My family moved around a lot when I was growing up. There was rarely any preparation, just talk of the move, then one day a U-Haul would show up and we'd start loading, usually packing as we went along because nothing was ready. Early on there would be talk of being done in time to have some lunch before hitting the road, but as the day wore on and lunch turned into dinner and then we hoped to finish before midnight. By then of course, it was too late to leave so we'd either crash on the floor in the empty apartment or go ahead and get on the road, only to pull over at the first rest stop for a few cold, restless hours of semi-consciousness before rolling off into the pale dawn light toward you next big adventure. Where ever we were going to was always going to be better then the place we were leaving behind, until that place turned out to be a dud and nine months to a year later we were loading another U-Haul truck. As a result of this repeated experience, I got really good at packing and loading trucks and I cultivated a deep animosity toward moving.
Today, I wasn't the one moving, so I was able to keep a handle on my move-rage. I helped my old pal Casey of
COG-Photo blog load up a truck of stuff, so he benefitted from ninja-like packing and moving skills. It's never any fun to pack and move stuff, so that's the true test of friendship. The folks who show up to help are the keepers.
OK HW
. I knew nothing of Baker or his music before seeing that movie, but became an instant fan of both his music and sad, tragic life. Bruce Weber's stark, black and white images emphasized the tortured crags of Baker's face and I explored that landscape in a series of four bas-relief sculptures. It was the early 1990s and I was working on the moniker of "Kan-Ken Studios" doing a few outdoor art shows and making a very modest living with my art. This piece is called "Chet EXCU" and was sculpted in oil-based clay, then molded and cast in dental stone and painted with acrylics. It lives in a collection in Richmond, Virginia now.
