Rosamond Press

The first thing you saw as you descended the stairs to Wanda’s Mystery Basement was Jeffrey Harkin’s latest work of art. It was hung halfway up the stairway, where you had to duck, thus bow to his creation. The most memorable piece was an electric crazy cat looking you dead in the eye and exposing your raw screeching inner-self that tore away any doubt you were an utter failure in life. There was life after failure. Much life!

The biggest mistake we all made was to not collect Jeffry’s art and have a show. My friend was a real schizophrenic who was in and out of mental hospitals most of his life. At an early age he was a scientific wizard. At ten years of age he broke into a PG&E box and got zapped with 50,000 volts. His heart stopped. A doctor neighbor revived him.

When Nancy Hamren, the…