Letting It Go vs Throwing It All Away

A brief essay on the temporal nature of art within the context of mortality? No not really... just tired of hauling crap around after so much moving. I remember freaking out a friend around a fire by nonchalantly tossing armfuls of originals and consigning collected miscellany to the flames. A while back I undertook a massive purge, jettisoning anything in storage, and finally been getting around to unboxing crap and settling in to the new place (it's only been like four/five months two years now). Cases of paperwork, paystubs, receipts & business records kept from as far back as 1986, invoices from folks long since passed away + clients & businesses shuttered and forgotten (Cyrano's, Cook Inlet etc.) and hundreds of handwritten orders mailed from all over America. AT some point nostalgia loses out to the psychologically oppressive weight of all the accumulated detritus and flotsam being sucked along in your wake.

Exposure and success is fine, but still, if it's one thing that's remained consistent over all these years, it's knowing that the only gallery that really counts is the refrigerator. This is second only to being enshrined in the outhouse, followed closely by an office door.

And this attitude in turn makes it easy to let things go but more like seeing those precious, delicate snowflakes grow up and leave the cabin on their own.

As in the case of selling off originals: recently I had a patron pay the rent (again) by commissioning me to color in a few pieces that were showcased in last year's annual retrospective at the distillery.

"The Alaska Playground," "Goldfish Runs" and "Zinke" panels all underwent a watercolor wash, which never ceases to amaze me how much it transforms a work. And now they're gone, all that's left is the doodle in a sketchbook and these images.
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