While celebrating the Golden Anniversary of Govinda Gallery, I have been thinking about what led me to open an art gallery. My primary inspiration was artists. The first artists I came to know became my best friends: Michael Netter, Kim Waters, and Howard Carr.

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I met Michael Netter at Georgetown University in 1965 as a freshman. We became great amigos, and Michael was the first person I ever saw make a painting. It was a pop art rendering of a Budweiser bottle. It was terrific, and as destiny would have it, Michael ended up working for Andy Warhol. He introduced Andy to video, and he was also the first person to introduce me to Andy!

Many of Michael’s videos were included in the Whitney Museum exhibition Andy Warhol-From A to B and Back Again, 2018-2019. The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh has a room dedicated to Michael’s and Andy’s videos.

Michael Netter continues to work as a visual artist. Here are some examples of his recent work.

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I first met Kim Waters at Montrose Park in Georgetown in the late 60s. One afternoon, I saw her artwork at her home and it blew me away! As early as a teenager, she had already developed a style of her own. When I opened Govinda Gallery in the fall of 1975, Kim’s work was the inaugural exhibition. Kim had two more exhibitions at Govinda in 1980 and 1985.

It was my great pleasure to collaborate on two books with Kim: Illuminations from the Bhagavad-Gita (Harper & Row 1980) and The Butter Thief (The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust 1991 and Mandala Publishing 1998).

Kim has had several other books published of her work, and her extraordinary art has been included in numerous publications. Most recently, her work is featured on the cover of The Yoga of Love by Graham M. Schweig (Oxford University Press 2025).

George Harrison was a great fan of Kim’s work. George inscribed a copy of Illuminations from the Bhagavad-Gita (Harper & Row) to her.

George Harrison’s dear friend, Donovan, wrote in his foreword to Illuminations from the Bhagavad-Gita (Mandala Publishing) about Kim’s work: “Kim, with her deeply emotional painting, has brought forth an exquisite vision of the Deity at play in our midst. We are enriched!” – Donovan, 1998.

Kim Waters is a cornerstone of Govinda Gallery.

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It was Kim Waters who introduced me to Howard Carr and his brilliant art. Howard is a remarkable artist who works in all mediums. We became best of friends and remain brothers for life.

In 1972, Howard, Kim, and I traveled together through Europe and Morocco in a VW Beetle that I had purchased in Munich. The three of us had formed a musical group with Kim on bells, Howard Carr on Moroccan hand drum, and myself on dulcimer. We had been playing together in Washington for a year or two and were a very good trio.

Howard knew Salvador Dalí, who he had met in 1971 in Cadaques, Spain. We took an apartment in Cadaques for two months and found ourselves at Dalí’s home in Port Lligat every evening for six weeks, while Dalí had cocktails with his invited guests. The ‘master of surrealism’ had Howard, Kim, and myself play our music for him and his friends by his swimming pool each night. Amanda Lear was living with Dalí that summer, and I became friends with her.

After leaving Spain and Morocco, I met up with Amanda in London. She took me for champagne one afternoon with her friend Francis Bacon and then we went to his studio. I had no idea who Francis Bacon was at the time, but we all had a good visit.

Howard Carr has had several exhibitions at Govinda Gallery, and still works everyday on his art in his studio, coincidentally across the street from Montrose Park in Georgetown.

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These three artists who became my best friends are the inspiration behind my opening Govinda Gallery. They introduced me to the life of the artist, and it was my great pleasure to appreciate and support their work, as well as themselves.