Morning Interview

Last December I spent two weeks framing all the cotton module paintings I created in 2008-09 while working out of my Texas Panhandle Studio, even donating one to a benefit auction for Lockney Health and Reabilitation. I wanted to celebrate my agricultural upbringing and reconnect with the days of operating implements in agricultural fields of cotton and corn. The diesel engines of the agricultural machines have terrified, and inspired me (the title of this blog for example), for the whole of my life. Agriculture and it's distribution, the infrastructure supplying life to the global civilization of man, has an impact exceeding the heigth of the heavens or the depth of the seas. Agriculture is the true direction of the future, and this ministry is no secret to those who till the earth and know the land. Today, these men and women, the people whose crops I once irrigated, cultivated, fertilized with my own sweat are the very patrons I seek to establish an artistic dialogue, to gain support and patronage, to provide the ability to do something farther than creativly imagined in their communities and the world. Indeed, it is truley a great commission to find whatever means necessary to implement the largest vision of the greater good into reality. Art in it's nature, demands it from the artist and patron alike who embrace it; for those who do not, disolve into unknown history.
This January, after a record cotton crop in the Texas panhandle region (the largest ever), the timing seemed right to show and display the two year old works, my effort to make contact with the agricultural peoples of my origins. How better to do this than the local barber shop in Lockney, Texas. For over a year now I've been displaying paintings on a small, clean, and well lit wall space of Bobbie's Buzz Cut's. The shop provides the closest contemporary gallery type setting I've found in such a small, rural community that is still capable of maintaining the traffic and dialogue of many people; not to mention, most of my target patrons cut their hair there. My question now, will they understand the capability of their support for things such as art? Will they recognize the opportunity, art reaching out to them, of this artist? The life of my art in this area swings in the balance of their generosity and ability to realize, and patronize, the arts. And by that I mean original, not reproduction; original equals the future, reproduction equals worthlessness, that's an art history lesson and fact. Time will tell, on the bright side the show landed me an interview with the local newspaper, The Floyd County Hesperian-Beacon, at the descretion of reporter Homer Marquez, whom I met at the barber shop while distributing these 4" x 6" post cards marketing my campaign. My conversation with Mr. Marquez was well rounded and thought loftly towards the possibilities of revival in these sleepy little ag communities, whose fruits sit as the foundation of all human civilization. I look forward to reading it, (title link to paper's page) and the outcome, and exceeding possibility of cultivated good possible through the hybridized realization of art and agriculture at the highest level. Godspeed, and thank you.