I tried to snap a colorful photo of the rainbows flipping across my custom wood print in my bathroom. Instead, I got a goofy but boring snap that I illuminated. I’ve had people offer me upwards of 50 cents for this one of a kind piece of art.
I would snap a picture of my living room so that you could see the 500 rainbows streaming in due to all the prisms I have hanging outside. But the zebra won’t get out of the picture long enough for me to take one.
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Whether you use the word weird, creative, or eccentric, it’s obvious to most people that I hit the target. It’s hard enough getting people surprises or gifts on traditional days. In my case, everyone knows that I much prefer random days for surprises. They also know that if the gift itself isn’t personal, the box, card, or the way I present it is definitely going to be. I don’t like the idea of a world without chalk, index cards, or random shenanigans. That includes sending clown noses, a custom picture of Doc Holliday, receiving a flutophone, or one of my favorite things in the world: prisms.
People forget that at one point I was decorating the envelopes I used to make my car payments. I didn’t know until much later that the car lot manager kept all of them on a wall. Assuming he’s still alive, I’m convinced he definitely remembers his unusual customer. I took the mundane necessity of making a car payment and made it a crazy memory, as well as an accidental art installation in a small car lot office.
The reason I explain all this is that sometimes I spend a great deal of effort and time making something unique. Overwhelmingly, people are delighted and truly surprised that I thought enough of them to make the attempt.
What consterns me are those times when my gifts or creations are misunderstood. It’s a lot like starting a conversation that’s difficult. You can’t control the other person’s reaction or the outcome.
Me not making or sending surprises to people isn’t in my nature. It’s like criticism when you sing or write something. You have to accept the criticism just like you do the praise or encouragement.
In a world inhabited by so many different people, it stands to reason that decorum, style, taste, and humor aren’t universal.
Some people reading this have been on the receiving end of things out of the blue. Some have received things from me anonymously. Others have been walking around Fayetteville and discovered literal eggs filled with surprises, pieces of art, or just about anything creativity might cook up.
My intention is to be me and create small moments. The fact that most people aren’t like me is truly independent of what I do or why.
I have a stack of red capes in my hall closet waiting for the right day when several of us are going to need some comedy and ridiculous adventure during an otherwise normal day. That should tell you all you need to know about me.
Love, X
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One of two surprises given to me for taking care of a sweet dog and cat a couple of weeks ago. The other one I will hold in reserve for a bit of shenanigans. In two weeks when it stops raining, perhaps this one will reveal its polychromatic sunlit spectacle.
X
Someone asked me if I was the one writing the political messages on the sidewalks. No. I don’t see anything wrong with it. It washes off. My sidewalk antics are always shenanigans. If I were to ever write anything controversial, I would sign it. It’s part of the reason my Facebook posts and other accounts are public. You either enjoy a good combination of wacko and introspection, or you don’t. In this day, trying to sway someone’s political opinions is exactly like attempting to microwave your own head. With just about the same results.
Love, X
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Someone asked me, “X, why haven’t you been making solar bottle lights lately?”
I was certain that the grin I gave shouted the obvious answer: “I haven’t stopped.”
In the last few months, I’ve left several in front of people’s houses with a note attached. The Johnny Appleseed of decorative solar light bottles. A few more, I’ve left in odd places where I knew they would be discovered and taken by someone interested.
I didn’t want all the bottles that had been saved and given to me to be wasted. So for anybody like Jay or Burke or others who shared their bottles, just because I haven’t mentioned it doesn’t mean I haven’t given new life to the bottles given to me. To strangers. It’s a pleasure to give one to someone personally, something I’ve made. But it turns out that it is equally fascinating to put them out in the world without having any idea about the lives of those who receive them.
This afternoon, I walked behind a building and looked over the fence. The bottle I had left on their front porch weeks ago sat facing the sun, charging as much as possible in the low winter light so that it can later add color however the new owner sees fit.
