Maury Ornest’s Art Gifted to Fire Survivors & Displayed at Gallery 169 on Mar. 28

A painting by Maury Ornest

By Sue Pascoe

Courtesy of Circling the News

Maury Ornest was a Beverly Hills High School baseball player who was selected by the Oakland A’s in the 15th round of the 1977 draft. Instead of going directly into professional baseball, he first attended UC Santa Barbara.

Maury Ornest

His family was originally from Canada, and Ornest first played for Canada in the 1978 World Series as an 18-year-old, then in the 1979 Pan American Games the following year.

The right-handed switch hitter had a .363 batting average and was taken the third round of the 1980 draft by the Brewers. In his 1982 season, the 6’3” 195-pound athlete played A ball in the California League, but his career ended in 1982 with a headlong collision into an unpadded cement outfield wall.

Over the next few years, the charming, funny brother that Laura Ornest loved, started to disappear. She said that Maury began to experience the world as a hostile place. He suffered breaks from reality and was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder.

The family tried to help, but like so many who have a relative with mental issues, they felt helpless. When Maury was in his 30s, a psychiatrist suggested that he try painting.

He took a few classes at Otis Art College, but was essentially self-taught. Even as demons tugged in his head, he continued to paint for the next 20 years.

His sister has described her jock brother as “silly and fun” before his mental illness, and that playfulness comes out in much of the art with smiling fish and marching snails.

In July 2018, Maury, 58, died of a heart attack.

Rustic Canyon residents, Laura and husband Rick Leslie said, “When we went to his house, we were overwhelmed and surprised by the amount of paintings. Every room was stacked full of paintings. We could hardly move around all the canvases.”

Later as she went through Maury’s papers, she found public storage rental slips. They went to the units on Pico, and ,when they opened the doors, they found hundreds of different-sized paintings. After the art was tallied, they found her brother had completed more than 1,400 pieces of art.  He had also kept journals.

“He left so much,” Laura said. “He tried so hard.”

In one of his journals, he had written “I hope that if only one honest person would buy my art, that would make me happy. I hope that happens while I’m alive.”

His art will be In addition, the family is gifting any interested fire survivors of either the Palisades or Eaton fires with a piece of his work.

In perusing the art and journals, Laura said “what struck us most of all was the vibrancy, the joy, the love, the humor, the silliness and whimsy in the paintings. He transferred his inner darkness into vivid, life-affirming colors with passion and energy.”

Now, his family is sharing Maury’s art with Palisades and Eaton fire survivors. [Iit will also be on on display at Gallery 169 (169 W. Channel Rd.) on Saturday at a 5-8 p.m. reception that will also feature a 40-minute documentary, Outsider, about his life at 5:30 p.m.]. Thus far, about 80 people have chosen a piece of original art.

Laura said that many have told her, “This will be the first piece of art we have in our new space.”

The couple knows the tragedy and the hardships that fire survivors are enduring.

“Offering art seems minor,” Laura said. But the two have also been told, “this gift is major.”

When one looks at Maury’s paintings, one sees his struggle as he attempts to make his world right—through colors and objects and purpose. In the case of so many who had homes destroyed, the everyday, the familiar, the “who I am” disappeared. Maury’s art reflects the identity loss for people as they search to reestablish their lives, just as he did.

“He found art and it gave him purpose,” Laura said. “More than seven years after Maury died, we hope his art can be a symbol of hope, resilience and new beginnings for those who lost their homes.”

To contact Laura about obtaining a piece of art, email LOrnest@gmail.com. To view Maury’s art work: click here.

Anthony and Sue Marguleas selected this painting because they had visited New York two weeks before 9/11, and because all three of their boys had played baseball with PPBA. This piece of art “spoke to us,” Anthony said.