Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Feeling a bit off it but glad I stuck it out to see my favorite two clients, who are in their eighties, come back from their picnic at Wahkeena falls.

As he put it, “we spent the day at the Columbia Gorge-ous.”

We talked a little about the tourists who tend to stop, take the requisite picture and leave. “They don’t take the time to take it all in!” They said with deep sympathy. They began unpacking the styrofoam cooler they'd brought, filled with all sorts of treats that made me even more fond of them than I already am.

That night I couldn’t bare to do much else than flip through some of my big pretty books about picture-makers -- and there’s worse ways to spend a sick night on the couch I suppose. I was reading some of the final remarks about Mary and Lee Blair, about alcoholism (which, naively, I was shocked by, considering the warm strength of her visual sense.) The author muses that it could be because both Mary and Lee gave up dreams to be fine artists in exchange for financial stability.

Happy are those who do not draw lines. Maybe. This reminded me of an earlier conversation I’d had with this client when we discussed my work that she had seen for the first time -- in a Christmas postcard I’d sent out.

“I think you’re a fine artist,” she’d said.

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