DANNY WASKO TRIBUTE FROM HIS FRIENDS

DEAR  WASKO  FAMILY

We would like to send you these letters from some of Danny's many friends and fans.

May they comfort you in your mourning.

In art=life.

Linda Mary Montano

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LINDA  MARY  MONTANO

I will miss my MISS COTTON of GLITTER  very much. Danny was my student at  UT and simply  incredible and brilliant  as you can imagine.  He became  a life long friend. Plus he designed and produced my web page for  over 15 or 20 years. We visited when he lived in Chinatown San Francisco,  we talked many, many hours on the phone when he lived with Pauline Oliveros' mother in Houston and then when he lived  in the ware house in Houston. Then he went to live with his family in Houston, a place where he literally came to a forgiveness and realization that life can be re-seen and embraced.  One of the projects that he had mentioned was to make a COOKBOOK FOR HIS MOTHER. This wish of Danny's translates as his way of wanting to honor the gifts  of his mother and their current friendship. Danny talked always about freedom and living OFF THE GRID. But that was code for a spiritual place that over the years he began to actually achieve. Freedom while living that is.  To support himself, Danny created websites for clients and friends by magically gathering  enough of us online so that he could live incognito and still maintain his  Freedom. He loved creating beautiful websites for all of  us and over these years we shared many phone calls about life but mostly about  healing. Most recently I realized that Danny was really at a place of  acceptance and actual joy given his life situations. He chanted continually and with a commitment to the ability of sound to bring him inner peace. Sound was his practice. It truly brought him INNER LOVE and understanding .
Notice the name he chose for himself: Miss Cotton.  That was and is my  Danny.  His light touch, his soft voice and ability to always BLESS, his consideration for  OTHERS were his trademarks, his teachings. Oh Danny my Boy-Guru. Glitter on in your COTTON LOVE.  ART-Mummie. Linda

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  VERONICA  VERA

 Danny Wasko created the site, CandidaRoyalle.org. I know Candice was so pleased. When Candida departed the planet, Danny was so helpful to me in maintaining the site. He was always so sweet and accommodating, efficient and fair. I wish I had taken the opportunity to work with him, for my own projects. His ability to help others represent themselves thru his design talent was an art. Danny was a great collaborator.Deepest condolences to his family and friends.Blessings on his wonderful spirit.

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IONE

Sending love and gratitude for Danny’s caring and loyalty . Fond memories of Houston - love enduring through dimensions of freedom off the grid... IONE 

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VERNA GILLIS

Danny, I never met  you. Your kind voice will remain with me forever.  Your superb designs are iconic. Grateful for our connection.

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KATHY  BREW

I was fortunate to be connected to Danny through Linda Montano.  I needed to have a website for our film about

the Italian designers, Lella & Massimo Vignelli.  I never met Danny in person…Just communicated with him over telephone

conversations and emails.   I think he realized it was a high bar to create a strong, beautiful

website for these internationally renowned designers.  It wasn’t just any old website.  And he did more than rise to the occasion — 

he did a gorgeous job.  I was in conversation with him more recently to do a new website for another film I’m almost done with.

I received this email from him less than 2 weeks ago.  

hi - just checking in about this - as I remember I was waiting on you to send me some photos and text. But then you went to Peru. 

I have time now so I can get this done pretty quickly. Let me know how we should proceed.

thanks - danny

I hadn’t yet responded to Danny, who thought he had the time to get it done pretty quickly.  I’m so sad to hear that he has just passed away.

My heart goes out to his family and friends and those like me, who only knew him through his work and in this distanced way.  Blessings to

his spirit...

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RACHEL MARTIN

Danny was sensitive, deeply thoughtful, committed to his art and oh-so-sweet. Although I have known literally thousands of students since he was a Fine Arts student here at UT Austin, he has stayed with me as unforgettable. Wishing him joy and peace now.

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STEVE  GORN

I knew so little about this precious soul, yet did feel his warmth, and love for creating something beautiful. 

Playing music for him this morning as the sun danced on the Roundout creek, I could feel his heart, his softness.

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BARBARA  BASH

Danny worked with me for many years. He was a kind, gentle supportive presence in my life. Then, a week before he died, I had one of those incredibly connecting talks with him. We dropped into a new place of dialogue between our creative souls.
We laughed, we grieved for this crazy world, we planned on taking a fresh look at my website. He said he wanted to support me in discovering what I really wanted to focus on.  After our talk I tried to send out a Mailchimp email based on his tutorial and got mixed up. I called out for help. He responded,  “For some reason you deleted the template - I’ve retrieved it.” I wrote back, “For some reason” is a description of my mind these days.” He wrote, “ I’m never going to be able to use that term now without laughing. “ He told me our talk had meant a lot to him. I said that it had cheered and helped me too . I thanked him for his honest nourishing heart. That was a great last contact, full of possibilities. I am so sad . . .

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BETH STEPHENS

Danny was a magical creature whose humor, love and exquisite sense of art and design made so many artists very happy.

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FAUSTO  FERNOS

I remember Danny— Danny was a friend to me and Chris in art school, and we often looked forward to hanging out with him in class.  In 1991 we were fascinated with art on the cutting edge, performance and video art.  I remember Danny’s video work where he would record footage of himself over and over again until the video degradation made the image into a collage of odd colors and sounds. It was a world at the height of the AIDS crisis, LGBT people were never seen on television, and we felt at odds with a world that was fine to cast us aside. Danny was a rebel. Danny had a wicked sense of humor, and often called out wherever he saw it. Danny was not afraid and was often one of the most bold artists at the time in Austin Texas. 

