First a little about me. My name is Paul Douglas Wislotski and I was born in Newton N.J. to a farmer, John Wislotski and his wife Joyce back on April 8, 1959. I have a twin sister that was born the next day. Back then they didn't have ultra sound so they didn't know that Margeret, or Peggy was even there. So my mom went through 36 hours of labor having my sister. I also have five sisters and one brother. I'm kinda of in the middle with three older sisters, one older brother and one younger sister. My one sister Betty I didn't know I had entil she came into our life back in 1995. My mom had given her up for adoption way back in the 50's.
On the farm we were poor like most farmer back then. The farm was 200 acres up in the backwoods of N.J. in a town called Hamburg. We grew up working the cows, the hayfields, and with horses and ponies. The pay was bad, you got meals and a place to sleep, though at time the house was freezing in the winter. My first real job was on the neighbors farm for fifty cents an hour! Being poor wasn't all that bad because now I feel blessed to have anything, though I still don't have a much. I spent the first 14 years of my life on the farm when mom said "lets move to Florida" back in 1974. So dad had a big sale of all the equipment he had amazed over 20 years and we were off to Fl.. Mom and the 3 girls headed down first while me, Johnny, and dad cleaned up the house for the next people to move into. When we got down to Fl. the gas crunch was in full force and jobs were hard to find but dad made a go of it. It was so different for us because now we had neighbor that were only a couple of feet away where as in N.J. they live half a mile away. So they're was a big adjustment. Plus we had to go to school with black kids and that was something we didn't have up north. What made it different was that we didn't have any hatred against blacks seeing that they had only segracated a few years earlier
I got into sports like most kids and excelled at them. As for religious training there was nothing. I don't ever remember praying with my mom or dad or even the name of Jesus being use except to sware. But God had His plan for my life even back then for by not being brought up in a strict religion when I came to know Jesus and learn about Him in the Bible I only had the glasses of the Holy Spirit on instead of the religion of my youth. Although one time mom took us to a Cathlic service that had a young speaker that gave an alter call and I almost went up for it but didn't.
In high school I got into a lot of trouble. We had this gang of about 8 of us that would steal at the malls and any where we could. So I got caught a couple of time as a minor stealing, breaking into the school gym to play basketball, and just being stupid. We were good at stealing from department stores because back then they didn't have camerias.
I barely graduated high school and decided on college. Back then they paided you to go the college. The goverment would pay for your schooling and give you a certain amount to live on. Needless to say I flunked out and ended up working at a fast food joint. My life was on a slow burner to hell and I didn't really care. I was making enough money to live on and that was enough.
Then on Oct.19, 1979 my life change dramaticly. I was going over to the next door neighbors house to buy a bag of grass to smoke. Now he live about 20 feet from our place down in St. Pete. After buying the grass I walk outside and there is a cop right there. Now I had the grass in my hand so I walked around the corner and threw in under a tree and proceded to head toward my house. The cop called me over and asked if this kid in the back seat of the policecar's mom was in the house I just came out of. I said yes and went to get her. When I got back outside the policemen had found the grass and asked me if it was mine. Of course I denied it was mine and he said I saw you throw it under the tree. He proceded to throw me up againast a truck that was parked and frisk me. I was scared and turned and started running with him dragging behind me. I pried his hands apart and took off running. While I was dragging him his gun came out and as I was running down the street he got his gun and shot at me. I heard the shot but kept right on running. I found a place to hide for a short moment and during that moment got down on my knees and asked God into my life and actually prayed for the first time. It took me getting shot at for ten buck worth of grass to ask God into my life.
I would like to say that everything after that went smoothly but it hardily ever happens that way. God kept bringing Christians into my life though to guide me along the path He had chosen for me. I visited churches and found that I like the carismatic churchs the best because they had fun in church. In July, 1980 I met this wonderful girl called Heather. We spent a very enjoyable night together and I thought I was in love. I opened my heart to someone and for the first time, I actually gave love, but it wasn't just love, it was a Jesus type of love. I saw how important it was to have a revolving door in your heart. The love God gives to us in His son Jesus is meant to be given. I liked to say it worked out with Heather but it didn't, yet through it I learned how joyful giving love can be.
I got 3 years probation for the grass and a lot of other trumped up charges. In April of 1981 I took my first hitchhiking journey into America. And what a journey it was. The adventure was so exciting and real, I was hooked. It was only a 2 week trip but in them two weeks the die was to be cast for a life time of adventure. In the summer I made another trip, this time out to see a friend in Or. I hadn't seen in a few years. I was so new to the road I didn't even know about the shelters and places you could sleep indoors at, I just slept outside. In the fall I made another trip this time up into Canada through Minn..
