After London I Think I'll Stop Being a Painter and Become a Gardener or a Millionaire 2025. Acrylic on cardboard, 11 x 14"
I said this was revolutionary, and it’s true. For me. I have spent the last couple days dreaming of a near future when I gather up the entire contents of the studio—paints, brushes, paper, canvas, basically all art accoutrements, as well as all of my art, and haul it to the front yard for a massive public giveaway. I’ll spread the word and advertise beforehand so enough people take me up on it, and I won’t have to call a second dumpster in for the clean up. Busk festivals were common among southeastern Native Americans before genocidal capitalism crashed the party. The late 18th century American naturalist William Bartram had this to say about one he observed among the Muscogee:
When a town celebrates the busk, having previously provided themselves with new clothes, new pots, pans, and other household utensils and furniture, they collect all their worn out clothes and other despicable things, sweep and cleanse their houses, squares, and the whole town, of their filth, which with all the remaining grain and other old provisions they cast together into one common heap, and consume it with fire. After having taken medicine, and fasted for three days, all the fire in the town is extinguished. During this fast they abstain from the gratification of every appetite and passion whatever. A general amnesty is proclaimed; all malefactors may return to their town.
It would be like a great wash of art filth accumulated! It feels good just imagining it. And then I could try something new, or nothing at all. Make my yard a beautiful garden. Sit and watch the world go by. Pull the sombrero over my eyes and drink tequila until I fall over smiling. I want to regain the universal truth that I have too much to live for. That the people in my life, my environment, all flora and fauna, pack enough wonder potential to keep a healthy mind-body active for many lifetimes. Passion has been good to me, but it has taken much from my life. I believe that some art obsessions are the result of passion going every which way until it’s exhausted and having to settle somewhere.
I might actually go through with it. I’ll keep you posted.
Meanwhile, “Sledding Down a Hill” is a song of wonder I wrote for my oldest grandchild, Natalie. Somehow I think this fits into my art busk idea.