Show poster © Harold La Vigne (artists from
top --- L to R) Rick Barton, Kent Chapman, Ron
Russell, Byron Hunt, Harold La Vigne, Bob La
Vigne, Sutter Marin, "Ernie" Nadalini, Dave Archer

© 2001 Harold La Vigne

It was in the fall of 1964 that I decided I wanted to open a gallery because I knew a lot of artists needed a place to exhibit their art works. There were some galleries in San Francisco in those days, but most were not very interested in showing up-and-coming artists, and when they did have an interest, they were much more apt to show persons with academic credentials than others. So there were a lot of artists that were looking for the opportunity to exhibit their works, and they were demoralized by not being able to do so. I decided to rent some space and exhibit artists, and I started looking for suitable space. By necessity it had to be an inexpensive rental. I walked San Francisco in my free hours (doing drawings in cafeterias along the way) and hit all the neighborhoods. It was the Fillmore district that captured my attention. By the demolition of the victorian flats in the Fillmore district, and the relocation of a sizeable portion of the black Fillmore district population to other areas (Hunter's Point notably), the commerce along Fillmore had dwindled to practically nothing. Groups of six or ten men would be standing on street corners drinking from paper sacks. They were all unemployed and most were relatively young. It was the beginning of the Vietnam War time, and many of the unemployed were joining the military: and unemployment was greatest in the black community. I had the thought that if people were passing through on Fillmore the cafes and drug and variety stores might get enough business to warrant the employment of some of these men. And I lived not far from this area, at Fillmore and Washington, on the edge of the Pacific Heights district, which made it handy. I located a second floor flat for rent at Fillmore and Sutter (being a bus crossroad, it would allow people relatively easy access) with a rental amount I could afford, and set about (with much help from Lani) the process of bringing it into fit condition for a gallery (sanding floors, painting, etc). I had exhibited at the BATMAN GALLERY, the noted BEAT gallery four blocks closer to Pacific Heights, one or two years earlier, and it occurred to me that I could make my gallery a continuation of the movement started there (I, and a lot of my friends and acquaintances had been involved in activities there), and I decided to name the gallery, JOKER'S FLUX. I would have to show more than one artist at a time, if I wanted to make any substantial contribution to the exhibition of all the artists who had no place to exhibit. So I divided the gallery up into areas that were roughly equal in wall space; into nine areas. And then I considered framing, and how difficult that would be for the artists who were just trying to make art, and living meagerly while doing it. That led me to the idea that I could exhibit about ten works in each area, provided they didn't exceed about 16 x 20 inches (I eventually settled on mats of two sizes: 16 x 20 and 12 x 16). And I also decided that I could provide mat board and glass for those works that were on paper, and that works on canvas, and such, could be either framed, or unframed, as the artist wished. I positioned a series of nails at two inch intervals around the 8 foot high molding throughout the gallery area, from which the works would be hung by transparent fish line. Then I started getting together artists for the first exhibit. I went first to artists who were in my everyday art world, and put together a group of nine for a month long exhibition to begin in May, 1965. The artists were Rick Barton, Kent Chapman, Ron (Cushing) Russell, Byron Hunt, myself (Harold La Vigne), Robert La Vigne, Sutter Marin, Louis "Ernie" Nadalini, and Dave (Nelson) Archer. (I hope to relate some of my experiences with each of these individuals at another time.) Wes Wilson had a fledgling printing company at the time, and I hired him to print the flyer for the opening exhibition. The photography, the poster design, and the logo were all my creation. He printed it according to my specifications. (I say that so that Wes Wilson won't be accused of having done those parts of it. Wes would soon after, of course, become famous for posters of his own design for the Fillmore Auditorium and other rock venues.) It was an exciting exhibition: the works of each artist were significantly along personal lines (one quality I think should be present in any artist's work, and one of the reasons I selected these individuals for this exhibition), and the images were all new and exciting, especially for those who were unfamiliar with the artists' work. There was an exhibition opening which was well-attended, primarily by the artists, friends of the artists, and members of what is now called the Beat Generation community. And the gallery was underway. I was employed at the time (St. Francis Memorial Hospital, psychiatric technician, 4pm to midnight) and so I limited the hours that the gallery was open to 4 hours per day, 4 days per week. And they were daytime hours (10am to 2pm I think) which was not ideal; nevertheless, the gallery was visited by many people throughout its existence. Between each exhibition there were a few days that the gallery was not open, and during those days Lani and I worked day and night to cut mats for each work on paper to be exhibited (sometimes as many as ninety), mount the works on mats, clean the pre-cut glass, and hang the works from the molding nails by fish line. All the works exhibited had more than "reasonable" prices. The gallery commission was 10 percent of the sales (as opposed to the going local rate of 33 percent). The gallery sold only a few works during its existence, and so, while it wasn't intended to be only a labor of love, that's what it turned out to be. And it turned out to be that for all the artists, too, which is the truly sad part. Among the artists exhibited in later exhibits were Michael Holder, Knut Peterson, Marty McKinnon, Cat Kalloch (a twelve-year-old girl from Gate 5, Sausalito, who brought in a variety of cats on typing paper, and asked if she could exhibit them), Wally Healy, Lani (Chamberlin) La Vigne, Richard Coulter (the poet) and Theodore Greer, to mention a few. When I started the gallery I was playing only 20th Century symphonic music. One day I was complaining about the lack of availability of such music, and Rick Miller (an exhibitor) suggested I play Bob Dylan, and after listening to a recording or two, that's what I decided to do.

