Big Brush, Little Paper Advertism 2025. Acrylic on paper, 30 x 24"
Robert Okaji and Stephanie Harper are their professional names. Their private ones are magic. I found this out for certain last November with cheese and wine on a table down a side street in middle America. The Internet made me friends I didn’t know were there. Who cared if I lived or died before 1995, the year I discovered a path out of the Werther life? Edgeworth Johnstone, Lupo Sol, Olga Knaus, Andrew Makarov, Alena Levina, Emma Pugmire, Charles Thomson, Alexey Stepanov, the Bledsoes, Romanie… to name a few international painters who have helped open my heart and raise my bar. Twenty more worldwide stuckists too, local and regional artists, social media painters, art lovers, Ron likers… And this is not saying nearly enough about their amazing good will expressed amid steadfast practice and the trusting atmosphere of hope breathed by fellow artists everywhere. So many unmentioned whom I also trust with my opinions and transgressions. Then, of course, there are the multitude of traditionally discovered friends. The local outreach, bar and coffeeshop meetings among wonderful people that happened because I was emboldened by a desire to express myself. Dan Leo is personally responsible for pulling the old ham out of the desperate Ron, who, nearly 20 years ago, was fast becoming a self-destructive, misanthrope in the Sterling forest where nobody lives right pretending freedom amid septic tanks overflowing with lies and shit. Half of my local friend group I owe to him, even the many whom I’ve nurtured on the Internet, since the majority stem from an interest in art, which Dan urged me to promote. You know who you are if you like me, and please know that I like you too, very much—what could even amount to deep love if we were members of a clan and needed each other’s existence for mutual survival. I’ll settle for mutual like and some tears before club sandwiches at our respective funerals.
I met William because of a book I wrote and sold in an artless bookstore. He read it and asked that we meet up, which we did, and that was that. A couple months later we crossed paths in the dairy aisle carrying one toddler each. He told me he was a paci-FIST, and we became confidants immediately.
I met Mike from an email art exhibition query, which led to an award for a solo show, and ten thousand pints of poetry thereafter, and love of this queer life in spades.
Eric, Dinah, Ranjit, Anne, Damian—all through Dan and his loping enthusiasm for whatever is art and expressive life. Again, so many unnamed at 5:30 a.m. on a Tuesday before Thanksgiving… If you’ve met me, I like you, even if you disdain me to death for minding my business which is more often than not, anathema to yours.
Today I’d like to thank a new friend made by the Internet used as tool for passionate outpouring. O of Blurt and Ecency, the social media platforms that thrust a spike through the dull Zuckerburg skull, has done a small miracle. She did what so few of my friends are able to do, though I’m sure they mean well, yet rarely are we able to penetrate into the actual mental need jungles of others. O recognized me as an artist, a true one, which is nearly a man without label, the sense of being I shoot for everyday of my life. Robert and Stephanie understand this because they are sensitive poets. Mike too, and William, who offered the first compliment on my writing 22 years ago when I wrote that the President needs a fast death and slow cremation. Last month I sent O my book On Rainy Days the Monk Ryokan Feels Sorry For Himself, along with a couple slumpu in appreciation. She wrote back that she stopped in a mid-Santayana read to fit my book in her autumnal night’s life-giving regimen. And man, she actually read it, and commented on it, and complimented me on it, and then wrote that it was beautiful. And I get it! Finally! It is beautiful! An artist wrote it. A young Werther without label at a time in his life when everyone he knew had been labeled, put up on the shelf, marked up for sale, and sold. A young Werther ready, able, but unwilling for suicide in the prime of his life, when he couldn’t be more happy, and not a single soul notice. William said nearly the same 22 years ago, and few besides O have complimented my art through writing outwardly, with actual words and real praise. If I am wrong, and I often am, it’s because of the waves of silence to any new book I create. The soul killing crickets. One puts out his dreams and nightmares, and so few are curious to what another soul appears to be. No wonder I am a self—effacing, incriminating, hating, loathing, deprecating, maddening, questioning, and once in a blue moon, actually self-loving human being artist. I know the book is the perfect literal companion for twenty-somethings wondering at a world gone stark raving mad. I know this because I was and sometimes still am madness in a society that cannot elevate the artist past “mirror scourge of our desperation”.
Yesterday I received a package in the mail from O. She sent me a card of thanks, cash to support my art, and a hard copy allusion to one of my “episodes” in the book:
A bag of nickels!
If you read the book or my blog, you might recall my dream of the artist getting nickels from admirers/supporters. After 58 years, with 53 of them being the most expressive, I finally got my bag of nickels. Robert and Stephanie sent me silver (others too), and many have shown support by attending exhibitions, buying my art, following me here... And this care has been wonderful (actually often too much for my adrenaline to handle in normal, non-pouring out fashion.) But something hit with that package of nickels and support sent from O. It hit hard, but in a good way, like having satori whenever I trip on the sidewalk or smell a born again Bob Dylan tune in the autumn air like magic.
Yesterday I felt for the first time the recognition that comes to the unlabeled artist, steadfast and semi-pure of heart. It lasted to this morning, so that means it must be eternal. I just want to say with thankful depth how good it feels to be alive and living the creative life.
Thanks to you, and you, and you, O. I am forever in your debt of whatever a bag of nickels will fetch on the “artist of living” market.
Ron
