YOSHI'S BIO PAGE.
PLEASE NOTE: Slowly we will be adding Biography Sections, as well as Personal and Creative Writings, along with each artist-member's art work, on this site.
This entire website is set up as, primarily, visual. This is because it is a "Visual Arts" website, and also because it views very swiftly and easily, being made up of images.
Should you, however, desire more in-depth written material, you may choose to read, below, a more extensive biography, on a member of Lamp Community, Yoshi.
If you would rather continue your "visual journey", you may simply look to the column of pages indexed directly to your left, and click on the next image-page, the one directly after the emboldened title, "yoshi bio".
Biography of Yoshi: Maurice Chandler Walker
(NOTE: Yoshi has overcome many severe challenges in his life. This attests to his tremendous capacities for both survival and spiritual growth, despite setbacks, external or internal. To say that Yoshi has done well, has exhibited bravery, has learned much, does not mean he now lives without danger.
This rough, transcribed, biography was gathered through inteviewing Yoshi at his hospital bed, where he is, at today's date, Feb. 23, 2003, recovering from the amputation of his left leg.)
Yoshi was born August 8th, 1948 in Manhattan, New York. In 1959 his family moved to California.
When asked about a mental diagnosis, he both minimizes having a mental illness, yet goes on to explain he takes medications for, and is diagnosed with both Major Depression and a Seizure Disorder.
To stabilize these conditions he takes a prescribed medication regimen of Seroquel, a newer or "atypical" anti-schizophrenic medication developed for psychosis, but now being prescribed for Major Depression, as well as the anti-depressant, Serzone, and Dilantin, an anti-epileptic or anti-seizure medication.
Yoshi further relays that he was born totally blind, and was without any sight for his first twelve years.
When questioned as to what was the first phenomenon he experienced when he begain attaining sight, Yoshi answered that he noticed that his government disability payments were immediately withdrawn. After a quick smile Yoshi went on to explain that :
"...my mother didn’t raise us like we were blind or handicapped and that is why I can take care of myself...
"But, yes, I went to special schools and when I was about 14 years old I joined The Foundation for the Junior Blind. I studied karate, and went to dances they had. I also studied arts and crafts."
Yoshi became more and more involved in art when he gained partial sightedness. He began painting, drawing, and working from images from anywhere, including comic books or natural history books on dinosaurs.
"I would work on very large paper, and they were so realistic for my age they would put them on the school walls. They didn’t think a kid could do art that well.
"I entered a contest for artists in a magazine...you could win free tuition...but my work was so good they told me that I 'traced it' and rejected it...it was a pencil drawing of a prehistoric dinosaur...."
Yoshi went on to explain that his spirituality was the most important thing in his life:
"I believe in Jesus. My parents didn’t force me to go to church.
"I first went to Catholic, then Baptist, then Muslim...yes Black Muslim, the Nation of Islam.
"The temple was on Central Ave. at the Elks, now it's a Church of God in Christ. It's at Central at 29th....
"I was taught by Malcolm X. Yes he taught there back then. I guess it was around 1961 or 62. The Watts Riots were in 65. I lived in South Central ....
"I was only involved with the temple 6 months. When Malcolm went to Mecca and found there were muslims that were white, in fact, every color, and not just black, and he came back and changed his theory about white folk being necessarily all evil.... Somebody got jealous, and had him killed....
"Then I joined the Christian Church and was baptised. I was 26 yrs old and that was a spiritual turning point.... took my spirituality very serious from that point on...but then had disagreements with my minister....
"It was over a situation where I had a chance of losing my residence. They charged me with some small thing. My minister was going to help and pick me up and take me to court and appear with me. He didn’t show up and I, therefore, couldn't get to court. I was very very cast down.
"At work ...I had a job with the Post Office... a friend on the job saw how disappointed I was and offered to drive me to the court. So, we went in the next day and they arrested me for not showing up the previous day when my minister didn't show up....
"I became very disappointed with Church at that time.
"...that’s when I started using drugs and alcohol again.... (you see, I had stopped using acid and pills when i got baptized...stopped for a year)... but I became disillusioned...I cursed the chruch...i was very very frightened....feared losing my job with the Post Office....
" I was very very frightened of jail and prison. The first time in jail was very frightening... I had heard about prison... thought of black and white stripes... there was places like Alcatraz... things were very hardcore in prison...not like later...there were no t.v.'s, no basketball courts....
"Then when i was inside a guard called me a 'nigger' and i hit him and learned to serve my time in the hole...yes, solitary confinement, that's right....
"...so after that i would always immediately hit a guard to go to the hole so I could be left alone , and not have to worry about getting sexually molested....
"...I could read and think and study...i liked it better there...so i’d always do it...anytime I was put inside, I'd just hit a guard and then they’d beat me up, and put me in the hole...
"You’re not writing this down are you ? Well, okay....it was just survival....
"...I had previously disliked Mexicans but some were okay in prison and I started hanging out with them and grew to like them....
"Why, it was Bart, [Terrance Bart Bartholomew...a member of Lamp...see his pages on this site], and he looks pretty white, who first took me in at Lamp. I mean Bart is crazy, he'll say anthing to anybody, the cops, anybody, but he treated me like a brother. He took me in. Shared his tiny hotel room with me, and he told me about Lamp....
"...then I met Mollie [Mollie Lowery co-founder of Lamp, and Executive Director...see Leadership, on link page, 'LAMP COMMUNITY']. I told Mollie I didn't have a mental illness, but when I told her that I was legally blind and that I had a Seizure Disorder, she said she'd 'make a place for me'...
"I started getting my spirituality back when I came to lamp.... Sure, Lamp is not a church, but you are allowed to believe what you want. With Lamp it's okay if you are a Muslim or a Jew, or anything.
"But I believe in Christ and study the Bible. I read a lot and think a lot for myself. All those people early in the Bible were Black. They had to be. I mean it all started right there in Africa and the Middle East. People are all People. I don't even like saying one is an African American and another is a European American or whatever. We all started in the same place. All people are brothers. Why, do you think Christ is a 'European-American'?."
Yoshi started receiving services at Lamp's San Julian Street Day Center, and then came to live in Lamp Village.
He began working at the Lamp Linen Service as a paid employee, which structures its work environment around the needs of the members of Lamp. People are not precluded from work because of their diagnoses. Some work part time, and receive partial public benefits. Others develop the ability to work fulltime, and, after a time of proving stability for themselves, may then give up all their public disability assistance. They accomplish this transition in a natural, viable, manner, with realistic steps and progressions.
They pay taxes and model to others a healing recovery-transition into the work force.
Yoshi, has accomplished a tremendous amount in his life, and, even more, since joining Lamp some half dozen years ago. Yet life still has its dangers.
Yoshi just had his left leg amputated to save his life due to severe vascular problems. The pain was severe beyond imagination. Many would despair of life. Yoshi explains that it was yet another spiritual turning point for him, that he sees God working in his current loss in such a way that Yoshi is going to receive
"greater things than [he has] lost". He is learning the use of crutches, and will receive a prosthetic leg. He longs to return to his full studio apartment at Lamp Lodge where he has been living after transitioning from Lamp Village.
"Maybe, now, I will finally be able to spend some more serious time on my art work."
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