The next year I spent working at odd jobs waiting for my probation to go away so I could hit the road full time. On the last trip I made in Oct. 1981 I got to preach to my first person who picked me up. Other times I would mention God but never push it. This time I felt as though God bought in this girl so that I could councel her. I felt a calling to share Jesus with everyone. Only God would show me how to sow a good seed and not hammer someone with the gospel. I would preach a personal relationship with God through Jesus and not for any type of religion.
In April of 1983 I finelly got off probation and within a few weeks had sold everything to hit the highways and byways with the love Jesus had given to me. A sheep in with all the wolves. Yet I always have had this sense that I was never alone and that Jesus would direct everything that I would do. Even though sometime my actions wouldn't show it I knew God was alway right there with me.
As I look back to the countless rides that have been part of my life a sense of awe come over me. One day all the people that have ever given me a ride and helped me along life road I'll meet again. Some how I'll remember them all and the adventure we shared, them picking me up, me getting to know them for a short space in time. Its funny how the road has a way of opening up your heart in a special way. I remember so many time someone coming in with hurts that only God could take care of and me sharing that with the person. Or a really strong Christian coming in because they had the Holy Spirit guide them to pick me up. I have lived a blessed life in that I've gotten to go to church in thousands of peoples cars.
In late 1983 I got the idea that I could bring about a revival to America. So I went to religious organizations to see if they would help and got the cold shoulder. In early 1984 I went to a remote area of Ar. and sought God by reading the whole Bible and praying a lot. Then on March 8, 1984 I got baptized in a small lake in Texas with the water about 38 degrees. It was cold but that didn't matter because I was warm inside.
In April I took off across America on U.S. highway 50 stopping in churchs along the way asking just for prayer and trying to unite the churchs for a revival in America. It took me 4 months and was it ever an adventure. One thing I've learned is that when you decide to walk in the path that God has set for you it is such a joy ride. All along the way people knew that I was coming, the Holy Spirit had prepared the way.
The next 15 years of my life went by without me acting on the hope God had put into my heart. There was a lot of drinking and just staying away from God. When you lose the hope God puts into your heart your joy will soon follow, and thats what happened to me. It might be that I didn't have a local church to fall back on, I don't know now and it don't really matter.
In 1989 I went to a Woodstock reunion and had a great time. I felt that the site had a special allure to it and that I would come back again. I did at the 25th ann. in 1994 and set up a huge camp. I had made this wooden frame tent and set it up. They were going to have this big concert and then decided to cancel it at the last moment. It didn't matter because people were still showing up. I got on TV and told people that they should come on down anyway and did they ever. We had about 80,000 show up for one big party. I had some paints and brushs and and old tarp so I set it up for people to paint on. My first collective art peace. For two weeks of rain and wind the people painted on that tarp and I became hooked on getting people to be creative. There was this one lady that sat down and started to paint. She was really good and spent about 30 minutes doing this really great logo for Woodstock. She got up and had this glow that caught me off guard. I told her what a great artist she was and she told me about how she had gone to collage to be an artist and when she had graduated she couldn't find no work in that field so she became an editor and hadn't painted in 8 years. So thats how collective art got started for me. I saw how happy it made people to be creative and I knew in my heart that thats what God wanted me to do.
I spent 3 months at Woodstock. After it was over I stayed on the field and gather the campfire rock and made a stage and let whoever visited the site paint on the rocks. I also got into doing rock sculpture where you take the rocks and ballance them to make different designs. That was a lot of fun because when the kids would come they would spend hours doing it. And when older people would come they would go back to when they were children and do some rock balancing like when they were kids useing building blocks.
Thats how I started doing collective art. After that I went back to Florida for the winter and did the Super Bowl down in Miami. I just started doing them wherever they were having a local event. Then in 1995 I went to the Rock and Roll hall of fame grand opening and did about seven of them. Plus there I walked around for about 3 days asking people to write down what rock and roll meant to them. The responces were so great it amazes me. People love to be creative! It was after that as I was driving my old beat up van that the idea of exchanging collective art between same name towns came to me. It was so simple and yet something that was so needed in our country. About a week later I came up with the name for it, C.A.T.N.I.P..