Love, X
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My windshield had more cracks than a plumber’s convention. So today Safelite came and exchanged a new windshield for money. The tech had it done start to finish in 30 minutes. He told me my car would run faster if I gave the engine squirrels more protein.
I also experimented with acrylic inside my light bottles. One was a complete failure. But in doing it wrong, the light bulb went off in my head. This one has a keepsake bracelet embedded in it.
X
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Picasso was a terrible human being. I can’t look at his paintings or consider any of his allegedly important works without thinking of all the women he destroyed. The works that made him famous and allegedly important were done by being insanely cruel to women. He became rich in the process. At least two of his lovers ended themselves. He kidnapped one, and locked many unwilling ones in his studio. As he got older they got younger and younger. At one point, he adopted a very young girl to use in his nude sketches. She was returned to the convent from where she came when he was done with her. He enjoyed prostitutes, probably because his first experience was with one. Even if you do superficial searches, you will be shocked at how much information is out there. It’s not a secret. Yet, students are shown his work, visitors see his paintings in museums, and most of them are completely unaware that they are looking at a tapestry of sexual deviancy and exploitation.
Years ago when I attended NWACC, a professor really loved a complicated thing I drew that I titled “Elvis Angel.” It was an intricate and preposterous mess but very interesting. Another student said, “It’s like Picasso with pens and pencils.” She didn’t understand when I said, “Thank you. But I don’t know if it’s monstrously sexual enough for that comparison.” The professor asked me about my comment. She was a very engaging and educated professor who enjoyed my nonsense. Even though I didn’t know a lot about Picasso at the time, I told her that he was a monster. It shocked her because despite her education, she had never heard anything like that. After our conversation, she spent time looking it up, just as she had done when I pointed out something related to employment law that she was unaware of.
Even the painting in this post seems innocuous. But if you know what it really depicts, it’s difficult to look at it in the same way. And if you know the woman’s story, the one used in the painting, you can feel nothing except disgusted and sorry that her path intersected with Picasso.
I love history and trivia. This is not one of those cases wherein people take things out of context against the backdrop of history. This is one of those cases where the behavior of the person involved would be universally reviled if it were known.
X
Erika gave me the old tea lamp. I revived it, putting a glass column inside it and wrapping multicolored fairy lights around the core. I went to bed before the sunset last night and was unable to witness its premiere. Not to mention that I forgot to turn it on so that the photosensitive light would trigger automatically so that I might see it when I woke up ridiculously early. Color, color, and more color. X
Both the mural and the art project are in the breakroom near where I work. I think they both are beautiful, both the completed mural and the work in progress of the colored pencil drawing. It’s a demonstration of art where art normally isn’t. And it’s also a demonstration that beauty and art can coexist anywhere, even in sterile places. What confounds me is that there are a few people that think such efforts are wasteful. Because anything that distracts us from our routine life, especially when it’s mundane, is worth the effort. All the important things are invisible. Though the mural and art project exist in space, it’s what they do inside of our heads as we look at them that makes them worthwhile. Creativity and beauty are among those. Love, X
I wanted to do something at work, a something that included everyone. Christmas is upon us after all. My first idea originated with finding pictures of everyone when they were younger. I mostly succeeded and especially enjoyed a few that were very difficult to find. Erika prompted me to do something more ornate… which also coincides with my innate tendency toward ostentatious. It took on a life of its own. I loved the reactions of people who were tickled by both the display and the delight of seeing people differently than they had before. A reminder that we are not simply workers and that each of us has a road behind us. Each of us has our own idea of what Christmas means. I would trade it all if everyone substituted in its place a year-long effort to surprise people with small gifts and small affections. And yes, even pictures that make some people cringe at the way they once looked.
I looked at my Christmas column filled with pictures after I turned the warehouse lights off this morning to observe the brilliant color where such color is usually absent. A column of interconnected people. It might as well have been a tapestry of everyone on the planet.
I thought to myself, “I made that!” I took an idea and added a little work and made it a reality.
… were that life were so simple.
People. Color. Love.
X
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P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 