 Hey, welcome back to Davis Media Access. We're in the studio today with local author Gene DeFazio. And we're going to be focusing specifically on this book today, Keeping the Dream Alive, which profiles the art and the work of Harriet Lawrence Nesbitt. And I want to welcome Gene. Thanks so much for being with us today. Thank you, Autumn. And I'm just going to share Gene's author at a number of books, so I'm just going to rattle them off real quickly. You are the co-editor of the following publications from Whiff and Stock Publishers, Creative Ways to Build Christian Community, Berkeley Street Theater, and Empowering English Language Learners. You've co-authored a number of other books, including this one. And you basically grew up in Davis, right? Yes, I'm a Davis, California resident since 1962. Well, you contacted me online, and you were very interested in talking about this book in particular, because Harriet had some local connections as well, or was connected to you through the social justice work you did. And so let's start by talking a little bit about who she was and why we're talking about her art today. Great. Harriet Nesbitt was a New York artist, a columnist, the Politics and Such column in the Murray Hill News. And she was also an advocate for mentally ill youth through her foundation, Mothers for More Halfway Houses. Now, I met Harriet through my former boss, Michael P. Grace, the second, who was a philanthropist. And Harriet had a, I'd never met her son, Larry, who died. He was a promising scholar and author. He had a bipolar problem, and he was released from a halfway house too early. He was off as medication, and he was run down in Dade County. So it was very tragic for Harriet. And she was a great networker in New York City. She had events. And when I met her at was South Seaport. And she had grown up and married into a prominent social background. And so the party where I met her, and this is really dated, but it was Andy Warhol, Prince Albert of Monaco. Andy Duke, a famous, founded the brother, oh, Boys and Girls Harbor, wonderful man. And Harriet's friend, Ann Pat, invited us. Ann Pat was a colorful woman, a former stripper and a realtor in New York City. But just a great group of people where they are supporting this cause, hundreds of people. So out of the pain of losing her son, she really became a social justice activist, advocating for additional help for the mentally ill and for more halfway houses, obviously, the name of the organization. And a lot of her art reflects that. And just a few minutes, we're going to take a look at some of those paintings. So you connected, and you served on the board of her organization, is that correct? I actually served on several committees. She was very good at bringing people in. As I said, a great networker. And I recall times when I supported her and politics in the column, where we covered a benefit for NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Health. And of course, we have a very active local chapter here. Which is great. And she just was able, part of her skill in networking, she brought those people on the committees of her events. And she was an advocate. She wasn't a clinician, but she brought top psychiatrists into her organization because they believed in the cause and they wanted more exposure. I think one of the themes that really, one of my takeaways from the book is that she felt it was important to really de-stigmatize mental illness. She really was brave. And Martha Reyes, in her forward, interviewed Lori Chang and Lydia Chang, who are from Davis. And they were very brave to come out and say, this is what I've gone through and we want to be published because we want a platform to help other people. Right. And they're a pastor's wife and daughter. Yes, wonderful. Pastor Howard Chang at the Chinese Christian Church, his wife and daughter. Right. So that's a really important role that community leaders can take in helping to de-stigmatize mental illness. So let's go ahead and take a look at a couple of the paintings. I'm gonna ask Diane to start with one and if you can tell us what we're looking at here. Okay, this is Mayor Koch. And Mayor Koch is in the Wagner-Laguardia Archives and Professor DeCarlo, who I mentioned in the book, he's footnoted because we needed to get permission, allowed us to use this digital image because as you see, there are wings of angels over Koch. And she adored Koch. I remember being in events meeting Koch before he passed. And she really loved Koch's, she loved his sense of self. She said, I was elected by the people but God allowed me to get in. Which was, you know, she believed that he was protecting and guarding me. He's a really good likeness of him. Yeah. Okay, and we're moving on to- Atomic Madonna. Atomic Madonna. Tell us about this painting. Okay. This is Harriet, a likeness of Harriet and her son Larry. And of course, the cloud overhead is atomic eruption. So Harriet, you