Thank you, and to Scott for his remembrance as well.  I forgot to include in
the text that it was written by Alison Kozberg, Filmforum Board president,
and myself.  My apologies for leaving off the writing credits when I posted.
Additional comments and links are being added to the Filmforum Facebook
page.  Terry’s willingness to provide opportunities to unheralded people was
really remarkable.  We already knew how Barbara Hammer always credited Terry
with her first show outside the lesbian Bay Area community, and the first
show for which she was paid.  It’s in her autobiobraphy Hammer!, along with
a photo of her holding her check from the Filmforum show.  Grahame Weinbren
has pointed out that Terry gave him and Roberta Friedman their first solo
show.  Jeff said that Terry arranged the first review of “Demon Lover Diary”
when it screened at Pasadena Filmforum.
And although his journal Spiral from the 1980s is more well-remembered, his
earlier journal GOSH was also pretty amazing.
https://www.artjobs.com/resources/bd/fashion-magazine/gosh#
<https://www.artjobs.com/resources/bd/fashion-magazine/gosh#>

We have images of the Pasadena Filmforum posters which were pretty great.  I
don’t believe I can send any to the list, but I’ll work on getting some
uploaded to one of our web pages.

Best regards,

Adam

From:  FrameWorks <frameworks-boun...@jonasmekasfilms.com> on behalf of Jeff
Kreines <j...@kinetta.com>
Reply-To:  "Experimental Film Discussion List
<frameworks@jonasmekasfilms.com>" <frameworks@jonasmekasfilms.com>
Date:  Sunday, August 2, 2020 at 6:53 AM
To:  "Experimental Film Discussion List <frameworks@jonasmekasfilms.com>"
<frameworks@jonasmekasfilms.com>
Subject:  Re: [Frameworks] Sad news - Terry Cannon, founder of Filmforum,
passes away

Beautifully put, Adam. Amazing how much Terry accomplished with no
institutional support.

Condolences to Mary and of course the birds. He’ll be missed.

Jeff Kreines
Kinetta
j...@kinetta.com
kinetta.com

Sent from iPhone. 

