The Perpetual Palette

The other day, I left the studio early to take my mother for a drive. It wasn’t totally for leisure. We were going in search of the house in which I was born in Madison county. As exciting as it was, I had a hard time getting it into my head, after all of the development and the passing of time, that the little cottage would still be rooted in place. There’s always the possibility, I resigned. As we rode. Mom chattered about all the changes to the area. I can’t explain how I felt driving her through this territory that was once so familiar to her. Year’s ago, I would have been the wide-eyed boy in the back seat and she would have been at the wheel. The years had rolled by and switched the roles. Time has a way of building bricks and asphalt over distant memories.

When we neared the spot, she sat up like a little girl peering through the changes to spot the familiar. “It was over there”, she finally said. I could hear the tinge of disappointment in her voice. There was another building situated in the space where her epic story of my arrival lay cradled in her memory . A different family lived their lives above the soil that held a key part of our story. Lives which, as far as I could see, held no connection to our narrative as we know it. We kept going and left the area.

On the road back she mentioned another spot of interest. The strong suggestion, if you turn right here, lead to a country ride though yesterdays backyard. We saw new areas intermingled with the old, wrapped in stories I could only glimpse in small segments through her memory. Nevertheless, they were painted anew with her excitement of recognition and unpacked stories. I found myself asking questions that she, like a college professor delighted in answering in the extended version.

For a brief moment between words my mind made a connection with what I do as an artist and what we were doing in reminiscing… I collect objects and materials and repurpose them to fit an intended narrative. A.R.T. for me isn’t as much about imagery and manipulation of elements as it is about activation and Restoration-a resurrection and putting back together of things. All those years invested in my time playing in the creek behind my parents home, cradled in the cupped arms of a the Magnolia tree or listening to the stories of the young, the restless, and the elders. Some that were more near true and others spun up nice and full with the help of the liquid spirit. They were imbuing me with my media, stacking my palette with colors too rich for the color wheel or the crayon box. Our minds, like this landscape, is designed to carry the weight of all our stories from generation to generation. Every day is a stroke on this canvas of life, and yes we get to choose this layer. It’s my intent to lay it on thick and intense so that it can show through to the next and influence the ones after that. There is a certain satisfaction I get from realizing that no matter how much time I spend in my studio, I’m never alone. Anything that I (we) create is a gumbo soup of representation that I can only reflect with some degree of honesty. Life has blessed us with a perpetual palette, an unlimited array of combinations and possibilities in living color.