[Frameworks] Sad news - Terry Cannon, founder of Filmforum, passes away

Sun Aug 2 13:08:49 UTC 2020

*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 <amleon13 at 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/
>
>
> An article by him about the early years of Filmforum:
>
>
> https://www.alternativeprojections.com/articles/filmforum-the-pasadena-years-1975-1983/
>
>
> http://www.baseballreliquary.org/
>
>
> https://www.armoryarts.org/exhibitions/2019/arledge/
>
>
> https://www.whittier.edu/news/baseballinstitute
>
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/sports/baseball/01reliquary.html
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