Saturday, March 17, 2007

significance, full forward, feet and flowers

I really wanna post, but I feel like everything I say would be inadequate next to my brother having a baby.

But who cares, I'm here and this is this anyhow.

I walked many miles today, for about 6 hours. I left my house and walked downtown. Then I half-decided to begin walking up the road towards campus. I stopped at Daniel's work to write and say hello, and 2 hours later I was standing up 1000feet above where I had come, looking back down onto the bay with the tiniest pinprick of a point on my landscape where I could see from whence I'd come - then I kept going up and up into the sunniness until I found the Art Department Open Studios, where I spent the next hour and a half looking at the senior art projects for the Art majors here on campus. It was here that I realized something pretty astounding: our Dad is a professional artist! How d'you like that?!? Dad, our one and only, into professional art. And I kid you not. I say this because at the art department on-campus there's a "printing room." I was walking through the open studios and I smelt something familiar, like the paint thinner smell of Dad's old work. Lo and behold, it was coming from the printing studio. I go inside, and there are big printer machines everywhere, just like Dad's work, and a bunch of art majors using them, just like Dad. And just then I made the impossible connection: DAD is just like an Art Major! In other words, Dad is an Artist! A craftsman! A professional! And a skilled one at that, I mean he does this every day, sometimes 6 days a week! He's no different than the rest of us, and I would have never guessed I'd come to this realization. It's like the old saying goes, if you can't beat em join em. I fight against Dad's work my whole life, for some reason, and then one day like today I finally wake up and realize the upmost legitimacy, if not downright respectable creativity, of Dad's craft!!!!

Well Dad, I apologize for treating you so unpleasantly before about your work- I think I finally understand.

Anyway, the rest of the day consisted of a final meeting with my professor Peter Mostkoff, an interesting hitched ride back down from campus, and climbing up on the roof of a friend's house to take pictures and talk into the fog before nightfall. That was my day, a first full day off in months, if not years. It's nice and sad to be back, er, forward I guess you might say. It just means another significant shift.

So ciao guys. There's my journal entry. Lates yo.
Love Mikie

3 comments:

heather said...

mikie, thank you for being the brave one to first post after that glorious display by matt. it was a hard act to follow, and you did your humble best. anyway your day sounds awesome, and i like the realization you came to. maybe everyone is an artist in a way...the fish man at safeway? anyway does this mean you are done with school? i am never quite exactly sure what is going on with that. love you dearling!

Papa Dan said...

Oh Mikie. You don't have to apologize at all. I listen and learn from you all the time, but I never did take serious your comments about my work. Remember what we talked about--It's your own choice if you want to take offense when it's put upon you, or you can just feel confident enough in yourself to know different. Does that make sense?? I love you pal.
Dad

Susan said...

Sounds like a beautiful day from the surf to the mountaintop. I would have loved to see all the art in the art department too. When are you coming for a visit? Love you, Mom