Theater of Inclusion

One Artist One Hour My Garage

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I’ve spent months writing sentences trying to express the daunting act of making something and then standing by it – literally standing by it. The writer Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation) said something like writing is more difficult for writers than for others. He was paraphrasing someone else who no doubt was a writer struggling with writing.

If I had anything for every time someone standing in front of a painting in a museum said, “I could have done that.”… I think to myself, “Yes you could have. And you could have invented the paper clip, or the mouse trap, or the phone app that lets you order a plate of Pa Ram Long Song from Siam Square in Fountain Square and have it delivered to an impromptu roadside picnic with a couple of friends in a unnamed pocket park across town near Lafayette Square.”

In fact, I’m more than sure that you have invented a number of notable things. I’m certain that you wouldn’t be interested in such things-made if you weren’t thinking about stuff you can use or create – things that serve a purpose or stuff that sticks out because of its beauty, or its insight, or the relief it gives to tired souls. This is the reason why its a good thing that sometimes we get together to look at one person’s contribution to the life lived, the life thought about, the life expressed.

I painted the windowless north wall of my studio (all eight feet by 26 feet of it) white so I could exhibit artist’s work. These salons are entitled “One Artist, One Hour, My Garage” and are dedicated to an artist showing work for one hour in my studio. I don’t want visitors to stay too long because I want them to know I value their time and that they are busy. I want them to see coming by my studio as a moment to stop for a moment where the only agenda is to stop for a moment. Busy lives dominate our living at this point of human evolution.

I’m just asking the artist to take a moment and stand next to her work. Take and field questions from family, acquaintances, and strangers alike. Who can’t benefit from coaxing out the often convoluted process behind a a simple image?