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EXPERIENCES IN ART
AND LIFE BY CYRYSSA OF
SEVERAL YEARS INTERNATIONALLY
APRIL 21 [[strikethrough]] 8 MAY, [[/strikethrough]] 1981
AT EVANSTON ART CENTER, ILLINOIS

I want to thank everybody who has encouraged me. I am delighted to be here tonight. For many years I believed that New York is America. I had great enthusiasm for New York and I used to feel so secure that I often would leave my studio door unlocked in downtown Manhattan. All of my enthusiasm for New York. slowly wore out due to many reasons. To mention only a few, enormously financial inconveniences, extreme poor conditions of work. The first years in foundries (I used to use the cheapest possible foundries) also at later years, [[strikethrough]] then [[/strikethrough]] approximately 1962-64, in my own metal shop, (I vaguely remember the address--in Williamsburg, Brooklyn). The assistants that I hire, most of the time, were unemployed workers, and often alcoholics, who would usually work for a short while-long enough to receive their unemployment allowances.

The means of my survival were also minimal. Even when my works were sold out, which they did, my expenses for making them and my primitive survival, were hardly covered. I had to face approximately 26 times the fear of eviction with sculptures, large metal sculptures and also Neon sculptures, which made this fear to be thrown in the streets even more intense. (Up to 1976 [[strikethrough]] periodically [[/strikethrough]]).

I do appreciate very much my New York inspirations, from Times Square and other inspriations. During the more than 20 years of living in New York I became aware of:

cliquy groups of artists,
of a super snobism of other New Yorkers to accept other American cities such as California or Chicago as part of the art scene,
perhaps even a "Chauvenism" towars art which focuses [[strikethrough]] in [[/strikethrough]] at least to my experiences of the last decade, in promotion of American art meaning American born artists. 

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