The next year the Olympics were coming to America and I knew that it to needed collective art for the people to enjoy. So I made up a scroll system that I could wheel around and not be in one spot. It worked great, I didn't go to just Atlanta to do the art I went to the small towns the Olympics were in and did the art. It was a lot easier and the traffic wasn't as bad. By now I had it down as to the guidelines for the art peace and with each one that I did I became better and better at it. It's gradifying to hear people tell you what a good thing you are doing and what a great idea it is. We all need that reinforcement of praise and when you do collective art you get plenty of it.
After the Olympics it was up to Chicago for the Dem. national convention. I got to be in a place that I should not have been at but because I got there real early they didn't move me all day entil late. By then I had a good art peace going. I also did an art peace in front of Ophra's studio the day J.F.K. jr was there. I spent about a month in in my old painted up van in Chicago under a bridge off of lower Whacker. One weekend I did this art peace for a Jazz fest. The art peace was so great, for 5 days thousands of people drew on it. It was here that I realizeds how important I as the director of the art really was. Oh was that ever a great art peace.
In 97 and 98 I did a few art peaces but not anything full time. I kept telling people that I wanted to do the state capitals of America. I had lost my drivers licence that year so a vehicle was out. I kept thinking that I would need all of this stuff to do America. I worked at a few jobs never saving any money, just living.
Then in 1999 I knew that I had to do an art peace for the new Cleveland Browns football team. So I gathered what I needed and headed out up to Akron,
Ohio for their first game. It was the first place that I had to find the wood for an easel. I found it in some old pallets and was off doing the Cleveland Browns first football game,and they won!
After that it was down to Columbus, Ohio to try to do the state fair. It was also there that I decided to start getting collective art peaces from the state capitals of America. It was there that I also got the idea of going to colleges to get an art peace and did they ever do a great one. On the 3rd day in town a reporter came an interveiwed me for an article in the paper. The next day they had a big picture of me and collective art in the newspaper, the first of many times I've been in the paper over the last 4 years. One of the main reasons I started the state capitals was to get the idea of collective art out to the masses so they could do their own for their town and getting a picture of an art peace in the p[aper is a great way to spread the idea.
After Columbus I went back up to Cleveland to do the first regular season football game of the new Cleveland Browns. And was it ever a festive mood. The people were so excited and so ready to do a collective art peace. They knew that what I was doing was historical for Cleveland and they didn't just write like at most football game, they drew some awesome stuff. I got 3 really great historical art peaces. It was here that I relized that collective art also can be a time peice and that they are important for special events.
When I finished the Browns game I decided to head up to N.Y. state and do Albany, N.Y., another state capital. From there do all of the state capitals of New England, the joy of it being it would be in the fall.The ride hitching were great. Outside of Cleveland I got a ride in a semi truck that was going all the way to Albany. It took a whole day but we made it. It rained most of the way. Outside of Buffalo, N.Y. we stopped by his home and caught a few winks and in the morning were on our way.
It had been 17 years since the last time I was in Albany and stayed at the mission downtown. It hadn't change a bit, you still had to sleep on the floor with a mat and wake up early and be out the door by 7:30. The first weekend they were having this street festival and I thought it would be a great place to do an art peace. In one day I got this increadiblly beautiful art peace. One guy that was an artist covered up this one area and made this planet with space ships all around it. He spent about 2 hours working while people stopped and watched. With him their drawing other artist seem to come from the fest.. It was the hit of the festival even though they didn't want me there. I had to go to the end of the street to do the art which worked out because I either caught them going in or coming out. And when they saw the art peace and drew on it they said it was the best thing at the fest..
It was also at the mission where I had to pull out my razor blade knife on someone. At the mission when you wake up in the morning you are suppose to fold your blanket and put your mat up orderily. Well this black dude every morning kept just throwing his blanket and mat anywhere so I called him an idiot and asked him why he couldn't do like the rest of us and follow the guideline for the morning. He didn't like that and said I'll see you after breakfest. I had my breakfest and headed outside and he came right up into my face and started yelling at me. Now I can take that but when you put your hands on me watch out,and that what he did. So I when and pushed him down quickly and when he came up he had a knife in his hands so I bought out my razor knife. He saw that he was at a disavatage so he and his freinds took off saying he would see me again. I had been in the city for 10 day so I decided to take the local city bus as far north as it went and head up to Vermont.
Thats been the only place that I've had to resort to vilance on my whole journey. And if I would have just kept my mouth shut it wouldn't have happen then. The people at the mission said I handled it okay but in my heart I know that I could have handled it better. In life I have found that words are very important and powerful. After what happen in Albany I saw it in action and kept my mouth in check a lot.
