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Art  Artists |
Victor J. Wightman 
Bio Victor had developed into an outgoing, energetic, charismatic, very athletic person who made many friends wherever he went, developed a keen and often quirky sense of humor, and sometimes did unorthodox things to make a point or bring attention to his issue. Once, on public TV, he read out loud the names of all the non-teaching school personnel making extremely large salaries to contrast with the inadequate monies spent on students and teachers. It created a furor, consequent inquiry and action, since this had not been widely known. He was compassionate toward anyone down and out, was ready to help with money, housing, a shoulder to lean on and often did, despite hardship to himself. As a child in Detroit, he had seen how hard life could be for those friends’ families without sufficient resources. Throughout his adult years, he also continued running, swimming and playing basketball, continually improving his skills and standing out for his speed and all-around athletic ability. At one point he trained himself to crack the four-minute mile, running in the sand on Venice Beach in Los Angeles while friends and observers carefully clocked him. Still, he did not produce any visual arts of any note by this time, but he did relax by playing piano, singing, and listening to music. At the University of Wisconsin, he became engaged in the social issues of the time. In the summers, he came home to his mother and stepfather, now in Ann Arbor and spent time with his siblings. He worked at the auto factories outside Detroit to earn money for school and learned many lessons about labor concerns. Once he graduated, his drive to develop and use his skills persistently became his hallmark in organizing labor unions (five of them altogether: three in Madison and later, two in Los Angeles). Civil rights were his passion and labor issues became his vehicle. It was an intense life, and he often would not give up on an issue despite advice to the contrary, leading to successes as well as failures. To increase his political effect, he studied for a law degree in Los Angeles, passed the Bar, and began a law practice, still spending most of his energies on labor matters. It wasn’t until later, when he was 48, that things in Victor’s life seemed to change dramatically. Victor had always gone his own way, but even so, we were all surprised when he suddenly married a young Vietnamese woman in Vietnam whom he had met briefly on a trip there. He had returned alone to the US to begin immigration procedures for her to come to the US, but the marriage ended a few months later when she was granted a divorce in Vietnam. He was devastated and it took “the wind out of his sails,” according to Henry, his stepbrother. By the time he was 50, he had left his law practice, was looking for other law work and began doing odd jobs in the meantime. He decided to sell his house, leave Los Angeles and move to the San Francisco Bay Area to start over again in a different setting because he had become disenchanted with Los Angeles. He decided to first move to his mother’s and stepfather’s home to get his bearings and then to San Francisco once he located work. Oddly, for such a “take charge” person, he seemed at a loss to get his move going, and his two sisters, Rebecca and Johanna with Johanna’s boyfriend, Robert, began making all the arrangements. They emptied his house and Rebecca drove a U-Haul to their mother’s and stepfather’s home in Vallejo, an hour north of San Francisco, with his things inside, pulling his pick-up truck behind. The three of them thought Victor was so worn out and somewhat confused that he shouldn’t drive for this trip, so he rode in the U-Haul as a passenger without comment. It was before they left that Rebecca took photos of the bathroom and one bedroom room wall Victor had gradually painted in his house over the last couple of years. The bathroom was most unusual. Large and small cartoon-like figures populated the walls and ceiling. There were huge colorful fish, birds, snakes, monster faces and masks. The walls and ceiling were entirely covered with these creatures. It was a turbulent world with lots of teeth, claws, things hurtling, and intense color. Figures appeared to be flying through the air with capes and sparkling dancing shoes while several large moon-faced cartoon heads looked out at you. The bedroom showed multicolored grasses and little yellow flowers along the bottom edge of one wall, sprouting from the floor. It was all very striking and intense. By the time Victor arrived in Vallejo at the end of his move, everyone was convinced that something was very wrong. At first family members thought it might be a unique depression. Victor’s words seemed to fail him, his writing was awkward, and his behavior totally different from the Victor we knew. He exhibited little emotion and no joy. He did not show any awareness that something was happening to him, stating that there was nothing wrong over and over again. After considerable testing, Victor was diagnosed with FTD (Frontotemporal Dementia) first and ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s Disease) within the year. Several days after his first diagnosis in December, 2001, our family gathered in Vallejo during the holidays. Robert, who had helped Victor move and is an artist and art teacher (known as Roberto Gutierrez in the art world), thought it might be helpful for Victor to spend some of his time just painting for fun while waiting for more testing and a second opinion. (That was when Victor and our family fortunately came in contact with the Memory and Aging Center and eventually the ALS Center, both at UCSF. Victor remained as a patient and in their studies until his death.) Robert brought watercolors, acrylics, and art paper. Victor started with 5x8 cards, painting various scenes in bright watercolor, peopled by stick-like figures in different settings and poses, reminiscent of the figures he had begun painting a few