The Other Day

This has been a funny spring. Crocus late, Cherries early. I pictured this on Tuesday last week after I met my cousin, once removed (my father's cousin). He found me online, via the NY Times article about lead in the garden. Before that, I did not exist to him, and afterward he had a cousin with the same last name as he. He is a commercial painter in San Francisco and just received his lead abatement license which was the reason he was on the internet looking up lead. What he found was an article that featured someone with his last, and uncommon, name. He googled me, found my art site, then emailed me.

On Tuesday he, his wife and daughter met me near Pratt at a place called Tillies. His daughter happens to be attending Pratt for writing. We spoke for about an hour, going over the basics which is a strange, yet pleasant experience. What do you do? Do you know so and so? It turns out he went to my undergraduate school in the late sixties -a funny connection. Of course, the whole time I thought it would make even more sense for my cousin to be talking with my father, who is his first cousin and probably remembers all the family we have in common.

I had to run because I was guest critiquing a graduate painting class that day at Pratt. We walked together toward the campus, and I look down at the blue stone sidewalk and this object is staring up at me. Instinctively I grab it, throw it in my bag. We promised to keep in touch. The NY Times article is the gift that keeps on giving. Last summer after my artist talk at the Wilton library, I mentioned the blog to a group that had gathered around. Instantly I was recognized as the guy from the Times article. Times got reach.

The kitschy brass lamp, oxidizing toward blue-green, in its temporary home amongst the aconitum.