I’m doing something really bad right now, something that I normally wouldn’t do. It’s naptime, 1:28PM and I just made myself a hot cup of joe and it’s good. I never drink coffee after 10:00AM because of insomnia, but I’m so tired from last night, not sleeping well after the Room Opening I said “what the hell, I’ll take my chances for a soothing cup of coffee in the afternoon, the quiet afternoon. Now I want to go paint, but I need to write. Painting writing painting writing shit. It’s easier to drink coffee when I’m writing. But if I don’t paint and the babies get up from their nap and I have an uncontrollable urge to be creative and I start getting resentful of the babies, wait, calm down, I’ll bring some stuff up here and painting can be our afternoon activity. It’s settled then. Me and myself need to have these conversations, we need to run through all the different scenarios, it’s not sane. I wish I was normal. OK back to why I need to write. I should start off by telling you that nothing in my last post, “Anxiety” that I wrote yesterday prior to the opening, about things  that I was worried about were worth worrying about..  But just because I know this doesn’t mean I won’t worry again.

The GAP show at Room Gallery looks amazing, all four of my solo works were chosen to be hung, I try to keep my ego out of stuff but here it is. I wanted to show those paintings badly. I received much interest and positivity about my work, but no sale so far. The other solo work hung, by Carl and Verad looks great too, and the collaborative pieces and Dis/locations Book Collection look great. It all looks great.Great.Great.Great. But something else happened last night, there was real interest in what we were all doing, in us as a group of artists connected and working together and apart. It brought an energy to the gallery. Inquisitiveness, the book collection brought the visitors inside the show. It allowed them to interact with the art. It was really great and broke the ice. Visitor participation. The next opening in April I’m hoping we can do an interactive art piece with the visitors. I can’t believe I just drank that whole cup of coffee. And I used the word great five times in the past three sentences.

Last night we walked in to the gallery a little after six, there were already a lot of people at the show. Jack ran in looking at all the people, some familiar faces, some not. Fiona was more reserved and I wondered if it had to do with her hearing aids, the gallery has high ceilings and the volume of conversation was high. They both looked at the art, especially the Dis/locations book collection. The picture on the front of one of the books is the babies’ grandpa. He was my mom’s dad, he died   when I was very young. He was adopted and worked as a car salesman. That’s all I know about him. I found the picture in the box of old photos from my mom’s house that I’ve been using to paint from for years, but never actually used physically in a piece. The day Alvaro, Carl, and I met up to work on some collabs I brought the picture. Carl said he wanted to use the picture in something. I was stoked, I think it’s such a cool picture too. So here it is on the front cover of our collab Gap book “Yellow” displayed in the gallery. This is the kind of information I wish I was able to tell people in the gallery at the opening. I find myself being vague and generalizing when talking about the works to visitors. I see that now. It’s hard under pressure to remember these interesting, personal details. Grab onto something personal. An intimate detail and tell the story. Next time.

The babies, Lindsay, and I had gone out  dinner and cocktails before the gallery opening. The babies didn’t have cocktails! There was a table beside us with a lady named Jean from Chicago and her Daughter and son-in-law. Jack was taken by Jean. He noticed her right away and called her grandma. He looked at her and covered his hands over his face. She did the same and they started playing Peek-A-Boo. Her hands were worn with age, her body shrunken, her hair grey, her smile beautiful, her eyes and spirit like the warmest spring day. Jack threw her his Blue Blue, with his little tiny baby hands, and his wet, plump, baby face, and his sparkling eyes. Jack and Jean made a connection. Despite their age difference and unusual meeting place. Later Jean and her daughter and son-in-law stopped by the gallery. I had told them about the opening, that was where we were headed. I started talking to Jean outside the Gallery, we made a connection, she told me all about how her daughter wanted her to move out here to California, and how she didn’t want to leave Chicago. That it was a great city and I had to go. Then she started telling me about the babies she met at the restaurant, I said those are my babies, and we started laughing. She hadn’t recognized me from the restaurant. Which is understandable, it’s dark in there and I was sitting with my back to her back, turning to talk only a few times. It was great (this word again) to get out into the world and socialize and get to have Jack and Fiona experience it with me.  

I hear the babies waking up now. They didn’t sleep long. Maybe they’ll go back to sleep? I’ll have to end my post now anyhow. I want to write my proposal for “The Peace Book” a part of the GAP Dis/Locations book project. If you’re an artists and you’re interested in participating in this project let me know! I will post the full concept soon, but my vision is that the book circulates all around the world, drawing attention and support for parts of the world suffering from endless wars.