December 2020
**Christmas This Year**
Because of the pandemic, and the age of Marci's parents we did not celebrate our traditional family gathering. It was bittersweet. Marci made a Christmas decoration out of copper wire and we hung lights and ornaments from it. I called it the strangulation tree. It seemed to sum up what this year has been like. We baked and burned deserts, and overall it was a wonderful day. I did try to outnap the cat, but he won. Later we had friends over one at a time, offered up our burned deserts and sat around around a firepit on the back porch. I am glad that this year is over, though as bad as it has been, we are fortunate that so far we have not contracted the virus, we moved into our house, and I have had consistent support from my collectors, I can’t thank you all enough for keeping my head above water, and easing the struggles of getting through this difficult year. I am truly blessed and fortunate.
**Anniversary**
Yesterday was my 32nd anniversary moving to Marathon. I mentioned this last month, go to Full Moon archive on my website if you would like to read more.
**Our Sweet Home**
Marci and I moved into our new house in August, and though it is not finished, it’s done enough that we can taste what it would be like completed. Friends warned us there is danger of not completing the building once you move in, but the upside is it is giving us slow contemplation. Living in it, an idea you may have thought would work, is shadowed by a new perspective. I have six closet doors and I have only put two handles on because I am nervous that they wont be parallel, even, and straight. Each hole drilled has to be perfect. We’ve gone from a 500 sq. ft house to 1680 sq. ft. Still small, really, but it feels like a mansion comparatively, beautifully designed, and as custom made as a tailored suit. I show Marci a piece of my art, one image at a time over years on a piece of photographic paper, and now she shows me hers, as three dimensional space, you live, breathe and sleep in.
**Target, Marathon**
After a few years of vandalism “Target Marathon” was demolished by the owners of the property for fear that someone would get hurt. It was a spoof on the Prada, Marfa. It was not art, though it was very well done, and another roadside attraction for Iphone photographers and tourists. I enjoyed the sense of humor of the person that constructed it. E Dan Klepper made a good observation yesterday, that though the structure is gone, they did not destroy the steps or the pad. Now there is a stage or platform for artistic opportunity. One of a kind, here today gone tomorrow, statements. Let’s see if that happens.
**A Book Review**
Flash Of Light, Wall of Fire
There are a few books in my personal collection that are very difficult to look at. “Without Sanctuary” a collection of lynchings in America. James Nachtwey’s Inferno, which I’ve never gotten completely through. Emmet Gowin’s Changing the Earth, though it’s so beautifully photographed, that it’s only after you read what you are looking at you gasp. U T Press has produced an amazing book of a horrifying subject. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The images were taken by itinerant photographers, some on the ground at the time. Some professional, some not. The American military and Japanese government kept close reigns on what the public saw. These images were smuggled and hidden for years, and many in this collection, now housed at the Briscoe Center for American History, have never been seen by the public. There is a softness to the images, maybe due to lens quality or that everything is smoking, but it only adds to the heaviness of the subject. In the year of the Coronavirus, it is a perfect time to be released. You realize things can always be worse, but more importantly, atomic bombs should never be used again. That man has the ability to destroy all human existence, and nuclear disarmament should be the goal of all nations. These images will get you as close to a nuclear detonation as you want to be.
I wish you all a happy and healthy new year. I look forward to the day I can safely give you a big hug, a big kiss, and a hearty handshake.
Happy Full Moon. Get Outside.