Believing, Seeing

My ex always said she'd see it when she believed it. Remember what Hume said about the limits of empirical observation. A show, after the run, packed and crated, spread about the dim gallery, is sort of sad. Looking for a venue, wanting to be unpacked. But Tuesday, after lunch, the main gallery will be empty; I'll bring up all the pedestals, for the ODC show, and they'll need patching and repairing and painting. There will a time, a week or so from now, when all the walls will be repainted, and, scattered around, will 15 or so pristine semi-gloss peds. It's exactly like a show, but there is no show. I think about how interesting it might be to draw a show, in string. Hardware on the walls and panels, and on the peds, so you could loop the string around. The string would go from the lights, to the peds, to the walls. Sight Lines could be the name of the show. Gruber uses some words that I had just learned independently. I brought a dictionary of art terms home from the museum library. I'm allowed. A word that I had marked and studied was oubliette, which is a hole in the floor, a trap-door. He has it conveniently in Venice, where the tide disposes. They also existed in various keeps and castles, a one-way trip, drop the screaming client down the hole, a few days later, throw in some lime. We've always been very cruel. There's been a war going on my entire life, cold, or otherwise, and I'm amazed we mostly train people to kill other people. The largest industry currently hiring in our great country. You can fly drones, and never leave home, kill whole families in Afghanistan AND draw benefits, retire early. Double dip into some black ops thing in North Carolina. A signing bonus, very good pay, full insurance. This shit mystifies me, maybe why I mention it. My concern is just fitting words together. I don't care who gets where with whatever degree. What interests me is the way the light falls, late in the afternoon. I'm just a painter, is all, maybe a jazz guy; maybe I don't do anything but imagine poses. The world is mostly illusion. I fit right in.