Art & Life with Kurt Rotzinger

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kurt Rotzinger.

If you met Kurt today, you’d be captivated by the handsome charm and joie de vivre that has always identified him to many and also amazed at the determination and success of a man who in 2003, at 47 years of age, suffered a massive stroke that left him paralyzed on the right side and unable to speak or process language in any intelligible way.

Growing up on Long Island, New York, he spent his summers clamming and surfing. After graduating from Farmingdale college, he fled the cold winters of the Northeast and followed the surf to san Diego. For some years he worked in the building industry and then returned to school for architecture. Before his stroke, he was an associate at KPA Associates Architectural firm in San Diego.

Kurt’s post-stroke prognosis was poor. His neurosurgeon told Kurt’s wife, Kathy, that if Kurt survived he would likely remain in a vegetable state and unable to communicate or move himself around without great difficulty. It was with great difficulty that Kathy, a San Diego schoolteacher, told their children, Derek then 17, and Kaitlin 11, that a very different dad would be coming home. It was several months of extensive rehabilitation in hospital and nursing home facilities before Kurt was wheeled home. Not long after, Kathy would come home to find Kurt attempting to complete home improvements the he had started before his stroke. Kurt crawled into the garage to retrieve a can of paint and roller and manage with his one functioning (and not dominant) hand to pry open the can and resume painting a bedroom wall started many months before. It was not altogether surprising from a man who, in early rehabilitation, tore out tubes and refused to use a walker, instead insisting on holding the nursing home hand rails and dragging his legs up the hallways.

Kurt returned to his art. First drew practical things like the gate a friend would help him build, the new lighting plan for his living room, or his art studio. And then he drew for himself. He drew and painted the kinds of things that he never quite found the time to paint before his stroke: animals, people, buildings, landscapes, seascapes, and still like arrangements. Initially he worked with watercolors using a very dry brush for added control. In no time at all he was recreating what he saw with the precision and accuracy of an architect, and the beauty and grace of an artist. Kurt now often works in oil paints. This has given him much joy.

And then, inconceivably, eleven years ago Kathy dies in her sleep of an epileptic seizure. Kathy’s death brought great sadness to a community and shock to a family that relied upon her in so many ways. it has been a long and rough road for this disabled widower and his young family, but courage and the strength of their love for one another has gotten them through many difficulties.

The image to his brain where language resides also prevents Kurt from fully understanding what others say or write. While very determined and able, he still relies daily on friends and friends for many tasks, mostly those where language and communication are involved. Most often Kurt expresses himself with a few words, sounds, and drawings in a process that looks a lot like charades. And he paints. Everyday. Using his now-adept left hand, he holds with confidence the brush and places bit after bit of color, creating more beauty and personal joy with every brushstroke.

Can you give our readers some background on your art?
Kurt’s sees a composition, and he paints it. but whatever it is–a person, a place, a building–his art is made of countless points made by the tip of the paint brush, countless points of color that are random and vary in size so that they appear to be moving or at least moveable. All these points, sort of like floating bubbles, are not unlike the countless molecules that make up ourselves and everything around us. One could easily suggest that maybe Kurt’s experience—his stroke and the loss of his wife, and many other things— has shown him that we are not bodies made of hard, solid matter moving unchanged in a life that is also made of hard, solid matter that we can take at face value, something predictable. It is not. We are made of countless loose molecules that are floating around in a cluster that makes us appear a certain way at any given time, but it morphs and changes all the time due to outside forces. Like a mirror with an image that is broken in a million pieces and put back in different ways. Even if it’s put back the way it was the image is changed, and will never be the quite the same. Stuff happens. Little things. Big things. Ever the optimist, Kurt accepts change and recreates himself daily. He sees that we are always moving, and changing. Life is unpredictable. And Kurt shows us that’s ok. It’s good. Maybe that’s the take away. No matter what or how things change, all those little points remain, just in different formation, like a beautiful painting made of countless points of color

What would you recommend to an artist new to the city, or to art, in terms of meeting and connecting with other artists and creatives?
Kurt’s situation is unique from most artists, and he has more the reason to be lonely with his circumstances. We often ask him how he’s so happy all the time and he reply with some of the few words he knows “oh, I don’t know… Happy! Good!”. If he could fully answer this question on his own, I think he would suggest making a routine and schedule (sign up for a class, go swimming, join an art community, mail friends copy of new art, and eat Rubio’s every Tuesday, are all things Kurt has done on his own to combat any loneliness) to get out of the house, and talk to new people. Kurt comes home with around 2 business cards a week (AND keeps in touch!) from people he meets out and about. He has confidence and humility most of us could only dream of.

What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
Some of Kurt’s artwork is always displayed in the Liberty Station Public Market, as well as a few local cafe’s and dentist offices where he has made good friends with the staff and owners. He has art shows a few times a year in Liberty Station, and also partakes in the San Diego Brain Injury Foundation art shows annually. We are currently working on a website for him to display and sell his artwork.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sdbif.org/index/staff/kurt-rotzinger/. art website is in the works
• Email: kaitlinrotzinger@yahoo.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kurt.rotzinger

Image Credit:
Kurt Rotzinger

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