Weishaus, Joel.

Joel Weishaus was born in Brooklyn, New York on July 11, 1939. He attended local schools and graduated from the prestigious Erasmus Hall High School. At age twenty, Weishaus was a junior executive (motion picture accounts) on Madison Avenue. During this time, he gave much thought to a future career in the arts. In 1960, he spent several months in Los Angeles reflecting on his career. Deciding that the West Coast was not appropriate for him at the time, he returned to New York to pursue a life in writing, sculpting, and painting. This quest led him to study creative writing with Charles Glicksberg at the New School for Social Research. Weishaus did not find the confinement of a classroom conducive to his art, so he left and worked at various jobs and places on the East Coast which allowed him the time to devote to his creative talent.

Joel moved to San Francisco in 1964 where his work revolved around sculpting. Within the year, however, he would focus on writing and poetry. In 1965, his friendship with the poet, Gary Snyder, would influence his life and writing for a ten year period. In 1965, his first published works began to appear in poetry magazines and journals. Poetry was accepted and published by TRACE, Monk's Pond, Rolling Stone, PANJANDUM, Plumber's Ink, as well as regional and local publications. Throughout this time, Weishaus's extensive network of colleagues included major writers and poets such as Robert Bly, Robert Creeley, Gary Snyder, and Allen Ginsberg.

Weishaus's other professional activities include: his appointment as literary editor of the University of California-Berkeley, Daily Californian," while a student of Chinese Literature in the Department of Oriental Languages (1966); helping build and run an experimental theater in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco (1967); traveling to Japan to study at the Zen monastery, Daitakuji (1968); receiving a grant from P.E.N. on a recommendation from Allen Ginsberg (1971); his residency at the Cambridge (Massachusetts) Zen Center (1977); his residency at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, Taos, New Mexico (1977), in addition to a grant from the Mary Roberts Reinhart Foundation in New York for 1977. In 1980, he was listed in Who's Who in International Poetry (Cambridge, England).

During this period of his life, Weishaus published several volumes. His publications include: On the Mesa: An Anthology of Bolinas Writing (1971); Ox-Herding: A Reworking of the Zen Text (197.1); Bits and Snatches: The Selected Work of Sam Thomas (1974), and Woods, Shore, Desert: A Notebook, May 1968 by Thomas Merton (1983). In addition to published material, there exist several unpublished manuscripts (poetry) which Weishaus drafted and reworked from 1970-1980.

In 1977, Joel Weishaus relocated to New Mexico, first living in Santa Fe and then moving to Albuquerque in 1982. Since 1981/82, Weishaus has returned to sculpting as a medium and has exhibited his work in the Albuquerque area. In 1984, he began writing in the field of art and became involved in the study of aesthetical theory. His most recent appointment has been with the University of New Mexico Art Museum as an Adjunct Curator of Video. At present, Weishaus continues to draw from his extensive experiences in writing and sculpting and he is active in literary circles in the Albuquerque area.

During the next six years, Weishaus produced two major texts: Reality Dreams and Generating Whispers, as well as an artists book, Threading the Petrified Glyph. He also fulfilled a private commission: Hinging the Parallax, which consists of three panels (poem/text/paratext), hinged together, standing 50"H x 14"W.

From the guide to the Joel Weishaus Papers, 1937-2005, 1960-2005, (University of New Mexico. Center for Southwest Research.)