Work Ethic

It's a large room, this past show was maybe 45 paintings, which meant 80 or so holes in the wall. So here's the sequence. You go once around with a hammer, pulling all the hangers that are nailed, you put those in a bin for sorting later; then you go around with a cordless drill, backing pan-head screws out of plastic anchors about half-way, then you go around with a hammer again, pulling the screw and molly, then you stand over a trash can and unscrew, the rest of the way, the plastic sleeve, and throw it away. I save the pan-head screws, because I can use them several times. Go around again, with the hammer, and depress the dimple where you pulled something out. Then go around again with a good eraser to get rid of all the pencil marks that pin-point every hole, then the first round of filler, then lunch, then a second round of filler. I have to wait for it to dry, before I sand it, and I go and sit in Sara's office, where most of the Carter archives are stored. I realize I need to read Mary's diaries and letters in sequence for them to make any cumulative sense. So on my breaks, I go back and reconstruct her life; she makes it easy, because she wrote her Mom so often, and Sara's already done the hard part of this: there are thirty-six loose-leaf binders of letters, and they're arranged, chronologically. I just have to read it, and I am, as advertised, a very good reader. She's not much of a stylist, but she does record the times, and I'm reading between the lines. There are three guys before Clarence, Cartie, as she called him: Jim the lawyer, Bob the doctor, and Wales, I can't figure out what he did. Maybe they had sex, i suspect they did. Pretty sure he fucked that Italian peasant he painted three times the year before he met Mary. That would have been '27 or '28. They married May of 29. She thought he was the greatest thing since sliced white bread, her mother was a bit more restrained. She thought he might be a serial killer. I roll up my Yoga blanket and go home, fuck a bunch of speculation. I just want some mashed potatoes and gravy. Anything on toast. Mushrooms, asparagas.

Tom

You and your projections.