A dictionary fell open to the Morse Code entry.
A reimagined alphabet into the dots and dashes. It reminded me of my lost scouting years and hidden spies, of the western railroad expansion and dueling cryptologist sneering over the Iron Curtain, the rhythmic fist signatures of retreating Viet Cong patrols.
Morse code was the tom-tom drums of the industrial revolution, and like all the obsolete tongues has fallen on hard times and deaf ears.
I paint in these dots – dashes like the P.O.W. tapping woes in an empty cell as the aged turnkey laughs. A disheveled nests of punch drunk colors and incontinent brush strokes that slowly encrypt the memories and dream poems of those who raised, loved, and befuddled me. In the end I am left with undecipherable paintings, limped and bruised, trying to make amends for spitting at my elders in a language meant to be heard
...not seen.
...a folklore belief
If you wanna attract a ghost… start a painting,
if you wanna kill the ghost… finish it.
