October Opulent & Owing
The monthly newsletter from the screen porch in Roundagator, population 1 until he returns from painting at the bridge. Wilbur sleeping in a pile of golden leaves in the sun.
October 29th 8:37 am
hello, good morning, happy sunday.
It will never rain again.
In Alabama at the beginning of spring I remember him praying, saying, I know we all wish the rain would quit. But I know at some point we will be wishing it would start again.
Do you think I can remember it?
I believe I can.
The chickens out in the yard kicking leaves around, they race flapping every morning to join the cats for breakfast time. Wilbur making peace with Baby Kitty, the whole pack. Yesterday it almost felt like fall in the morning, smiling, thinking, bright blessed days. dark sacred nights.
The house despite it’s windows and glass door, never seems to catch the full light of day, sunrise distantly but never sure what hour - never plain. Yesterday on the bridge reading about the man calling the hour by the seven stars up above, reading about how the raccoon was a hant-haint-ghost because they couldn’t ever catch it, not with his best bugle dog. Tracking the stars it was past midnight and Sunday, back luck to stay hunting. Yesterday on the bridge in the absolute quiet, birds clicking and burbling over a dried out bayou. Bald eagles twisting hugely in the air, black day stars, gone.
Last night, for a place that never catches the sun, the full moon moved blue and sleepily all through the house.
He wrote a whole short story about The Sound, and all of a sudden he’s sitting there at the breakfast table, on his way to pick up turkey trumpets down the road. All of a sudden they’re talking about either booger den or booger bottom, and his men were so superstitious. That’s something that disappeared within a generation. Everybody used to carry a toby bag. And he pulled over on the side of the road with his grain truck, shut it off, and died right there. We had to sell the truck, no one would drive it again. He’s one of the kind they grow out here, absolute jet propulsion from fantastic story to fantastic story, complete with voices and hand gestures. He taught at Delta State and it was good to hear him say, foundations class, we did that mainly to remind people they have an imagination. Sitting at the table he said something like, it still amazes me. It’s like something else. I can sit down to make a piece and know exactly how it’s going to look. But the changes that happen while I’m working make it better, the changes out of my control.
Welty wrote - “Children, like animals, use all of their senses to discover the world. Then artists come along and discover it the same way, all over again. Here and there, it’s the same world. Or now and then we’ll hear from an artist who never lost it.”
I’ve made paintings that go from night to day, day to night. All of the colors of the rainbow, push them around a little bit. What a luck.
I guess the cool weather brings the snakes to the warm black road, I wanted to know how the fat moccasins keeps from falling into the deep cracks in the dry land.
It’s getting cold on Tuesday, or it’s supposed to. Cooked cabbage low and slow all afternoon Friday. Woke up late this morning after watching the moon walk through the house, gumbo made before sunrise all in the air. Like a big long group prayer. Makes you feel good all the way through. Saved, secure. He said one time, we’re rich. He said for most of his life he’s lived below the poverty line. Way out down on the county line. It’s bad to live like this, all in your own world, makes reality harder to accept. Golden leaves falling, wind chimes, time like molasses, pretty and distinct and slow and rich.
Made it out west briefly this month, it seemed like way out west to me, past the Mississippi River and everything, studying the road carefully to determine what makes it different, what makes it the west, and I couldn’t find anything. Thinking this is how people drive through Mississippi. Same old boy playing guitar at the Italian restaurant. She said her friend moved from Michigan and the sky was too big in this western place, thinking about how big it is back home. He gets a little claustrophobic just to go to Water Valley.
Crop report: Field report: everything is up, the world is wide open again, I never noticed that water tower out there before. Where are those lights coming from? I don’t think a road even runs out that way. Clean, bright, tidy. On the bridge yesterday, his dad on the big tractor with the rollers pulled up but as wide as the bridge, and him on the little one, I exclaimed, that’s an actual kid behind the wheel. Out with his dad on a Saturday afternoon. All of the farmers that drive by and slow down to see the painting look about eighteen. The grain trucks have all but stopped roaring the home road. It’s so quiet in his studio next to the little bayou it almost makes your ears hurt. A pulsing silence. No more roaring trucks, only some tractors of every kind now and then. No more crop dusters, no more well water pumps. He cut down the golden rod because it had quit goldening. Our winter garden straggling on despite the weather being anything but right. Cotton wrapped in bright yellow plastic heading into the hill country. He said, it looks like a housing development from a distance, there’s so many of them, so tidy, if everyone just painted their houses yellow. It looks more like autumn up in the hills.
River report: heavy sand, we walked nearly to Arkansas from Rosedale, Mississippi, where they tore that building down because it had flooded so bad a decade ago or more. Heavy sand, tall pretty willows, and the sun barely come up. The Great River Road. We walked so far we lost sight of where we started. Sand burs so bad he thought it was bees crawling his legs. Sat down at the bank under the big sky of our south and marveled for a little while. Unprepared to stay, daunted by the walk back under a late morning sun. Strange patterns, a snake switching, the feller had a long way to go. Looking like the map of the river itself. He said you can find the best fossils where the river bends on the right side, explaining with his hands how it moves. A statue of a centaur appeared in front of the old juke joint. But what do it mean?
There are still stories here. There is still work to be done. The stars look the brightest under a cold dark sky.
Thank you, as always, with a very full heart. Thank you to everyone who made it out to The One Night Stand at Ole Miss Motel - it is always overwhelming in the very best way. I still have never figured out how to get to talk with everyone, and i am real sorry to have missed getting to catch up with everybody. Thank you to the friends that came from Euclatubba and Bruce and Water Valley and Hackleburg and Jackson and all over. There was one feller in particular who must have stood there for twenty minutes and i never got the idea he was trying to buy work or anything, i really thought he was waiting on somebody, and if he reads this i am really sorry in particular.
Up next is a show at the 100 Men Hall in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, November 11th from 4 pm - 8 pm. The Hall is both beautiful and historic, and it feels real special to be able to do this in the town that gave me my first solo show way back in 2015. Looking forward to being back among friends.
(https://100menhall.com/collections/tickets/products/church-goin-mule)
There is a chance of a pop up in December here in the Delta - it’ll be in the newsletter in November. Otherwise, you are always welcome for a studio visit after the 100 Men Hall show. Next up will be a show at The Little Green Store in Hunstville, Alabama, in February 2024. It seems like she asked for Real Big Work so i’m planning to do my best.
You can always find prints and shirts here:
https://churchgoinmule.threadless.com/
Truth is, haven’t been listening to very much music recently. Or podcasts, or anything. Keeping to myself, quiet, out in the fields and in the studio and making the blues up myself, all in my whole body, blues. But this song has been stuck in my head for a little while. Louis Armstrong again. Got the blues real bad at the beginning of the month, homesick for family in New Orleans, how things used to be. He makes it feel a little better. i cover the waterfront, i’m watching the sea.