Some of Them Left

By Sunday afternoon the studio had that particular after-party look: clips turned sideways, gaps on the wall, labels curling a little, the floor newly scuffed by people who had stood there looking.

People came in, looked closely, laughed, winced, pointed at things I had not noticed in my own work. That is one of the strange pleasures of letting people into the studio. Someone sees a creature’s sadness where I thought I had painted menace. Someone sees comedy where I thought I had painted dread. Sometimes they are right. Sometimes the work has been telling me something for months and I only hear it when someone else says it out loud.

Thank you to everyone who came by — whether you visited, talked, looked, lingered, or took something home. I am deeply grateful. The sale was, in part, a way to help send Joshua off to Berkeley, but it became something larger and stranger and sweeter than that: a weekend of people standing in my studio, meeting the work face to face.

A few of them left. Not all pictured here. Some went out under arms, some wrapped in paper, some after long conversations I wish I had recorded.