@@@@@Mostly to make conversation, I asked him 348
@@@@@Mostly to make conversation, I asked
him who would be giving the lecture at the Selby
Library
Dario looked at me with one eyebrow cocked, as if
I had made a joke"The one person in the world
who is now conversant with your work," he said"I can't give a lecture! I don't
know anything about art!"
He swept his arm at the paintings, which Jack and
two part-timers from the Scoto were going to crate
and transport to Sarasota the following weekThey
would remain crated, I assumed, in the storage
area at the back of the gallery, until just before
the show opened"These say different, my friend
"Dario, these people know stuff! They've taken
courses! I'll bet most of them were art majors,
508
for Christ's sake! What do you want me to do,
stand up there and say duh?"
"That's pretty much what Jackson Pollock did when
he talked about his workAnd
it made him rich Dario came over to me and took
me by the stumpVery few
people will touch the stump of a limb; it's as if
they believe, down deep, that amputation might be
catching"Listen, my friend, these are important
peopleNot just because they have money, but
because they're interested in new artists and each
one knows three more who feel the sameAfter the
lecture - your lecture - the talk will startThe
kind of talk that almost always turns into that
magical thing called 'buzz'"
He paused, twiddling the strap of his camera and
smiling a little
"All you have to do is talk about how you began,
and how you grew-"
"Dario, I don't know how I grew!"
"Then say thatSay anything! You're an artist,
for God's sake!"
I left it at thatThe threatened lecture still
seemed distant to me, and I wanted him out of
509
thereI wanted to turn on The Bone, pull the
cloth off the painting on the easel, and go back
to work on Wireman Looks WestWant the dirty-ass
truth? The painting was no longer about some
hypothetical magic trickNow it was its own magic
trickI had become very selfish about it, and
anything that might come after - a promised
interview with Mary Ire, the lecture, the show
itself - seemed to be not ahead of me but somehow
far above meThe way rain on the surface of the
Gulf must seem to a fish
During that first week of March, it was all about
daylightNot sunset light but daylig
