Some Thoughts

Building techniques spring from ingenuity and from the inherent possibilities of available materials. James Agee said "It is doubtful whether most people realize how extraordinarily slippery a liar the camera is." Reading an essay on Max Ernst I run into some words that describe some of his technique, Frottage, which is essentially making a rubbing of something and using that as the starting point for a painting; grattage, which is scratching the wet surface of a painting with a variety of implements; and decalcomania, in which wet blobs of paint are squeezed between two canvas surfaces. When I'm working the front desk, the library is only a few steps away, I sample books, look at pictures, and read essays. In the morning D and I discuss logistics, as in a month or so the shit hits the proverbial fan, and we need to be prepared. We have to pack a show that has never been packed, ship it out several days early, start accepting work for the juried local show, install same, with two weddings that interfere with, first accepting the work (that wedding is at 3:30 in the afternoon of the final day we accept work, and artists almost always work right up against the deadline, and we don't close until 5:00, so there will certainly be arrivals during the actual wedding): and the second one falls the day after the judging, when we had planned to start setting the show, we'll lose two days and have to work both days-off that week. So we need to think things through. There's a brunch concert tomorrow, that D and I didn't know about (nor did Sara), and the ladies designed the postcard announcement without consulting D and he was frigging livid when he found out. Hard to blame him, as he's the face of our graphic design and it therefore reflects on him. We have to talk through that, and I have to haul away garbage from the last two events and mop the floor before tomorrow's event, before lunch, because after that I have to be the receptionist, After lunch, the musicians arrive, following the long night of celebrating a premiere, to load their vehicles and head back to Cincy. Serious artists, it's good to talk with them, for a bit, about stage presentation and what their intentions are, when they're playing a piece by John Cage for instance, which must be intimidating. A rainy afternoon, D comes down, and we go out back for a smoke, propping the door open so we can hear if anyone comes in, and we talk about his thesis, which concerns, essentially, what constitutes a book. I'm just a sounding board, because I cling to paper, in truth I love the smell, of paper, it doesn't have to do, completely, with information, but with the experience of reading, which, for me, involves turning pages, and physical bookmarks, on which I make notes. Old-school crap, to which I'm addicted. It's just the way I work.