> On Aug 2, 2020, at 8:09 AM, Scott MacDonald <smacd...@hamilton.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
> Thanks, Adam, for alerting us to the passing of Terry Cannon.
> 
> On the wall of the room where I keep my VHS/DVD/BluRays and watch films hangs
> a beautiful poster from Pasadena Filmforum, a souvenir of a visit to Pasadena
> to present a program of single-shot films in 1981. Patricia and I were on a
> cross-country trip, my first visit to the American West, to interview
> filmmakers (Morgan Fisher, George Kuchar, Robert Nelson, Bruce Conner) for
> what would become the first Critical Cinema collection of interviews
> (California Press, 1988). We stayed with Terry and Mary, sleeping on their
> floor, for several days--and talking well into the nights. As I remember, a
> hamster rolled round the little apartment in a plastic ball.
> 
> It would be impossible to overstate how lovely a man Terry was. His commitment
> to avant-garde cinema and his light-hearted labors in service of it were
> obvious and innovative. Pasadena Filmforum was a fun venue--though I think I
> bored the audience that night (Morgan Fisher came up after the show to tell
> me, "In LA, we don't talk so much before screenings")--though the audience had
> been attentive to the films: as I remember, Larry Gottheim's Fog Line, J. J.
> Murphy's Sky Blue Water Light Sign, Bob Huot's Snow, Hollis Frampton's Lemon,
> and one of Morgan's films--probably Production Stills.
> 
> Terry's SPIRAL was an unusual film journal--thoroughly non-academic, but
> valuable, high-spirited, and a pleasure to read. He and Willie Varela would
> edit an issue of The Cinemanews (née the Canyon Cinemanews), No. 81: 2-6,
> focusing on Super-8mm filmmaking, an early recognition/exploration of the
> achievements of small-gauge filmmaking--just one of Terry's collaborative
> projects. His curating and his editing and publishing were, for years,
> important for filmmakers, cineastes, and fledgling film scholars.
> 
> As Adam has said, Terry moved on to other pursuits; and after a time, I lost
> touch with him--but my interaction with Terry always was and always will be a
> deeply pleasurable memory. He was a beautiful soul. RIP.
> 
> Scott
> 
> On Sun, Aug 2, 2020 at 3:04 AM Adam Hyman <amleo...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> Today we lost our friend and visionary founder Terry Cannon. Terry was a
>> writer, an editor, a curator, a librarian, an archivist, and incredible
>> advocate for his students, colleagues, and generations of filmmakers. He
>> believed in paying artists for their work, the importance of community
>> collaboration, and that arts spaces should be welcoming and risk-taking.
>> He founded Filmforum (née Pasadena Filmforum) in 1975 when he was 22 years
>> old and served as Executive Director for eight years. As Filmforum’s
>> Executive Director, Cannon curated programs including “Show for the Eyes,”
>> the first mail art film exhibition, “Films Found in a Box,” and “El Ojo
>> Apasionado: The Passionate Eye,” along with creating our mission of promoting
>> a greater understanding of media art, and the role of the artists and
>> curators who create and present it, by providing a forum for independently
>> produced, noncommercial work which has little opportunity of reaching the
>> general public.
>> 
>> Cannon subsequently founded the arts publication Gosh! In 1978, and Spiral in
>> 1984, which featured writing and artwork by experimental film luminaries
>> including James Broughton, Willie Varela, Marjorie Keller, Pat O’Neill, Janis
>> Lipzin, Kurt Kren, and Bruce Conner. He also edited the automotive
>> publication Skinned Knuckles for over 25 years until 2005.
>> 
>> In his time at Filmforum, he befriended the artist and filmmaker Sara Kathryn
>> Arledge, and eventually, after Arledge’s death, he and his wife Mary saved
>> many of her paintings and painted slides when they were on the verge of
>> destruction. They formed the Sara Kathryn Arledge Memorial Trust, and were
>> instrumental in the exhibition of Arledge’s work at the Armory Center for the
>> Arts in Pasadena in 2019, which brought Arledge's work to a new generation.
>> 
>> In 1996 Cannon founded the Baseball Reliquary, a nonprofit organization
>> “dedicated to fostering an appreciation of American art and culture through
>> the context of baseball history” Beginning in 1999 the Reliquary began
>> honoring important figures from baseball’s history by adding them to its
>> Shrine of the Eternals, designed to elect “individuals on merits other than
>> statistics and playing ability...for a deeper understanding and appreciation
>> of baseball than has heretofore been provided by “Halls of Fame” in the more
>> traditional and conservative institutions. Honorees have included Jim Abbott,
>> Dick Allen, Jim Bouton, Dizzy Dean, Curt Flood, Josh Gibson, Roger Maris,
>> Manny Mota, Don Newcombe, Satchel Paige, Luis Tiant, Bob Uecker, Fernando
>> Valenzuela, and Maury Wills. The lauded tribute to the intersection of art
>> and baseball functions as a traveling museum, bringing curiosities and
>> wonders to sites throughout Southern California. The Reliquary’s collections
>> now serve as the foundation for the Institute for Baseball Studies at
>> Whittier College.
>> 
>> In 2010, Alhambra High School, where Cannon served as librarian for many
>> years, named him as Employee of the Year. That same year he helped the
>> student group Artists Anonymous organize the exhibition “Kaleidoscope Eyes”
>> about the 1960s. Cannon subsequently worked at the Allendale Branch of the
>> Pasadena Public Library, where he hosted discussions with a wide variety of
>> guests during his tenure, including musicians, filmmakers, writers, and
>> curators, while being a charming and helpful librarian for the community.
>> 
>> As a lifelong creator of non-profit organizations, unusual magazines, and as
>> a librarian, Cannon was committed to the unheralded and idiosyncratic, and to
>> the regenerative and delightful possibilities of community and art that
>> continues to inspire the organizations he founded and the people he touched.
>> Cannon is survived by wife Mary Cannon and siblings Phil, Barbara, and Nancy.
>> 
>> 
>> An oral history with Terry Cannon:
>> https://www.alternativeprojections.com/oral-histories/terry-cannon/
>> <https://www.alternativeprojections.com/oral-histories/terry-cannon/>
>> 
>> 
>> An article by him about the early years of Filmforum:
>> https://www.alternativeprojections.com/articles/filmforum-the-pasadena-years-
>> 1975-1983/ 
>> <https://www.alternativeprojections.com/articles/filmforum-the-pasadena-years
>> -1975-1983/> 
>> 
>> 
>> http://www.baseballreliquary.org/ <http://www.baseballreliquary.org/>
>> 
>> 
>> https://www.armoryarts.org/exhibitions/2019/arledge/
>> <https://www.armoryarts.org/exhibitions/2019/arledge/>
>> 
>> 
>> https://www.whittier.edu/news/baseballinstitute
>> <https://www.whittier.edu/news/baseballinstitute>
>> 
>> 
>> https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/sports/baseball/01reliquary.html
>> <https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/sports/baseball/01reliquary.html>
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