Abstract Show

Unveiling. Always exciting, seeing new work. Four large color-field paintings are stunning. Look at them for a while and shapes start emerging. A series of paintings with strange twisting ribbons, and horn-like funnels pouring balls. 18 small works on paper, uniformly framed, usually hung in a tight grid pattern. Some very abstract photographs, other-worldly. Still missing 10 paintings by Nick Gampp, one of which belongs to me, I'm trading him a sand-blasted stump. Step one, after unpacking, is to spread everything out around the walls. Sara, D and I all agree we've got a hell of a show. D's first major show as Curator, main gallery show. He's done some fine work in the upstairs gallery, where the Wrack Show will live. First major Abstract Show at the museum. Writing will be spotty until the middle of November, filming starting tomorrow, Monday the last major collection day, I have a list of pieces we need. Install the Abstract Show next week, then two weeks of prep work, then two weeks to install the Wrack Show. Monday will be three trucks and a chainsaw, new hunting grounds, further east, other side of the new bridge. Found the missing rope and dragged it to safety, need to hang it under the shed so it can dry, it unbraids splendidly, probably have enough. I hadn't reread what I wrote last night (I sometimes do), especially the second posting, the first posting, usually I read through many times, while I'm writing it, the second, I rarely look back, of course, if there is a second one I'm usually drunk and don't often send them. More balls, a few, I forgot to mention, D found an excellent small plastic bowling ball, halfway in size between a softball and a volley ball. I'm liking the balls in the pergola, but they'd be fine coming out of any corner, it's the splitting of the flood of balls, as they decrease in size, with the real bowling ball, that is a kind of statement. I don't know what the statement is, but it's right there, will be. It doesn't mean anything, it's just a way of tying up sticks. Just remembered something I hadn't thought about for decades. Early years of the press, Ted and I took a lot of hallucinogenic drugs, and we'd ingested some toasted morning glory seeds ( a spray of oil, some salt and garlic powder) and we were on another planet. Printing a McCord book, "The Arcs Of Lowitz", a lovely thing, when Ted took a ball of white butcher's twine outside and stretched it between trees. He said something about defining space, proceeded to divide the yard into quadrants, with a single piece of string. I had a quart of Ballantine Ale, I remember this so clearly, three pours in my beer glass, with a nice head, watching him string the yard. A string was all that was necessary to define a given space. File that away. Years later, you remember something, defining space, a yard-stick you used, a pocket knife I used once. I never save anything, and don't collect tokens. Better to not depend on the stupidity of others, I'm hanging right on the narrative fringe. I thought I was saying something. Comes back to bite you on the ass.

Tom

What we have are some walls, and a show to install,
a positive thing, not a single weeping crow:
what is required, is that you knuckle down.