Pictured at an Exhibition

Pictured above is the last picture I’ll likely take at a Springfield gallery. The happy duo are connected to Barney’s Furniture, the best place in the tri-county area to buy furniture, and if not that, at least the furniture store with the best looking family.

So why am I posting the picture? After all, I announced a few weeks ago that the CIVAG visual artists website will be deleted at the end of May because the support just didn’t happen. I’m not crying over spilt sour grapes; just updatding new readers. That said, visual art is still part of my soul, and I intend to return to future gallery receptions “with Christmas in my heart” to paraphrase Vachel,  but without a camera in my hand. The change in attitude was inspired, in part, by an encounter Wednesday with talented painter and poet Aspasia Sonia Lang.

The location was her workplace, also the home of a local history collection of great interest to me. During CIVAG days, I’d look for her when I visited the tremendous facility to simply say “hello.” After announcing the end of the web page, however, I’ve felt like the kid who dug up his neighbor’s flowers and was caught in the act. In other words, no more “Hello Mrs. Wilson” from me.

As I waited for the elevator, Sona approached me with a magazine in her hand: the April 9, 2007 The New Yorker. The last time I had encountered her at work, the management had just discontinued offering used magazines for sale for 25 cents a piece. Except for a generous gift from some (then-)friends, this place had been my sole source for what has been my mind-manna for more than 10 years. I asked her to keep an eye open for issues of my favorite magazine heading for the recycling bin, and she said she would. I was struck by the fact she had seen me waiting for the elevator and had been saving that issue of TNY for such an occasion.

She looked at me as though I were a ghost in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and for the visual arts community — and other arts communities as well, apparently — I am. Can a person be dead and not know it? That’s a tough one. The saving grace of the chemistry during the encounter is that I’m not a threatening or hostile ghost. You may call me Casper if you like.

We had a pleasant enough conversation. Though I had not contacted anyone who had been featured at CIVAG, she or her friends had visited the website and the entire grapevine was aware of the coming termination of the site. Of course she didn’t ask if its fate could be prevented; the answer I would have given was as predictable as sunset, and as everyone knows, it’s easier to write a flowery obituary than it is to send food. I assured her (as I had posted at CIVAG) that her painting would always be part of whatever incarnation of continuing attention I devote to the arts, and I meant it. She’s been as valued a friend as I’ve had in recent years, and I wish her only the best.

It will be awhile before I visit another gallery, but visit I shall. I was okay for months when there was close to no acknowledgement of CIVAG, when attending receptions and swallowing all the Merlot and finger food I could hold for Saturday or Thursday dinner was a big deal. But the stakes are higher now. It will be interesting to see if I’m as amusing as an arts fan as I was as an arts webmaster.

Live long . . . . . . and proper.