A Random Facebook Message

A surprise

It started yesterday. I received a notice from my online gallery that three of my photos of Watts Towers sold to one person. This is one of the images. When I lived in LA, I used to go visit this site at least once a month. I met a gentleman one day, a dentist who both lived and practiced in Watts (I enjoyed speaking with him even though he was a dentist and I consider dentists to be sadists). He told me that he visited on his lunch break every Thursday, and had been visiting since he was a young child. His parents instilled a love of art and pride of place in him. We spent an hour talking about the imperative need to create that drove Simon Rodea to build the towers. We talked about the people who lived across the street who tore up sidewalks to replace them with their own mosaics, how they turned their front door grates into works of beauty. How they managed to take the beauty of the towers into their own homes. Then he had to go back to the office for his next patient.

But back to the notice yesterday. Someone purchased three of the photos from my series, and I was delighted.

Today, though, was a real surprise. A random person sent me a private message on Facebook. Normally, I don’t open messages from people I don’t know but I did notice she was asking about a drawing of mine from the 1980s. I opened the message and it included a photo of a troni I did - if you don’t know (most people don’t, and I only recently learned the term), a troni is a form of portraiture but not of a real person; they’re intended to evoke an emotion, a gesture, or a characteristic. One of the most famous tronis is Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring. I’m not comparing my piece to Vermeer’s work, but I am saying without knowing the name, this is the style of my drawing.

She wanted to know if it was indeed my work, and told me how she came to purchase it. She asked me if I would share any insight into what I was thinking, the technique, the materials I used. The last part is simple, I used oil stick which is oil paint with waxes to make it more crayon-like and when dry, evoke encaustic paintings. It allowed me to combine the action of drawing with the surface of painting. Oil sticks are sometimes pure pigment, but regardless, the colors are of the highest quality. I drew on paper, a high quality acid free paper, large scale format. I never used canvass - the last canvass I had I sold to intuitive artist Lee Godie who befriended me.

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The person told me that she loves the drawing, that it has pride of place (that term again) in her living room. She and her friends like to make up back stories for the person in it, why did he look so haunted (I told her in my response that I was combining disdain with fear), but that they all loved it and she is so happy she has it.

This message from a random stranger made me incredibly happy. I can’t begin to describe it, that her joy gave me great joy. Once again, I am in awe of the power of art to connect people.

We live in a period of great turmoil. The current person in the White House (FOTUS) wants to dismantle free speech, the constitution, threatens citizens in the worst way, dehumanizes anyone who isn’t a white, male, billionaire. I waffle between despair and anger - I’d prefer anger because it gets me moving into action (No Kings Rally on Saturday).

I watched the Tonys on Sunday. It’s about the only award show I watch, partly because seeing the brief scenes from plays and musicals lets me know what plays and musicals I want to see next time I go to New York. (Dead Outlaw and Purpose are high on my list.)

Back to the random message from the owner of a drawing I made in the 1980s. She reminded me why I love art in all forms. As I said above, it connects people. Whatever the art form - visual art, film, photography, theater, music, books, graphic novels, other forms I must be leaving out - art is of the moment, is truth from the artist. Good art sings by itself.

I no longer do large scale work because I don’t have the same kind of physical space or the same kind of physical energy. I’ve been manipulating my photos for a while, but I’m starting to do some work in oil pastel, and other drawing materials. I’m thinking again about water color. I really have no desire to do large scale drawing anymore, I don’t need explosive energy. Small work becomes a meditation for me, something that pulls me into the present. I love that. I no longer exhibit my work, although I do have an online gallery and people do purchase images there. It’s not about showing or selling (although when people do purchase a piece, it makes me happy that we’ve connected in some small way).

If you’re interested in looking at my online gallery, you can find it here.

1. Lee Godie Self Portrait from a photo booth