Tag: painting

Pick Your Poison

I was working on my smile…..

I have. And I’m still standing. I look at this portrait and remember. Khaki shorts, a red hoodie with the sleeves cut, always a back pack. Pencils, sketchbook and a book in tow. Cruising A1A, in the morning hours, the marsh washed, in an array of pastels. People. Louise Freshman Brown, Paul Ladnier, Judy, Biz, the woman that I pushed into tears. Trips to New York. Getting off The Path in New Jersey. it was slightly snowing. I was hoping someone would attack me. Kind of the same feeling I would get in Publix, only more intense. I use to leave my pocket book, in the cart, a little open. And hope someone would try to steal it, so I could chase them down and beat the hell out of ‘em. Bernard Marco, and his insanity. His money and his good taste. His fireplace that he had reworked, into a polynesian face, with a mouth, wide open. Cleveland Brown, his eighteen year old friend. He was eighty.. We did a photo shoot. My photos are somewhere. He changed my world, as many people did. I drove his BMW. We sailed on the river, Bernard, Rooster, Cleveland and myself. The captain’s wife said,”oh it’s nice, you brought your granddaughter.” He was a bit of a last straw. He had found a gallery for me, in New York. The same one I saw, and said, oh that’s where I would like to be. He told me how to paint, and what to paint. I was advised to do the dog and pony show. Hell no. That’s not my poison. If life is a trail to an end, why would I want to do that? My life is my own; his poison would kill me. Poison is personal.

Continue reading Pick Your Poison

You can do it! ~whatever it is

When I was a kid, I had summertime friends, that were visiting Amelia Island the same as myself. One particular summer there was a family, from Atlanta staying three houses down. There was the mother, two sisters and a brother. They were probably there only two weeks at a time, but back then the days were long and two weeks seemed like forever.

None of these kids ever surfed with me but we did do things like, look for sea shells and spends hours chasing each other around on the beach. I always did love to run.

But right now, I am remembering one of the sisters telling me about casting a bottle out into the ocean. The idea was to write a message, put a contact address on it and see what happened. She had done this before and actually had someone write to her from someplace, that seemed like far away. I was told that my bottle could possibly drift to China.

I thought about that bottle that I never threw. I imagined it moving along the ocean floor, heading to some exotic destination. But, for some reason I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. What if someone did find the bottle? What if they wrote back? What would I say?  I was paralyzed by the “what ifs”.

Writing this blog has that same feeling. But today I’m not paralyzed. I’m motivated. I want to inspire myself, if no one else.

My car is still not fixed and it looks like it will be Tuesday before I get to hit the waves.

Until then I will walk on the beach. Exercise and staying tranquillo are important.

In retrospect I see how some things don’t change. My life is locked in like a cartesian point. I am by the beach, not surfing today, but being with friends and hanging out on the beach, checking out the shells and the driftwood.

I’m tossing out my message. Who knows where it will land?  Who cares?

The important thing is that I did it!