Over the next 2 and a half months I got art peaces from the state capitals of New England. They were all special but a few stand out like diamonds. One was Boston. In Boston I got to meet a cousin that I had never met before, Micheal Wislotski. That was such a joy. Each day he would drive me to the train station and I would head into the city and do an art peace. Then catch the train back out of the city and then the bus back to where he lived.
Another stop that was special was in Providence, R.I.. Just before I was to go there the U.S. senitor died. So I did this beautiful collective art peace from the people outside the state capital. It was so emotional that it took me a couple of days to get over it. 100's of people helped fill it up and did they ever do a great job. Before I left I gave the art peace to the senitors son on the day he took over his dads senitorship.
After i did New England I went down and did Penn. and then N.C. and S.C. and the year of 1999 was over. It had been a very eventful year for me. I had started on a journey that would lead me to 12 state capitals that year, another 18 in 2000, another 13 in 2001 and now 3 so far this year. Yes I'm up to 49 state capitals so far. I can't put into words all the emotions I've felt over the last few years. Mostly it has been awe because of how God has use simple me to bring such a simple idea as collective art to America. I beleive in my heart that America needs a way to come together and that the youth groups can do it. Collective art is the simpliest, lest expensive way to do it.
Last Sept. through Nov. I spent in and around N.Y.C. doing art. I stayed at a shelter in Jersey City and took the train into the city each day and set up art throughout all 5 boughs of the city. It was a bit hard in some spots to get people to draw because they were wondering what the catch was. New Yorker have seen about everything on the streets so they are weary of anything that they haven't seen before. What I found though was that when they did draw a lightness came over their countnence and stress just seem to fall off.
In Oct. I met this student from the art school who had an assignment to do a short douctumentry, and I became her subject. So for three weeks she would shot film of me doing an art peaces. In Nov. just before I was to leave she gave a copy of it and it was great. It told of why I do what I do and what impact I think collective art will have. It also showed me pulling my eisel around the city. Now N.Y.C. is like no other town in that the sidewalks are always full and your mostly walking in the shadows of the skyscrappers. One day I'll go back to the big apple and make it my town where collective art will be all the rage.
As I've been setting down here in Florida the scope of where collective art has been done in America hasn't hit me yet. They say that an Artist work is never appeciated until he dies. Well I'm going to disspell this myth because I know collective art is for now and forever. I'm just a messenger sent with a great idea for our country and the earth. If we can get people to draw together who's to say we can't get them to also sing together or set down to a meal and break bread together. Yes, I'm a big dreamer and I'm glad God has made me this way.
I'll type more as the Spirit leads me to type. I sure hope you enjoy the pictures on the side. They are from my adventure across America.
Its now April 20, 2004 and I'm on the road again. This time with a mission to go across U.S. highway 50 from Cal. to Maryland doing collective art in over 60 towns and cities. I started this missionary journey in the middle of March and have already done about 20 art peaces. One that I did in Temple, Texas at a college jazz fest was completely covered with color. It took 3 days and nights but we colored in all the backround white.
Over at the final four in college basketball I got to set up in a great spot where 1000's of people came by. We filled up the art peaces from sat. the day of the semi finals. All four teams had people drawing with Ok. State having the most artist. On monday, the day of the finals set up in the same spot for about six hours. Then at about 4:30 two gentlemen came up and ask what I was doing and I told them that I was letting the fans have fun. I knew some how they were undercover policemen and when they saw that people were giving me donations they didn't like that and told me to move on. I told them that if someone wanted to donate to what I was doing then I wouldn't not take the money and deny them a blessing. It didn't matter because the town had made the downtown a clean zone, meaning no vender at all. I was like at other final fours I'd been to, the NCAA but their big foot down. At St.Peterburg Fl. they bought in the city lawyer and he said I didn't break any of the codes because it was free and it was art.
From there it was over to El Paso,Texas about a 600 mile drive. Oh yea I got a van now that I drive all over instead of the thumb taking me around. It's great having a place to sleep and store stuff but I still miss them hitchhiking days. The excitement of not knowing who your going to meet next. The van has been running good except for a master belt I had to replace and burned out fan switch I've had to rig so that whenever the engine gets hot I flip a swith inside the van and it turns on the fan. The gas mileage is great, on the open road I get over 22 miles per gallon. And with gas here in Flagstaff at a buck ninety one every mile per gallon helps. Going west the price of gas is going to get over 2.00 per gallon.
