Rooftop Phoenix

I believe it was the summer of 2002. For about five months I had had a severe case of "artist's block". I could not execute any creative idea, even if one had entered my head.

On a particularly hot day, I was up on my roof. Why I thought that getting 19 feet closer to the Sun would be cooler I don't know, but that was my belief. As I stood gazing at the stairwell structures that lead to the roof I was instantly cosmically inspired...I ran back down to my apartment to grab a yellow China marker. In a blur of a vision of a heat-induced delerium I realized how awesome the yellow of the China marker would look on the black paint/tar/sealant surface of the stairwell structure.

I began an intricate abstract design. Soon my hands and arms were black from the residue of the paint/tar/sealant surface. I had no idea what the final design would look like. The design flowed out of my wrist as though I were merely a conduit for the creation of...of...of... something.

In about ten minutes the design had been completed. It looked incredible. I stepped back and admired it from many different angles. Flawless.

To the best of my knowledge I have never been hit by a literal lightening bolt, but in this instance I had experienced the same effect. I had been jarred, shocked, jolted by some force to allow this creation to come out of me. Etched in my mind is the visual of returning to my apartment with pretty much my entire upper torso covered in a dusty blackness. Although it is kind of a cliche to say these days, in that moment I truly "felt alive". The creative blockage I had previously experienced disappeared. Washed away as I scrubbed my body free of the blackness.

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When my sister was in town last November, I took her and my brother Stan up to the roof to take a look at the gorgeous skyline view on display. When we got to the roof I discovered that, unbeknownst to me, the building super had recently "resealed" the entire roof in with a fresh coat of silver paint/tar/sealant. My design was gone. Like most of my artwork, it now "belonged to the ages"

While I cannot say that I was not disturbed by the loss of a familiar visual element of my own doing, the feeling of loss and mourning was short-lived. In a flash it hit me. The fresh coat of paint/tar/sealant had destroyed my artwork, but it provided an unblemished new canvas for a new creation.

The first day the mercury reaches 75 degrees you will know where to find me. Up on my roof creating something bigger and better...I cannot be stopped.

Art