Adam Blatner

In 1978 we moved from Menlo Park to Santa Rosa and found a cute home there at 3173 Idaho Court slightly east of Montgomery Village and east of mid-town. During that “sabbatical” year, Allee (who then spelled it Ali as an informal shortening of her earlier name of Alice) encouraged me to write, think, enjoy life. . It was a time of significant growth, thinking about images. The earliest ideas about The Art of Play began, along with the many characters that had been emerging in my imagination for years.

On the left with the onion-shaped turban and the Sri Yantra badge was Baba Booby, our elf-guru—not a very intellectual type, more into singing. Influences of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach may be evident.  The idea that Santa is as Clement Moore’s poem suggests an elf—albeit presented as physically larger than the other elves—still fit with an emerging intuition that continues to flower.

Badges were big in the San Francisco Bay area over the previous few years, and Santa is wearing one. These also were the beginning of mandala-making efforts. Off to Santa’s left side (toward the right of the picture) is Snrk the Troll, with a hand puppet. Below his left arm is Winifred-the-Witch.

Below Santa’s right hand (your lower left) several other characters: The Egyptian one reflects the then contemporary fashion of the King Tut exhibit being shown around the country, mixed with the idea of Egyptian Hieroglyphics as an expansion of my interest in scriptology (my term for the lore of writing systems). Mayan-man is a little elf to the lower right-center. Impy to the center-left.

In the back row, Mr. Sunshine, Allee dressed as a kitty as she did that Halloween, an early Uncle Binkl clown-elf, to the right of Santa the Wizard of Ahs, Shiva Nataraj, above him Butterfly-Philosopher-fairy, and Salamandre on his left shoulder with the star of the heart between that and the moon. Plus others…