequently invited to his loft for dinner with a variety of guests for his delicious cooking, great music, and intellectual discussions. These open and stimulating friends of his provided me with more understanding about him and hope for our relationship despite his being surrounded by beautiful women like the Puerto Rican model named Maybelle.
Maybelle's portrait for the Ford Agency Ahmed posing with Maybelle
She would always visit with her talented, sensitive, gay friend Matthew, and his friend, a truly black-skinned fellow named Psyche. Having grown up in Fairfield County, CT and having spent two years in Boulder didn’t prepare me for intermingling with native New Yorkers or the older, more worldly friends of Ahmed’s but I held my own in conversation. Once when I arrived before his other guests, I could see how busy he had been with a variety of canvases he was working on, now placed in different spots in different stages. When I commented on the luscious colors he was combining, he thanked me, saying, “You’ve broken the spell”, revealing he’d been blocked and felt new inspiration. Later, I journaled:
Ahmed’s paintings do contain the full spectrum of what I, as a mortal, might anticipate being the journey of life and death. You might ask immediately how one’s imagination could ever exhaust the possibilities of the soul’s travel - but that is exactly what Yacoubi’s paintings do - create, expand, and multiply the myriad phases of experience. One painting alone cannot be appreciated within the normal time span of a typical gallery-browse. To sink in, or to be mystified by the flowing and transforming images formed by the indeterminable depth of his colors is to be permanently transfixed by this living style. Formed by his deft palette knife, we are taken on a journey limited only by one’s lack of courage and adventurousness.
detail of "Dream of a Japanese Woman"
"Dream of Japanese Woman", oil on linen,, 1976
With everything so new, so different, so overwhelming, I needed time alone. Writing, seeing foreign films, and developing a new discipline around my own creative desires proved necessary. Retreating to my own world of meditating, reading spiritual texts, and spending time with what I experienced as God’s presence centered me and enriched my heart with a transcendent sense of peace.
CHAPTER ONE
MAKTOUB
(It was written.)
He leaned in from my left in the old Ultrecht Art Supply store on Third Avenue as I touched the small linen samples and he asked me, “Has anyone painted your portrait”? I thought to myself that line must be as hackneyed as “may I show you my etchings” in the history of licentious male artists. Laughing, I said no, and he proceeded to tell me that he’d like to, and that he used to weave his own linen in Morocco. Despite the hand-woven orange satchel strung across his fit torso, I found it hard to imagine this dandy patiently weaving this tight, seamless fabric, but responded with appropriate wonder. As I moved on to other aisles of art supplies, he followed me, smiling and happily chatting in his singular way of speaking English with an unrecognizable accent, until, feeling so shy and uncomfortable, I said goodbye and continued up Third Avenue.
Only a few steps out the door, I felt this peculiar sensation of my heart sinking in my chest. Twenty years old in 1976 and basically disassociated from my body, for me to recognize this physical sensation should have alerted me to a major encounter.
