two hundred seventy-two

Minutiae might be the word -- or perhaps gestalt.  There are many elements making this story.  Each is important in their own right -- or not.  Maybe the whole story is better.  You decide.

3am.  Can't sleep.  Not an unfamiliar experience.  Current work/life scenario affords me a studio a short

The way it is.

stroll from my bed.  And well heck, there's plenty of naps that happen in the studio and drawings in the bed -- but I digress.  Get up, suit up, and go work on a drawing.  It's big.  Lotsa layers.  And perfectly sizes up the life around me at the moment.  And dang it, life has prevented me from getting into the studio all frickin' week.  So, Friday at 3 am, the muse continues to call.  She will not shut up.  I get up and follow.  It's much better if you submit and simply follow.  Wish granted.  The current drawing evolves.

Now, getting up in the wee hours to make art is a normal thing for me.  18 years normal.  But this Friday was different.  It is on the calendar that this day Les III travels to Greensboro to share artful experiences with fourth graders.  The program is called Artists In Schools.  It's a 35 + year program brought to you by the Guilford County School System and the Green Hill Center for NC Art.  It's a fourth year honor to be on board with this program.  I teach a body language/collaboration/art history lesson/drawing project while also sharing a bit about being a working visual artist.  All in about forty minutes.  And this is not as stressful as it may read -- just an intense forty minutes.  Many times.  In one day.  God bless the teachers. 

Art with class.

Today's AIS visit is out to the Doris Henderson Newcomers School.  Students here are from families relatively new to Guilford County, NC whose home language is not English.  Okay -- still not a stressful situation alone -- especially since this school plucks my heart strings.  My high school back in the day,  Ben L. Smith High, (Golden Eagles!) also taught English as a second language.  It was one of the biggest lessons I learned that real life is not going to be on the academic test.  And that people who aren't in your shoes are less likely to truly understand what your eyes see and your heart feels.  Again, I digress.  And I am already set in motion with this 4th grade school visit because the art teacher Miss Emilie Young shared with me what to expect back in December.  Well played.  Well played indeed because she wasn't in the four classes I taught on Friday.

At 6:30 Friday morning while I was breathing graphite dust in the studio Ms. Young emails me to express her sorrow over the recent death of her grandfather and her need to be with family.  Naturally.  My thoughts focus on her family. And with that prayer comes another thought -- maybe classes should be postponed today?  You know, visiting a school as a guest artist to teach art classes with students whose primary language is not English for four, forty minute sessions while on three hours of sleep.  The little things are starting to add up.  But I suit up.  Art is a universal language.  And I do it in my sleep.

-- holding their art high.

The classes were a dream.  The students eyes were big, focused, and sweetly framed their smiles.  It was like this all day in the elementary art studio.  There is magic in that classroom.  We all learned about collaboration.  We all laughed about Exquisite Corpse.  We all felt a little bit more familiar.  High fives, hugs, & smiles.  It sent me back to high school many times -- that moment when you realize humanity is present.  That notion -- when shared, transcends all barriers as long as folks are willing to let down their guard.  It's unclear which is more universal -- smiles or art.

And a bonus for me is I was able to share with the students two paintings that were on their way to a museum that day.  Oh yes, at the close of the four classes at 3p my day that started at 3am was not over.  The "Looking Up" solo exhibition needed to be delivered to the art venue.  Away we go to High Point, NC -- home of the Theatre Art Galleries (TAG).

"Hi Jeff, this is Les.  I realize I just called to tell you I was going to grab a bite of lunch.  Then I realized I was two blocks from the delivery bay.  Okay to go ahead and drop off the show? "

elevated

"Sure, Les.  Don't get too lightheaded from hunger," says Jeff Horney, Executive Director of TAG.  He personally meets me at the loading dock and we transfer the 15 paintings and 10 drawings into TAG's building.  This will be the fourth exhibition for "Looking Up" in it's entirety.  It's exciting and another line on the bucket list to cross off.

Jeff is a nice guy.  We take a brief tour of the stately facility.  The galleries are beautiful.  And one is full of a familiar painting style.  The rendered people are exaggerated just so.  Graceful.  Capable.  Expressing a pleasurable balance between refinement, sincerity, and immediate emotion.  Why it's Warren Dennis -- one of the inspiring art professors from my alma mater, Appalachian State University.  He is.  He.  His steps are with experience.  He uses a cane.  89 years old and still instills and perpetuates a drive to be creative just as he did 18 years ago.  We chat.  We laugh.  I thank him.  I thank him every time we meet -- which is always a surprise complete with mutual respect, fondness, and a tear.  He says to me "you're 40?!  And you're still making and showing art? Good -- there's no turning back now".  We say good bye.  His TAG show comes down soon.  Wonder where his art will travel to next?   I hope to see him again soon.

Warren Dennis!

Damn.  Now it's 5p.  I should probable eat lunch.  But before I leave TAG, Jeff places in my hand a stack of show cards.  Handsome are the images on the front.  And that looks like -- yep -- it's Jim Barnhill.  Jim's showing here too?  Yup.  And he's paired with Chapel Hill photographer, Barbara Tyroler.  Sweet.  Jim's a magnificent sculptor based in Greensboro, NC.  If you've ever tooled around Greensboro you've seen his work -- the figure of Minerva on the campus of UNCG, General Greene in the downtown traffic circle, and the majestic Four Men standing tall on the campus of A&T University where he is an art professor.  These upcoming exhibits are looking to be fabo.  Ah, but I'm truly fading now.  So I drive out of downtown High Point.

I drive to Hardees.  The man at the counter, with a big 'ole smile says "you look hungry."  I am.  But I'm also full from a big day full of little reminders of what humans are capable of when we pursue the good.