know, she really was concerned and on many things in this painting depicted her concern for annihilation by atomic weapons. And then also concerned over what we're doing with the environment. Right? Yeah. And I'm sure it represents her and her son to some degree as well. That's right. And her loss, okay. Yes, and this is one of Harriet's, her most prolific and popular works were her horse paintings. And they're in the collection of very prominent people. And so I included four in the book and they're just vibrant and they're full of action. And actually she came from a family of privilege. She attended polo events and she would paint these events and then sell the paintings to follow, you know, members of society, but also to people who would support her cause. And this is Sandy the Storm. Now, this is a later painting and the Motion Picture Council president, Bea Beyer, after Sandy the Storm, really loved this painting and gave her an award for artistic excellence. Bea Beyer and her wonderful daughter Gemma who has a television show in L.A. So what, I believe she saw this picture of a couple in a really terrified state because all they had left was their porch. Right, this is after Hurricane Sandy, obviously. Yes, yes. Okay, so she, I'm envisioning that these paintings are fairly large, just the style that she painted in and are they acrylics? Are they oils? The artist in me wants to ask those questions. Yeah, I think they're oils and acrylics and the Kennedy Dip Tick is large. It's just very large, but Sandy the Storm is, you know, maybe four by five. Koch is a little larger and Atomic Madonna is standardized for a portrait. So now you've written about a variety of topics. What was it about her work specifically that you can see a lot of paintings and they don't necessarily result in a book? Yes, well her desire to have, the desire that she expressed to her, that her estate would, the paintings would be available to benefit mentally ill uses. That's why her wonderful son, Roger, and her executors, Martha and her niece and nephew, Martha and Michael Ness, but allowed me to do this. So it's gotten, oh, it's gotten exposure. It's gonna be in the Harvard Holiday Edition book list, which is 400,000 hard copy and probably millions online because her idea was that she wanted more exposure to the cause. And this is why I came down here today and I'm so grateful to you. Oh sure, yeah. Sure, thanks for reaching out about it. So are you, have you been speaking about the book locally or is it, I know it's available online and I know that people can get more information from the publisher's website, which is with, but that's spelled W-I-P-F as in Frank and stock.com. And I think Diane will put that up at the end. People can get it online, but are you invited to go and speak about the book? We have more plans for this book. It's also at Walmart and it's also at Walmart.com and it's on Amazon, of course, in Kindle and hard copy. So one of the plans we have because one of the forwarding authors, Julia Davis, is a Harvard graduate is we're going to film at Gutman. She has a master's in education from Harvard. We're going to take her three books and this is one of them, do a panel discussion. And then I find when we, as you do, when we film and then we can send the film, the clips at least around, we have a greater exposure. Right, right. And that seems in keeping her dream alive and keeping her intent alive to really continue raising awareness of, I don't know if it's bipolar specifically or mental health in general and how it affects young people. And I think you probably know this today. We just have an epidemic with depression and anxiety and bipolar. And it seems like our youth are really at risk for that. I acknowledged my uncle, Jerry, who was the director of Yellow County Mental Health and his son, Michael, who is the dean of the Psychiatric School of Medicine at Riverside and my wonderful cousin, Louise, who has been a psychiatric social worker and their brother, Michael. The whole family's devoted who I believe he treats mentally ill people in the penal system. I acknowledge people who have been lifelong pioneers and really helping people come to terms with what's going on in them and find happier, healthier life. And you know, you're helping a great deal just letting me be here today. So thank you. It's been a pleasure to bring you in and talk to you. I want to thank you. And I want to just show this one more time to let people know we've been talking about this book, Keeping the Dream Alive, and with author Jean DeFazio. And thank you so much for coming in today. You can tune into our whole archive of In the Studio online at dctv.davismedia.org. It airs live on, not live, it airs on Tuesday evenings and we put up an archive on YouTube as well so you can look for it there under Davies Media Access. Thanks so much for tuning in. I'm Autumn Lab-A-Reno and we'll see you next time in the studio.