years before in his bathroom. He apparently was comfortable with what he was doing, and from that day on went on to painting wooden objects with bright acrylics which we found at a local thrift store. We also had encouraged him to play piano for relaxation, but he had difficulty remembering the names of the keys, even though he wrote each letter on each key. Soon, it seemed that he could no longer play or read music from sheets and books he had brought with him and had often played before, and he gave up trying. As his language diminished, Victor painted objects large and small from bowls to birdhouses, tiny boxes to wine racks, reindeer and sheep to cheese boards. He never named or explained anything. His style was primitive and intensely colorful. Lots of birds, ducks, snakes, dragons, people stick-figures, and detailed small and large abstract designs developed on his objects. Often he produced funny grinning faces with lots of teeth – all in a humorous vein and with detailed abstract designs around them. He spent nearly every day in the beginning painting for many hours at home, in between medical appointments, visiting his sister, Rebecca, in San Francisco every Sunday and going on errands and attending community meetings with his mother. His speaking dropped off noticeably, but he nevertheless seemed interested in listening to his mother read the many cards and letters sent to him from Johanna and Robert, his brothers Arthur and Alex, his stepsiblings, Henry and Jenny, an old girlfriend, Ellen, and a variety of other occasional well-wishers. He also painted in a nearby day care program twice a week. With the help of Robert, who visited for several days, Victor began an ambitious sculpture in the summer of 2002. It was made up of broken crockery, old toys, buttons and odds and ends glued onto odd-shaped pieces of flat wood which Robert helped him construct, following Victor’s wishes. He painted over everything meticulously, creating intricate designs. There was even a “tower” in the middle, brightly painted, which twirled on turntables. He completed the work in November, 2002, by this time having moved it into the garage from the patio. He also painted six plaques of a mythical animal, Tajar, commissioned by his brother, Arthur, for the Girl Scout Camp Arthur directed near Seattle, Washington. They were dramatic and very funny, just what Arthur had hoped for. Victor’s arms and hands were still working well in 2002 although they had begun to show ALS symptoms. Gradually his fingers became thicker and their movement weaker about a year into his painting, but he kept adapting his hands to positions that would work with a paintbrush. Then his arms became less able and he even worked around that. He switched from right to left hand at one point when the left hand and arm were still stronger. Now, his body was deteriorating more rapidly and his speech had become minimal. He had to be moved to a care home nearby for the last 10 months. He painted less there, and eventually stopped his work at the care home, by now only saying a few words now and then. Instead, he spent time walking the halls, observing other residents and staff, and picking up pennies, which became his obsession. Everyone helped keep him occupied by “planting” pennies for him to pick up on walks he was taken on. It seemed to give him pleasure. But every Tuesday and Thursday he would paint at his day care program nearby where staff was able to help him some by readying paints and holding objects. He always sprayed the finished work with a clear coat, but gradually needed help to do this too. By now, he was not speaking at all, except for a word now and then or “no.” When his youngest brother, Alex, a first year resident physician, visited, he pointed out how adaptive Victor had become in using his hands and arms despite the continued weakening of related muscles. Victor painted until he died, April 28, 2004, finishing the top of a cookie box the day before, using orange and purple which had become his favorite colors, and drawing a single curved half-moon orange line in a sea of purple on the inside of the cover. He smiled a little when it was done. His design abilities appeared still intact, despite his difficulty with weakness and manual dexterity. The perseverance he exhibited in earlier years kept him going long after we thought he would quit painting. Altogether, he painted his objects from December, 2001 through April 2004, for two years and three months and created more than 400 pieces. During the Open House in his remembrance after his death, his collection was placed on shelves on his mother and stepfather’s patio for those visiting to see. Everything appeared intensely colorful, cheerful and often humorous. It helped lift the family’s, friends’ and other visitors’ spirits. ~ Ursula Morgan-Kane (Victor's mother) To view a larger version of one of the pieces, please click on the thumbnail image of it.
All artwork and written content has been consented by family member or legal guardian |
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any particular interest in drawing or painting that we, his family, witnessed. He had
a wide variety of interests, however, ranging from basketball, running
and swimming to playing violin, trumpet, tuba and eventually piano and
taking singing lessons as an adult. In different directions, he also
became a spelling champion at his elementary school and chess champion
in our neighborhood, somewhat of a math whiz, then later put pen to
paper to write political opinion articles for local newspapers. He was
the oldest of five children, was born in Staten Island, New York and
mainly grew up there and in Detroit, Michigan. His parents divorced
when he was 11 years old. He and his siblings remained with his mother
and eventually, his mother remarried as did his father. His last year
before college Victor spent in Eau Claire, Wisconsin with his father’s
family where he began a lifelong close relationship with a stepbrother,
Henry and stepsister, Jenny, both near to his age.
