My Father - Nikolai Kasak
Though he was not a scientist, my father had and intellectual curiosity about nature, the universe and modern technology. He had an endless fascination and understanding of man's place among them. Though he was not theologian or philosopher, he knew his God and delved into Eastern philosophies, pondered the cosmos and liked to watch Star Trek.
My father's work ranges from traditional/classical style, representing a young man following a path taken by others, to a unique and theoretically validated form, that he found as his life and work developed and as he venture from the original trial.
Though complex as an artist and as an intellectual, he was quite utilitarian and. not very demanding of everyday life. He easily saw through and often lambasted or consumer culture. His art sought to reflect the purity and perfection of the universe, sometimes as an ordered chaos and other times with crystalline symmetry, versus immortalizing a soup can.
As father and husband, he tried to instill in us an appreciation of there purity superior, despite the society superficial. He view higher education as the cornerstone for such enlightenment(though not necessarily the source) and relentlessly promoted and supported the pursuit. I looked forward to visits home from college when we would discuss such topics as Newton's Laws, electricity and magnetism, quantum physics and calculus. Perhaps the greatest component of being a teacher is being a student.
As I grow older and mature, the issues and conflicts of daily life, as part of a true artist's family, fall from the tree and blow away (albeit some are quite tenacious). The unmovable trunk and branches remain, of a man who devoted his life, not to create perfection, but just to touch upon it and represent it in his life and work.
Alexander Kasak