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BARBARA  CARRELLAS

I knew Danny a long long time ago. I had not been in touch with him for years and years. I know he did amazing work and always seemed liked the sweetest, kindest and most creative being. You must be shattered at his passing. I am so so sorry Linda.

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JOSEPH  KRAMER

Dear Wasko family, 

I am sorry for your loss. 

Thinking about Danny makes me smile. I first met him through Annie Sprinkle and Linda Montano. He and I became friends soon after he moved to San Francisco. He assisted me in my business with a website and six amazing DVD box covers. He was fun to work with which is a requirement for me in my business. He often house sat for me in Oakland when I was traveling. He said he liked getting away from his cramped quarters in San Francisco. Danny will remain in my thoughts and memory. 

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ANNIE SPRINKLE

Dear Danny Wasko Family

Greetings from San Francisco on this sad day, the day after Danny has left his body behind.  I’m grateful beyond words that  Danny called me from the hospital last night and I had a chance to tell Danny I loved him and heard him say he loved me the night before he passed on. He was a cherished friend, and that call was such a blessing! But the bigger blessing is that Danny didn’t suffer through any painful surgeries, traumatic strokes or things like that. His big beautiful heart just needed to stop ticking. Now he is free to fly and be  with us all in spirit as a giddy cherubic angel watching over us. He was a very wise and spiritually evolved being. 

Several decades ago I met Danny at Linda Montano’s University of Texas class when Linda Montano was a professor, he was a student and I was there as a visiting artist. Danny’s altar ego “Miss Cotton” did a beautiful performance art piece and I loved him right away. He was ahead of his time. His humor was wry and clever, and he radiated joy and play. Danny became my Webmaster for over twenty-five years. Not sure exactly how many years, but a lot. He always made me look good which helped me not only make a living but propelled me into a successful art career. I’ll fondly remember the many days that I would go to his apartment in San Francisco’s Chinatown and he would help me with my computer and we would do design together, with his box turtles watching on. After he moved back to Texas, I tried to use some other local professional webmasters but no one was anywhere near as good, and I’d have to call Danny to redo their designs and technical messes. Danny and I worked remotely until now, and the websites we made together, and the sites he made with many of my friends and colleagues will live on, and our collaboration in a sense will continue. I learned so much from him.

As you know, Danny was so incredibly talented. Sometimes he’d email me self-portraits he had created in Photoshop. They were brilliant and made me smile and delighted me.  As a big bear of a man, with a Buddah belly, he was a pioneer in body positivity—mostly online. With his self portraits, which were an inspiration to me and many others around the world.  He was always working on bettering himself,  on body image issues and self-acceptance. Our society is downright cruel in regards to people with large bodies. It’s not easy—I know

At times, my life partner Beth and I tried to help Danny create the life he dreamed of when his life felt stuck and hard. I’d give him tarot card readings over the phone.  He could phone me anytime day or night to share his thoughts and feelings, but never took advantage of this.  He always said he wanted to buy a camper and live in it. He wanted to come spend  more time back in California. Beth and I offered to let him come live in our camper in the redwood forest for as long as he wanted. Beth is an art professor at UC Santa Cruz, so we have a little house in the redwood forest nearer to the university. But alas, he said our camper wasn’t going to work for him, as he liked to work lying in bed on the floor. We had hoped he would come out and work for us a lot more, and we could help take care of him He was in popular demand. Everyone wanted him! He worked for some world class, internationally known and highly successful artists. These artists include: Pauline Oliveros, who is considered the mother of experimental music akin to John Cage; Linda Montano of course (my art/life mentor), who completely adored Danny and Danny adored her. They were very, very close and Danny made her the most beautiful website ever. He was a wonderful collaborator and worked on a very high professional level. Danny also worked for several important non-profits, such as Center for Sex & Culture, and Feminists for Free Expression.  He made a website for the pioneering and talented film director, Candida Royalle, considered the mother of feminist erotica, a true legend. Danny had a “sex positive” attitude, which made him a popular Webmaster for those of us making art that had some risqué content. 

As you certainly know, Danny was an accomplished computer technician genius. He could manage computers and networks and passwords and upgrades and all that complicated stuff with ease. He had to redo my website a couple times, to keep up with the changing technology, and he was always learning what needed to be learned.

When Linda told me that Danny wanted to design a cookbook with his mother’s recipes in it, it brought me to tears. It’s a real pity he didn’t get to do that cookbook because it would have been the most beautiful and artistic cookbook in the world. His family was so important to him.

So thank you Danny’s family for all you did for Danny to support him, so he could support so many of us. When he went “off the grid” it was a bold move, but came with many challenges.  Still, Danny didn’t complain that much, to us at least. Somehow he maintained a mostly positive attitude.in spite of the challenges

Linda had the great idea of Beth and I putting some of Danny’s ashes into our camper and  we can take some of his ashes and sprinkle him in a few places we think he’d like, such as in the Pacific Ocean, in our garden, and San Francisco. We know that this will honor his spirit and art-life-camper dreams!!!

We hope the gift box of fruit and nuts that Beth, Linda and I sent is nice. Please know it’s a very small token for you to know of our great love and gratitude your wonderful son, brother and uncle, Danny Wasko. Blessings and hugs all around.

 Wishing you good things.

 Annie Sprinkle

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OCTOBER 20, 2018