After 36 years in Petaluma, Edgar Haris has to escape again.
This time, the artist, sculptor and jewelry maker won’t be fleeing a communist dictatorship like he did at age 12, when his mother, Susanne Haris, left Hungary with Edgar and his older brother Nino. He must leave because he can’t afford to retire in Sonoma County. Getting out this time, however, may turn out to be even tougher than last time.
That’s because of the stuff.
Haris owns a 125-foot-long studio downtown by the river, lit by skylights and crammed with artwork, finished and unfinished - “I’m not a great finisher,” he admits - and a huge array of tools, machines and materials. He has lived and worked there for 26 years. To make his getaway, he must somehow convert all these assets to cash.
“I‘ve got to get rid of everything,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of tools and machinery and art to sell. I’ve done a physical inventory. Now I need to figure out the best approach for selling everything.”
As a step toward leaving Petaluma, he is interested in (at least) selling enough stuff so that he can sublet part of the space to someone, perhaps a welder.
And winter is coming.
To those who claim winter is no big deal in Petaluma, Haris suggests they try spending the season working in an unheated studio, as he has all these years. He wants to settle someplace warm and inexpensive.
Maybe Central America. Maybe Thailand.
But wherever and however Haris’ colorful life story ultimately ends, he’s aware that the course of his life was set largely by how, where and when it began.
It was the 1950s.
Haris’s father had abandoned the family.
“The war nailed him,” Haris said, referring to the general chaos in Hungary after World War II. “Our apartment building had been completely destroyed by a bomb. The glass had melted, it was so hot.”
After the death of Stalin in 1953, the Soviet Union initiated a leadership change in Hungary. In late 1956, the people of Hungary revolted against the political and economic situation that the Russians had thrust on them, but the Soviets extinguished the uprising. Life was tough. People had to use a ticket system to purchase basic supplies.
“I grew up too fast,” Haris told The Press Democrat in 2012. “No one should experience that kind of violence and turmoil, especially kids. I lost my innocence when I saw what people were capable of doing to each other. I saw humanity at its worst.”
Haris lost touch with his father when he and his mother and brother left Hungary after the 1956 uprising.
“My mother had a schoolmate who had emigrated to the U.S. and put down roots in San Francisco,” he says. “She sponsored us. We settled in Noe Valley. My mother spoke four languages, including English, but all she could get were lousy jobs like writing insurance policies and selling Avon door to door. She worked two jobs. She had grown up comfortable in Hungary, so this was a big adjustment for her and us.”
Haris was always an artistic child. By the age of 9, he had a small collection of objects he made out of wood and metal. After high school, he briefly served in the Marine Corps. College didn’t work out very well. He considered becoming a dental technician, which would have given him an opportunity to use his hands.
“I started making jewelry in the 1960s in Haight-Ashbury,” Haris said. “My roommate in San Francisco was in a laundromat and noticed that someone was selling a set of jewelry-making tools for $100 dollars. I went over there and told the guy I couldn’t pay $100 dollars but offered him $50 dollars, which he took.”
The business savvy transaction enabled Haris to start making things.
“I started selling my creations at the annual Renaissance Fair, which I attended for 18 years,” he says. “I picked a lot of brains there, learning from other jewelry makers. You could talk to them.”
One remnant of his past as a jewelry maker is a line of gold earrings that goes back 40 years. It can be seen at Vita Collage, a store with locations in Pt. Reyes Station and in Petaluma’s Burdell Building. The store’s inventory includes such things as photography books, handmade soap, and vintage jewelry. The Petaluma shop is open Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., or by appointment.
“I like to travel,” Haris acknowledges. “I’ve been to about 20 countries, but at my age dealing with newness is different. When I’m confronted now with something like new software, my brain screeches to a halt. I’m almost computer illiterate.”
Maybe so, but when it comes to the arts of metal fabrication, wood sculpting and jewelry making, Haris is a master. Several pieces can be seen on his website, edgarharis.com.
“I don’t want to actually retire,” he said. “I couldn’t bear not doing something creative. But I’m ready to sell out.”
Gesturing toward three large finished pieces in his office, he adds, “For two or three years I have been carving wood. It’s soft, compared to metal, and relatively quick to work with. I’ve been using first-growth redwood from railroad ties, thanks to a neighbor, a woodworker. I use a carving saw, a narrow-nosed chainsaw. I’m not a hammer-and-chisel sculptor.”
Haris may be best known for his metal fabricating - one-of-a-kind gates, fences, and garden works for private homes.
“I fell into fabricating, but I’m not very good at it,” he says with characteristic modesty. “I’ve built nice stuff over the years, but it’s hard for me.”
Still, the itch to wrestle with iron remains.
Though he still plans to give it all up in the near future, he continues to find inspiration for amazing, original and challenging new things to make.
Acknowledging a life-long interest in social justice, Haris points to a large sketch on the wall of a prison-cell door, flanked by two profiles - a guard and a prisoner, in red and blue respectively.
Says Haris, “I’d like to build it life-size.”
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