Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About What's happening. (Eugene, OR) 1982-1993 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 17, 1987)
$ THE WHAT’S HAPPENING INTERVIEW Shooting Star: Sergio Juan Ortiz by Cary Groner s ergio Juan Ortiz grew up in the South Bronx and spent most of his childhood just trying to survive. When he was old enough he enlisted in the Air Force. Subsequently released with a back injury, he spent a good bit of his disability money playing around in New York. Restless, he left in 1974 and moved to California, where he completed his high school certificate and spent 3 1 years in junior college. Somewhere in there he dis covered that photography was a lot more fun than either the Bronx or the Air Force, and decided to see if he could make a living at it. He moved to Santa Barbara and enrolled in the prestigious three-year course at the Brooks Institute, majoring in product illustration and color technology. He then trundled up the coast to Eugene where he paid his dues, and paid them, and then paid them again. Sergio was the guy who spent so much time in his studio not because he was inundated with work, but because sometimes that was the only place he had to sleep. These days, things are looking considerably better for this gentle, willful man from New York. When I interviewed him at his studio, he and his wife had just returned from a little partying in New Orleans. WHAT’S HAPPENING: What made you decide to come to Eugene? SERGIO: I met some people from Oregon. I told them that I wasn’t sure where I was going when I graduated. I didn’t want to punch somebody else’s time clock. So they said, “You should check out this place in Oregon called Eugene.” This was the beginn ing of ’79, and this town was booming at that time. January 14, 1980, I rolled into town. I'll never forget that day. It was dark, it was raining, it was cold. It was Oregon. Undoubtedly. And I was on the threshold of a new adventure. WH: Then what happened? SERGIO: I didn't know anybody. I had $700 in my pocket, and I was married at the time. We had enough money to put down for an apartment and to get a phone put in, and then I had to hustle work. I had a big van and I used it to move people around. I did that for about a year just to get a feeling for the town. The second year I got a job printing at Dot Dotson’s. That got old real quick. I’m standing back there in that little room thinking, “I just got a $40,000 education and I’m back here printing for $5 an hour. Anybody can do this.” I ran out of the darkroom and said, “I’m giving you my two weeks’ notice. If you can fill it in a week, do it.” WH: What did you do? SERGIO: I had nothing in line whatsoever, nothing. So I went out and started hustling. When you get hungry, you start hustl ing. I went to every bank between here and Spiingfield looking for loans, and nobody would touch me with a ten-foot pole.We PHOTOS BY CARY GRONER were already in the recession, and they’re just looking and say ing, “A photographer? There’s nothing concrete about a photog rapher, right?” All they know is, they spend a lot of money for gear, but that’s it. I made frequent appearances. They’d say, “Oh, you're back again?” I’d say, “Yeah, I’m back.” I’d fill out an ap plication, and it would get rejected. At that point I said, “I’m not going to let this defeat me,” and I started using the power of affirmations to manifest someone in my life who would loan me the money, who’d believe in me. It happened a month later. I met this man, and he looked at me and said, “Okay, go home, make a list of what you need, and give me a figure. Take a week." I took a week, I thought it out carefully, what I needed to start, just the very basic things. I went back to him a week later and gave him the list. It had a bottom line of $20,000. He said okay, and he wrote me out a check right there and then for $20,000 on a handshake. No lawyers, none of that stuff involved. Strict ly a gentlemen’s agreement. That’s the way I like to do things, and that’s the way he liked it also. WH: How did this come about? Why was he willing to do this? SERGIO: It was the power of affirmations. Whatever that force was that I tapped into manifested this person for me and said, “Here he is, Sergio, here he is!” and he looked at me and said, “Hey, I like this guy. I’m going to help him out.” And that’s all there was to it. It’s just that simple. We’re still friends to this Continued on page 11 Wise birds do their Made in On0r ) gift shopping at W Made in Oregon ”) We feature Oregon specialty foods— boxed, in baskets, or by themselves. 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