No one buys my oil paintings on canvas. No one buys my acrylics. No one buys my watercolors. No one hires me to paint murals. They\u2019re all fools. I have great work crying to be seen, and I prove it every weekend at street painting festivals all over. We don\u2019t actually paint. We draw, usually on sidewalks and parking lots. Streets are too rough. With chalk I draw people enraged by a violent and catastrophic world. Many surround and watch me work. He\u2019s crazy, some believe, but more say, that\u2019s really good. Their compliments sustain me, until I almost die. <\/p>\n
\tAfter planning and sketching during the week, and driving where I need to go and sleeping in my car, I spend Saturdays and Sundays on aching knees under blistering sun or cold cloudy skies and sketch again, this time the full size, ten by fifteen feet, twenty by thirty, lots of space I always worry I can\u2019t artistically fill but always do. Then on Sunday afternoons they announce the winners, and sometimes I\u2019m the one. I\u2019ve made a large artwork for no money they\u2019ll wash away now or in the morning. I\u2019ve watched too many times. They bring out hoses and blast my work, disintegrating design and washing colors into nearest drains. This Sunday I grab a hose and squirt the festival manager in her destructive face. She yells for a security guard who removes me from the parking lot and she calls managers at the next two festivals. They ban me but for only a year apiece. <\/p>\n
\tI have three weeks, an eternity to create the best work of my life. I study and plan and practice and, working fast on the critical Saturday, I sketch but don\u2019t complete any portion of two titanic women thrashing husbands and boyfriends who\u2019ve abused them. Late that night I return to the parking lot and open my trunk and retrieve what I should\u2019ve always used \u2013 paint, the stuff of permanent statements. Breathing hard, almost hyperventilating over a loud heart, I pry open gallon cans and strategically deploy them and through the night gain energy as at last I paint for eternity. Shortly before sunrise I administer the final stroke and use six electric heaters, attached to a like number of car batteries, to dry my work. This process I accelerate by aiming a gardner\u2019s lawn blower. There\u2019s no time to sleep. Artists are already arriving to doom their works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No one buys my oil paintings on canvas. No one buys my acrylics. No one buys my watercolors. No one hires me to paint murals. They\u2019re all fools. I have great work crying to be seen, and I prove it every weekend at street painting festivals all over. We don\u2019t actually paint. We draw, usually…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[460,639,128,119],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n