This file contains the initial exchange of letters between Wolff and Reid Gardner, as well as another letter written by Wolff to Mr. Gardner a few years after their correspondence began. The two exchanged letters for at least twenty-six years, as Wolff mentions a letter he received from Mr. Gardner that was dated December 23, 1973.[1] So, there should be more letters in this file, and in fact, Wolff mentions others that precede the last letter in this file.
Mr. Gardner first wrote to Wolff as a twenty-three year old; he notes that he has been recently discharged from the Army and is “disgustingly normal and sane (except for this spiritual preoccupation) but eager to frame my life around whatever advice” Wolff might give him. In his response, Wolff is clearly impressed by the depth of Mr. Gardner’s insight. He carefully addresses a number of points in Mr. Gardner’s letter, and then he invites Mr. Gardner to make a prearranged appointment to see him in San Fernando.
In the third letter in this file (dated sometime after 1947), Wolff notes that “at last I propose to consider on paper some features in your excellent discussions. In particular I shall devote attention to your discussion of self-analysis as this presents the very crucial difference between traditional Buddhism and the Vedanta of Shankara.” As mentioned above, Wolff mentions “other letters” that precede this one, so Wolff may be responding to points Mr. Gardner has written about, or perhaps even discussed in person (note that Wolff now uses the more familiar salutation, “Dear Reid,” in this letter).
Mr. Gardner would become an accomplished artist who belonged to a small group of nonconformist painters whose work has been described as “magic realism.” Gardner explains:
My work has been called romantic. I don’t disclaim that. I do paintings of things that seem magical and moving to me. What can’t be ignored, however, is that there is such a thing as the magical. Craftsmanship presupposes it. I spend a long time on each painting. After years of learning craftsmanship, a painter gets the feel of his materials and learns what quiet miracles can be done with them.
As one can see in the painting below, Mr. Gardner sought to achieve the “magically real” with a technical ability honed by yogic contemplation on what the artist can see. Like Wyeth and other contemporary tempera painters, he painted on panels of Masonite that were prepared especially for his use; he also used his own revolutionary “fused-media” technique, which combined many successive glazes of tempera and oil. A perfectionist to the final, minute detail, Mr. Gardner would sometimes work months on a single painting, even a year. He never finished a painting in less than ninety days, often laboring on painstaking detail work with brushes so small and fine they had only a few sable hairs.
Mr. Gardner died August 25, 1976 in Phoenix, Arizona. In addition to Wolff, Mr. Gardner also exchanged letters with Aldous Huxley, and these letters can be found in the Aldous Huxley Papers, a special collection at the University of California, Los Angeles. (11 pages)
[1] See Franklin Merrell-Wolff, “Three Fundamentals of the Introceptive Philosophy,” part 8 (4 January 1974).
