Seeking the Design— You Could Win This Painting!
What might we profitably do on Halloween? Look backward, and consider those who went before us. The road ahead is inevitably dark, but to see where we have been may offer unexpected hints about who we are, and where we should be heading. Triviality about the past leads certainly toward a trivial future.
–Robertson Davies, “Haunted by Halloween”, New York Times (31 October 1990)
Man, that sounds like the perfect advice for this particular Halloween in this country as we head towards an election day that will no doubt determine how dark the road ahead will be. But at some point, we must look back and reexamine these past years to determine how we became who we have been over that period of time. The misdeeds and crimes of our recent past cannot be normalized or trivialized.
Without total accountability, it will become our destiny.
Happy Halloween. Who needs monsters, zombies, or witches when we have such a fine group of ghouls and creeps already in place?
Moving on, I am going to leave today and head one week into the future. You probably didn’t know I could time travel here on the blog. Well, it’s true. My blog, my rules. While I seldom go into the future, I often travel backwards but for today I am jumping ahead in time.
It’s Saturday, November 7. I would like to tell you what happened in the elections but if I give away the results, but that would put my whole power to time travel at risk. Let me just say that I am smiling on this particular Saturday. I would like to say that was hint as to Tuesday’s results, but it really isn’t.
I often smile when things go haywire or seem too awful and absurd. I smile a lot, much like the village idiot, a job I once applied for. Fortunately, they felt I was over-qualified or we wouldn’t be having this one-sided conversation now.
Anyway, it is, as I said, Saturday, November 7. I have just finished that day’s blog urging people to come out to my Gallery Talk at the West End Gallery that begins later that morning at 11 AM. I begin to pack up the painting shown here at the top, Seeking the Design, which I will be giving away in a free drawing at the end of the talk. It’s a bittersweet moment since it’s a painting that has been a favorite of mine for a while now.
As I have said before, the paintings that I give away at these talks have to hold meaning for me or the whole act of giving is kind of moot. It has to hurt a bit to see it go away. And this piece hurts as it leaves the studio.
I also am packing up some other things that I might giveaway at the Talk. There might even be another painting, if it’s a good, fun crowd. If not, to hell with them! I feel I have to point out that this is a joke. I imagine somebody reading this for the first time, seeing me write to hell with them, not knowing that I sometimes say stuff like that for effect only.
Let me just clarify: The painting at the top will be given away in drawing that is free and open to everyone who attends the talk. There are other things that will given away, as well. For example, I have an old Makita drill that needs a new cord that will be given away. Okay, scratch the Makita off the list. The stuff I am packing up is pretty good, if I can say that.
Though I am smiling, I am a little nauseous. The prospect of standing before a crowd of people is sometimes a little overwhelming for someone who locks themselves in their studio away from world for most of the year. But the folks that come are always great which helps considerably. Makes me reconsider which mask I will be wearing, even though ti s a week removed from Halloween. I am thinking I might not even need one this year.
I guess you will have to catch up in time with me next Saturday if you want to find out which mask I will be wearing. Or not. Who knows? Well, I do since I have already been to next Saturday this morning but who besides me?
For this Halloween I thought I would play a classic from that supremely weird band, The Cramps. This is I Was a Teenage Werewolf from their Songs the Lord Taught Us album which I bought back around the time it came out in 1980. It is an album you could just put on and play over and over again as the soundtrack for a Halloween party. I was going to share TV Set from this album but felt that it was a bit too gruesome even if it is a catchy tune.