June

Reader’s Block, David Markson (reread)

Georgia O’Keefe: Art and Letters, ed. Jack Cowart and Juan Hamilton

But Is It Comic Aht #1, ed. Austin English

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I have three living grandparents, all of whom recently gave away many of their belongings. The polite way to describe this, I think, is “downsizing.” Another way to describe it is, “We want to participate in the process of distributing our material belongings while we are still alive.” Thought it was hardly as morbid as that sounds. These were items with great personal value, and it was nice to understand that personal value by hearing stories about them.

One of the few things I took home was a painting from another relative – a great aunt, I think – that had hung in my grandmother’s house for years. I have met this great aunt but had never realized she was a prolific painter for decades. Most of her paintings display a solid degree of craft, and a few of them are quite good. None of them are great. The painting I was given is in fact particularly uninspiring.

I took the painting home because I admire a desire to make art far more than I admire commercial success in art. I took the painting home because I often think about how we all see beauty in its full splendor, regardless of how capable we might or might not be at describing that beauty in drawings or words. An unremarkable painting is still a painting, an attempt to say something deeply felt.

I took the painting home because it was made by someone who committed themselves to making art, despite limited financial success, for many years and through the final years of their life. Regardless of what the future holds, I hope to do that as well.