Tales from the field #31

A few years back I was travelling from Southern California for a show in Bellevue – right next door to Seattle.  It’s a two day drive, pretty much up the entire west coast of the US.  I had kinda planned on stopping just north of the Oregon border, but didn’t make firm plans as I figured I wasn’t sure if my tiredness would get me that far, or my awakeness would let me press on further.  I’d actually spotted a well-priced motel in my aim area, and sure enough, just as California disappeared in the rear view mirror, the eyelids started to droop.

I pulled off the road at what appeared to be a motel-bearing town in this rural stretch of Interstate 5.  Miraculously I passed the very motel I’d seen on the internet.  The parking lot was only half full. It was late, though.  The office only had a dim light on.  I knocked on the door.  In a few moments the motel clerk appeared.

In fairness to the man, he was obviously of Indian origin – India Indian, not Native American.  Different culture.  I asked ‘Is there room at the inn?’  ‘No,’ he replied.  Oh, ok, nevermind, I thanked him and turned to leave.  I’d gotten as far as the truck when he came out after me.  ‘I have room at the other end!’  Huh?

Turns out he’d misheard me as ‘Is there room at the end?’ and had completely missed the Christmas reference!  In his further defense, he’d only been in the US about 5 months.

Yucca Valley Presbyterian

This is the second time I’ve had the pleasure of showing work at the Yucca Valley Presbyterian Church.  My mixed media paintings will be in the small meeting room and in the sanctuary during all of September.

Kim Clements is the curator, and Nancy Miehle of the Chaparral Artist was there and helped me set up the show.  While I was there I smelled gas coming from the stove in the kitchen.  The handyman was summoned and we could feel and hear that the oven was on a little, so he shut the gas off at the mains because we couldn’t move the huge stove to look for the leak.  Hopefully I’ve staved off a disaster.

Meeting room.

Meeting room

Meeting Room

Meeting room.

Sanctuary

Sonnet Challenge #8

Another one from San Diego fan’s amazing imagination.  “Response to someone who wants to have their body cryogenically frozen after death”.  By the way, I’ve now gotten past half way to writing more sonnets than the Bard.  If anyone reading these has some more challenge subjects they’d like to suggest, I’m open to options.

Stone Cold.

Do you anticipate you’ll go to hell

and think your soul might just get frozen in

your body? Did you have a life of sin

that makes you feel you really might as well

just stay here?  You won’t bet on where you’ll be

upstairs or down?  Or do you disbelieve

in afterlife or relife – no reprieve

from non-existence? No eternity

for you.  You want to stay here in this flesh,

a jail whose rotting walls are stuck in time

by coldness, ’til the statute of your crime

has run and you can start your life afresh.

How little faith that you would want to stay

When heaven’s just a last heartbeat away.

An art book with a difference

This is definitely an art book with a difference:  “La mia idea de arte.” Pope Francis’s ideas about art.

One idea, quoted in an Artnet article:

“The Vatican Museums have to be the most beautiful place and the most hospitable. It must throw open its doors to the world,” wrote the Pope in his book, noting that based on the teaching of the Bible, the poor’s inability to pay should not prevent them from seeing the church’s impressive art collection.

The book, co-written with Tiziana Lupi is also now a documentary, apparently available on youtube.  The book doesn’t seem to be available (bummer).