In late October, Justin Hein and Dan Rowan opened the RAPED AND STRANGLED GALLERY on Golden Gate Avenue, not far from Fillmore, (which is a story in itself), and some of the artists who exhibited at the JOKER'S FLUX were in its opening exhibiton. (So far as I can recollect my brother, Robert, and I were the only artists to exhibit in all three galleries; BATMAN, JOKER'S FLUX, and RAPED AND STRANGLED.) Meanwhile, things were starting to happen along Fillmore.

An empty theater was rented by a black theatrical group from New York where they put on plays for a short time (they attended the party my brother gave for Bob Dylan in December, 1965, when he was in San Francisco on his first cross-country tour, and entertained the many people there with spectacular acrobatic feats, and an informal pantomime contest). Small businesses were moving into empty store fronts. Below my gallery a printer moved in; several blocks down Fillmore a store front was opened as a small museum dedicated to black pride so the school children could witness photographs, etc., of accomplishments blacks had made to society, past and present; jewelry, dress, and millinery shops opened, and above all, the vacant Fillmore auditorium, just two blocks up from the Joker's Flux, was used by Ken Kesey to introduce the new rock scene to San Francisco (some call this event the "Acid Test") sometime in the fall of 1965 (I believe). On December 10, 1965, Bill Graham brought back the same scene (with admission at the door) for a decades long run which continues to this day. Further up Fillmore, closer to Haight, some Beat Generation people opened a store front with the name, MAGIC THEATER FOR MADMEN ONLY, which exhibited funk art, and put on plays and happenings. As more and more events occurred on, or near Fillmore Street, (and by now, the Haight/Ashbury scene was starting to gain momentum) the businesses along it got back on their feet and the number of young men on the street corners dwindled.

Sometime in December I came to the conclusion my work at the gallery was at an end. I couldn't find enough new artists who wished to exhibit at the Joker's Flux to make up a new and interesting exhibition. And I had tired over the months (full-time job, gallery, doing lots of art work, and starting to do some publishing, anti-Vietnam War activities) and I needed to get my workload down to a size I could manage. I had exhibited the artists I wanted to exhibit, the Fillmore District was well on its way to recovery, and so it was time to move on. I lit a stick of incense and started chanting as I danced around the gallery, and then another stick: one stick after another throughout the afternoon and evening. And the Joker's Flux was done: except for moving out.

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