The Gangster, the Guest Artist and the Couple Who Cleaned Up

This is Jazzy. She used my sketchbook to draw a statue across the street in Humbolt Park. My deal with my "Guest Artists" is that I get to keep the picture and they may draw in my book while I paint. Parents are invited to take a photo of the Guest Artist with their art. None have refused. As the daughter and mother walked away, Jazzy decided she didn’t like the deal, turned back to me and wanted the book. I told her I needed it. She surprisingly didn’t negotiate and they went on their way.. 

She and her mom arrived just after Jose left. Jose stood and visited with me for more than two hours… that’s long for the usual plein air bystander. He seemed fascinated with the painting process, asked good questions, made comments about the composition and showed me his bullet wounds from a gang fight, that he apparently lost. Painter friends stopped by while he was there and he’d step back while we chatted and stepped closer when they left. Later, I learned that they thought he and I were friends. I suppose we were- for a few minutes. As I finished the painting, I offered it to him. He said, “No, I’m good.” A bit of a blow.

Just as I packed the last bit of equipment in my backpack, a couple stopped and asked to see the painting I'd done. Lucky me. They love art, said that they hadn’t bought anything local since moving to Chicago three years ago, and purchased my painting. 

It was a rich and interesting day to paint.

When A Scene Turns to Love

This is my happy place, Ft. Sheridan, near Highland Park, IL on September 5th, 2021. General Patton lived here for a time, I've heard, it's probably true; a street bears his name. I paint here frequently enough to actually recognize people who also come here regularly. It is a place to appreciate the Lake. You can’t officially swim here because, there might be unexploded ordinants in the water. I always thought that was an urban legend but, only waded a few time, not wanting to tempt fate. Earlier this year, a grenade from a war a long time ago was found a few hundred yards away.

One couple stopped by my easel and commented on my painting. Out of the blue the man said- We are all connected by love. A few hours before, I had found the obit of someone I once loved. With that, this scene, this painting reminds me of that love. (Painting - sold.)

Old Music Heard a New Way

 After a stroke, my dad started using the phrase, “that was the best…  I ever had, or, I’ve never …” While his certaintude made me smile, it also gave me hope that maybe a brain blown, didn’t have to be a complete calamity. Finding new joy in old things sounded okay. While watching Tick Tick Boom last night, I wondered why I didn’t share the love of theater that many friends have. Reading the memories and hearing soundbites of lyrics by Stephen Sondheim after his death and learning he inspired Jonathan Larson who wrote the lyrics and score for Tick Tick and Rent, challenged that thought more.

Lately, I’ve found myself listening to different radio stations when I drive. WXRT for one. I realized I liked it when I was painting a portrait at the Palette & Chisel. It was in the background, but for me background sound is often front and center and I can’t not hear it. The sniffle in a Zoom program, the voice on the other end of a cell call in a hardware store with Silent Night playing, talking about the disappointment in a center piece at Thanksgiving, for instance. Painting usually puts me into a zone where pretty much I have virtual blinders and noise cancelling earmuffs, but that morning up on the third floor with the north light, I found myself making brushstrokes to Peter Gabriel’s Your Eyes and liked the results. Not in the painting but in the feeling that I wasn’t second guessing my strokes, the music nudged a rhythm. I wondered why I didn’t listen to XRT back in the days of a beer after work that accompanied conversations of bands I’d never heard of, that now are oldies.

Once home, I asked Alexa to play XRT. During my visit to Seattle, we listened to KMHD, a Portland jazz station. I’ve never heard so much xylophone or saxophone… and liked it. Alexa has been playing that too. As far as I know, I haven’t had a stroke, but something has happened to nudge me from a rut I didn’t know I was navigating. I feel less hunkered down, like I could tap into courage to do something else new… something bigger than a radio station. Move? Take a long trip alone. Write a novel? Create some other adventure. Now, I wonder if it really was the stroke that caused my dad’s reframing his experience of the world. He may have just heard old music in a new way.