In El Paso I found this church that in on the cutting edge of creativity in churchs. During worship services they have artist on stages drawing, they have dancers in the front dancing with flags and banners. It was awesome. They were having this creative show with youth groups doing skitchs, and dancers doing their thing. It started on Good Fri. and ended on Easter Sunday. On Sat. morning I did as Easter parade in the northeast part of town. Its was fun but I didn't get a full sheet filled, the people didn't show up entil about 20 min. before it started anmd that not enough time to fill up a sheet. It was still great though, seeing so many families drawing together. The donations weren't that great either, about 15 dollars. Luckily the gas prices were only 1.53 per gallon. When I went back to the church to watch what was going on at about 2:30 lightning struck the church at the front entrence. It shook a lot of people up including me. You wonder if it was a message from God about something and I took it as such. I hadn't ask the pastor if I could set up a collective art peace to share what God was doing in my life and the lightning was Gods way of waking me up. Now the people at Lifegate church took it another way but that okay. It ment something different to a bunch of people.
I ask the pastor if I could set up an Art peace the next day and he said it would be alrigh as long as they could find a spot. We decides it would be good to set up where they were serving food. It was a great spot, lots of people coming by.
The place I had to p[ark my van was awesome because right next to where I was parked there was a port a poty. Now on this travel trip having a bathroom close by when you wake up in the morning is manatory. Not like when you hitchhiked and you stayed at shelters and there was a bathroom right there.
On Easter Sunday after the services the art peace began. It was a hit from the time it started. The little kids of the church hit it first with thier on soecial scribbles and then the older youth came in an loved it. I was a bit sadden that the youthj pastor and his wife never drew on it. And really disappointed that the artist from the stage just passed by without drawing. It seemed that it was beneath her to draw with everyone else. It hurt me that she wouldn't even make a mark on the art peace. Even the pastor was relutant to do anything. I had to show him a place to color in and then he only spent a couple of seconds on it.
By the end of the day the art peace looked awesome. I gave it to the youth paster to spray clear coat onto and hang up somewhere, but who knows. The youth group was great at being creative but do they know how to serve if called upon. Not all of being in a youth group is about having fun. Sometime the youth group should go out into the community and find people that can't do thigh for themselve and do it for them. There are a lot of people that are too old to mow their lawns or paint their houses. This is where a church youth group should get involved and do it for them. Its great to have fun in a youth group but it has to be balenced with service. I told one of the more active artist to keep on the youth pastor about doing collective art and taking it out to the community. She said she would.
When I left El Paso I had a full tank of gas and about 20 buck in my pocket. The church didn't help me out with any funds and in town I only got a few donations. I don't speak Spanish and in El Paso english is a distant second in being spoken. So it was hard to get any art peaces done. My faith was to be tested, it was time to watch God bring in what I needed. He has always been good about it before, he's never let me down.
I drove over to Lordburgs and there they had a mission. It was good to have a bed to sleep in and my body needed to rest. My knee was hurting and I was developing a lump a boil on my neck. I was down to $5 and about $ 13 in change. I kept feeling that I was to go to Prescott AZ.. So that was my next stop and that was about 250 miles away. While I was there in Lordsburg the pastor of the church at the mission help me to try and fix the overheating problem by putting this small module on the van. I couldn't becase I didn't have the tools. HE fixed it and I was off only to have the problem back. So I ran my direct line to the fan and off I was.
Up in Prescott I set up Thur. at about 3 in the afternoon. Right away the youth came and started to draw. And they were good! One guy said he and a couple of his friend were going to do collective art throughout the summer. At about 6 I packed it up and went to this place called church on the street. They were a place where people off the street could come into a program and become disciples of the pator of the church. At the church service the pastor prayed for me and tried to loosed something in me. Next time that happens I'm going to back away and walk out the door and shake the dust off my feet. Gods loosed everything in my life amd no preacher is going to loose anything else.
I slept on the couch and had a fitful sleep. They have one bathroom for 18 guys. And the room I stayed in they had to come through to use it. So at about 3 in the morning I was awoken and didn't get back to sleep. That would be my last night on that couch.
The art peace we did on Thur. and Fri. turned out great, almost every white spot was filled and the donations were good. I had a chace to go to K-Mart and buy some spray. And along the way stopped into a few garage sales. I bought a hand saw and air pump to use on my air mattress. I might be sleeping outside a bit more when the weather heats up.
I decide to take off sat night and head up to Sadona which was only about 30 miles away. The first part of 89A is up this huge mountain. Now my van when it gets to a certain heat will just cut off for about 10 min.. It has to do something with the computer. Well three quarters of the way up this hill the van stalls and its just up ahead of one of them hairpin turnback mountain roads have. Plus it was just getting dark
