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Wayne Hosaka
  
PORTRAIT OF A RECOVERY
Art imitates life of motorcyclist turned painter
BILL CENTER Staff Writer
16-Dec-1993 Thursday
Wayne Hosaka considers the powerful "Beware of Kryptonite"
one of his best paintings, but the memories evoked by the watercolor are so painful that
he finds it difficult to enjoy the work.
"That," he said, pointing to a broken red line, "is where my life
changed."
The broken red line is symbolic of the spinal cord Hosaka severed Feb. 7,
1971. He awoke that morning as one of the nation's up-and-coming motorcycle racers. He
finished the day a quadriplegic fighting for his life.
Midway through a flat-track race on the half-mile oval at the now-defunct Ascot Park track
in southeast Los Angeles, Hosaka clipped the rear wheel of the motorcycle
in front of him.
He fell. Such accidents are frequent in motorcycle racing. Nine times out of 10, the rider
slides to the outside of the track and walks away.
Hosaka didn't slide. He stuck in a rut in the middle of the track and was
run over by the bikes pursuing him.
"One ran over my neck," he recalled. "The damage was instantaneous and
permanent."
Wayne Hosaka, now 45, has been in a wheelchair since he was 21.
Two years ago, after yet another round of surgery further restricted his body's ability to
function, the Mira Mesa resident returned to a love that predated motorcycles -- painting.
"At first, I was doing it for fun . . . for therapy," Hosaka
said. "Then, I started to think I had a story to tell and maybe I could tell it
through my paintings."
What evolved is a collection of 20 works being presented at the La Jolla Art Association
Gallery through Dec. 31.
The show is titled "A Rock Visual -- Miles From Nowhere." It chronicles Hosaka's
rapid rise in racing, the sudden fall and the long climb back to "being a
contributing member of the system."
The climb may never be completed; the road continually gets rougher as his body's ability
to cope fades.
That, said Hosaka, will be the subject of future works. "For now,
'Miles From Nowhere' speaks for me."
Speaking most powerfully is "Beware of Kryptonite."
The background is dark and foreboding. Off to the right is a gnarled face . . . "a
warrior being," said Hosaka.
The figure is straining to reach a piece of tarnished gold, its twisted hand almost
enveloping the indiscernible trinket.
Between the hand and the gold is the broken red line -- representing Hosaka's
spinal cord.
"I thought I was indestructible," he said. "It was very painful to paint
that portrait. You can get burned . . . lives, plans change in a blink."
Like many San Diego County teen-age boys in the '60s, Hosaka took to
riding motorcycles in the canyons near his Fletcher Hills home. He started racing in 1966
and hit the big time at the end of the 1970 season, when he finished eighth in his first
AMA Nationals event at Houston.
"I was a peer of Dave Aldana's and Kenny Roberts,' " said Hosaka.
"I was a riser."
He rode a Hodaka for a while and earned a lot of recognition from the "Hosaka
on a Hodaka" tag. In 1971, he landed a ride with Don Vesco's team.
Hosaka recalls being apprehensive as he approached that fateful February
race at Ascot Park.
"For some reason, I wasn't competitive that day," he recalled. "I was
almost ready to put the bike in the van and head home. But I needed the experience, so I
thought I'd hang with the pack.
"The fall didn't ruin my life, but it certainly changed my direction. Little about me
is the same as it was going into that race."
Physically or mentally.
Hosaka knew his physical injuries never would heal completely. He feared
his mental wounds wouldn't, either.
"It took me a long time to get back on my feet. My spirit was broken," he said.
"Two years after the accident, I still wished at times that they had let me
die."
Hosaka remembers leaving the rehabilitation hospital nine months after
the accident. His wife left him the same day.
Then he became dependent on the prescription drugs he used. There were bouts of
depression.
"I let myself go," he recalled. "Friends stopped coming to see me. Some
stopped because they couldn't handle it and, maybe, some stopped because of what I'd
become."
Hosaka was in a convalescent hospital in 1973 when he turned the corner.
He says rock music was an important part of his mental rehab.
"At first, I just listened to the music and the beat," he recalled. "Then I
listened to the words. Songs of that era communicated a lot of emotions . . . pain and
sorrow."
He entered San Diego State to study sociology. He hit the streets of North Park to study
humanity from his wheelchair.
"I had to find a reason to live," said Hosaka. "I liked to
create and teach. I coached little boys basketball."
For almost a decade, Hosaka's creative side was fulfilled developing
computer programs for a bank. He designed and obtained a patent for a softer-riding
wheelchair (the suspension is designed after a motorcycle's). He drove. He paid taxes.
"You don't know how much it really means to be able to pay into the system until all
you can do is draw from it and be at its mercy," he said.
A lesion developed at the spot where his spinal cord is severed, and in 1990 Hosaka
underwent surgery that further limited his mobility.
That's when he rediscovered painting.
"My wife (Carol) bought me some watercolor pencils and I started by dabbling,"
he said. "Then I discovered I could put my emotions on canvas."
And when he recalled the music and emotions of his rehab, Hosaka began a
journey.
"Rock Visuals" has nothing to do with his youth riding cycles in the desert. It
speaks of his view from the inside out.
"The pain of the mental part was greater than what my body suffered," Hosaka
said. "Insanity. I would wake up not knowing if what I was experiencing was reality
or a nightmare."
Those expressions are on canvas.
The title piece, "Miles From Nowhere," is a view from a mountain cabin Hosaka
used during rehab. The view is of green vistas. "But it is through a green fog,"
he says. "I lost all ambition. I really didn't want to die, but I had no passion to
live. Sadly peaceful."
"The Doctor" is harsh, the subject wearing a smirk. "It's the devil's
messenger coming to tell me I was paralyzed for life," said Hosaka.
"He knew I was playing with the devil and lost . . . he hovered there with an 'I told
you so' face."
Copyright Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
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