I got stuck in a big traffic jam today driving from my house in Pinole to Marin County where I swim, hike, go to my studio and teach. I arrived late to my 7 am swim slot. It all worked out okay. While stuck in traffic I called old friends, observed my fellow drivers, and noted my emotions as to how I was feeling during the traffic jam. It’s strange, but sometimes it takes extraordinary events to be pushed back onto myself to reflect on what matters. Right now, all of humanity is undergoing great anxiety due to the events unfolding in the war perpetrated on Ukraine by Russia. And of course, the Ukrainians are being killed, seeing their homes and cities destroyed, fighting, and leaving. They are the ones really hurting. We are all watching in real time, seeing a once thriving country come under devasting attacks with currently a million Ukrainian people, mostly women and children fleeing with their pets and limited belongings, into neighboring countries. The latest refugees. We wonder, will this lead to WW III, to the use of nuclear bombs, will European countries and the US be drawn into this devastation? Will we vaporized? I have been thinking about making drawings/paintings, something to show what I imagine would look like to see this vaporization. But then I think, should this happen, that art, the work depicting this would be vaporized and there would be no one to see this depiction of vaporization.

 

I have also been working on a large painting called “Bullshit.” I started this painting before the war began, but it is the result of a specific incident that I experienced that perpetuated continual head shaking on my part about all the bullshit that people try to put on over one another. I am also reading Faulkner again and was struck how he captured human behavior describing our species as “degenerate apes.” Do not get me wrong, I like many people. Still the trajectory of human behavior has not seemed to change much, other than getting worse. Quickly sliding down the evolutionary scale. Rats in a cage.

 

On this happy note, I am about to start teaching the ink component of the Drawing Workshop I am teaching and if there are enough students enrolled in my upcoming Painting Workshop, will be preparing for that.

In 1977 I wrote and illustrated what I thought was a children’s book, called “The Pet.” It is based on a true story of a boy who could not have a pet which I elaborated on. I completed it in 1979, sent it out to publishers. The one publisher that was interested was in the Netherlands. Their business went under. Luckily for me this book, “The Pet,” was what got me into the Sculpture MFA program despite my lack of experience in 3D skills. I attribute this to incredible support that I got from the late Dennis Leon, the poet Steve Ajay and by the late Paul Harris. All the images were done in India Ink. In 2007 my brother Mike, an economist by trade, interested in statistics told me that based on my age, I statistically would live another 25 years. Based on that number, I statistically have 15 years to go, but based on my annuity, I have 27 years to go. Anyhow, back in 2007, that prediction got me thinking so I contacted Don Farnsworth at Magnolia Editions and we worked on along with Jonathan Gerken at Peter Koch and Klaus Rotzsher of Pettingell Book Bindery producing one book. As I look at this book, I see that there were 25 printed but only one turned into a complete book. It was costly to produce, and it did not seem to be destined to be a big seller.

Lance could not have a dog, from the "The Pet." c2007

 

The book conceived by me at 26 is a continuum of my thinking as I close in on turning 73; always the question, now what? Is there anything in the end? I will leave that to you dear readers to draw your own conclusions.