Paul Vangelisti, 1945

Vangelisti and Sawka met in Los Angeles in 1977, less than a year after Sawka’s expulsion from Poland. Both artists knew about each other. Paul, an outstanding poet and the editor of a small press had spent a year in Poznan, Poland teaching American literature and had naturally met the leading counter-cultural figures of his generation in Poland. When Sawka visited L.A. in regards to the organization of a show there, he met Vangelisti and they spent a long time discussing both countries’ counter-cultural movements, both political and artistic. The idea of a collaboration was the ultimate fruit of the meeting.  Paul selected a dozen poems, Jan created a full visual treatment for them, where, besides the graphics, handwritten texts were inserted. It was titled simply - “Paul Vangelisti, Poems” and sadly was never published. It led to another collaboration, however. Please, see “Humps and Wings,” the next entry.