Space Exploration

 It wasn't too long ago, but it's been a few years since "DeSoto Motel" (right). The print was similar in that it was a study of light and dark, though my chief concern was more the light of the sunset, the lights of the outdoor roof and the neon. I wasn't happy with the print though, for several reasons, one being my dismissal of the interior of the hotel office.

The current print is partially concerned with making amends for my ignoring space. Though I am still focused on the effect of light ( in this case, the orange glow of sodium arc municipal lighting), it was vital to explore the inside of the building. The image is only 9"X7", and shina plywood becomes brittle as the block gets inked and wiped, so I can't get as detailed as I might sometimes like. But I can feel the space here, and with 3 colors to go, I'm pleased.

In the introduction to his novel, "Birdy," William Wharton offered the following poem:

"There are bird tracks
And nothing in the sky
Something lived, left
And left something"

That speaks to what I find fascinating about these storefronts, aglow as if ready to fling open their doors to commerce, but closed, locked, and still. Rest, repose, sometimes, in the case of the old empty Woolworths I used to peek into, dead.

Think of your desk, or your garage, or someplace untidy with the folderol of life, and imagine you never return to it again (let's not be maudlin -- you moved, you retired, you stepped out to get a giant Paula's Donut, you are creating new bird tracks on another beach somewhere). What would someone coming on the scene think? What story is being told about you in the universal language of stuff?