Times were getting financially difficult.

The art market had completely disappeared. Not that I was painting anymore. I was drawing sexy cartoons.

I had applied for a Guggenheim Grant, twice, which resulted in a couple of real interesting cartoons, but I was rejected both times.

I was beside myself with worry.

What to do?

I was 58 years old. Other than art, my resume consisted of working part time at an ice cream store when I was in high school.

If it was just me, I really wouldn’t care. I kept envisioning a life of living on the street doing art on found cardboard.

But it’s a whole different thing when you have kids.

They deserve a life.

I actually applied for a job as a veterinary assistant that was advertised in the local paper. I gave them a book from one of my shows in Japan as a reference.

I told them that I was allergic to cats, and asked if that would be a problem.

I laughed as I walked out the door.

They didn’t get back to me.

Renee suggested that maybe I could be a school crosswalk safety guard, as they made a relatively good hourly wage, and it would allow the time for me to do art.

God bless school crosswalk safety guards. I know a number of them personally. I gave a painting to one of them, who had a particularly compelling story to tell. It’s not like I see or saw that kind of work as being beneath me.

Just, well, it’s the kids.

I can’t afford to lose their respect.

The boy’s best friends, their father is Vice President of a major music corporation.

It’s that kind of a neighborhood.

I just didn’t think that they would be able to deal with seeing me doing that on their way to school every day.

What’s more, it just utterly killed me, to be in a situation in which Renee had to suggest such a thing. I’m used to being able to take care of my family. I was used to being very successful. Taking vacations. Treating my woman right.

Renee is a Goddess.

She deserves the best of everything, and I could give her nothing.

Still…..

Still…..

I kept coming back (in my mind) to my course, and everything I have done that brought me to this place and time.

Could I really have gone through all of that, just to now crash and burn?

I just couldn’t believe that.

As impossible as our circumstances seemed to be, in the deepest part of me, I thought that surely this must be the darkest moment before the dawn.

“Please Dear God, let that sun rise.”

********

Renee had lost her job as a Patient Rep in the ER of a major hospital.

Downsized.

This was a good thing.

She needed to get out.

I had picked her up every day after work for something like three or four years, and the stories that she would tell me on the way home pertaining to what she had experienced that day would cause my toes to curl.

I’d look at her with utter amazement.

How could anyone experience those kinds of things, and then do something so ordinary as walk to and get into a car?

Renee will be the subject of a future chapter in this project.

For now, suffice to say that she is the greatest woman that I have ever known.

********

Renee then coasted on her severance pay and unemployment.

She did a lot of writing and drawing and painting.

Those were happy times.

After having to deal with all that death and suffering, comforting loved ones in their deepest and darkest moments, it was so very good to see her be able to let go and simply create.

Along with all her other qualities, Renee is an exceptional artist.

I’ve had sixty solo shows, mostly in NYC. I’ve been to Japan eight times. But I just never felt that I had a single thing on Renee when it comes to art. When seen in the context of her entire life, every single thing that she does takes on monumental significance.

I’ve always found myself envying her and her art, but then I’ve always envied everyone I have ever known or met.

********

Renee’s next job was / is as an administrative assistant at the Wae Center.

The Wae Center is a five or ten minute drive from our house.

That’s nice.

The Wae Center is a creative environment for developmentally disabled adults – mostly people with autism and asperger syndrome.

There came a time when there was an opening for an art assistant.

I applied.

I was hired.

This was almost two years ago as I write this.

********

I have never, for my entire life, been personally comfortable around people.

It’s like I just can’t get with the program.

When I’m with others (the way I experience it) it’s like I’m always trying to be an actor in a play that has little or nothing to do with who I am.

Mostly, with others, I’m an observer. An appreciator. A fan. It’s like I’m forever watching everyone else’s movie, but nobody sees me. Nobody (well, hardly anyone) really engages me. The movie is always about them and what they think and do.

For all my life, hardly anyone has even begun to touch me – hardly anyone has so much as begun to approach or consider what I constantly think and do.

What do I think and do?

In any given moment, in any given interaction with another, what’s your first thought?

THAT is where I exist, all of the time.

I live in the moment.

It’s the only thing that is really real to me. Everything else is pretense, calculated, us and them, politically correct, being safe  - everything else that almost everyone else does all of the time is constantly moving farther and farther away from being real to me – farther away from being who I constantly am.

What’s more, nearly every single time I express the essential me (what I am thinking and feeling in the moment) it blows up in my face and causes all kinds of problems - even though I absolutely know that further down the line, the other will eventually come to understand that the things I say and do, for the most part, are obviously true, respective to that moment in time. What makes them seemingly not true is all the pretense, the calculated activity pertaining to the whims of the politically correct thinking of these times - yada, yada, yada – little or none of which has anything to do with core, other than being a passing fad that will soon go out of style like crew cuts have come and gone. It’s like I’m always talking bone marrow, and they are consumed with what to wear.

Does that make any sense?

I’m just kind of finally realizing this, as I write this.

********

Anyway, now I’m working at the Wae Center with “developmentally disabled adults.”

Developmentally disabled my ass.

These people are the most evolved people I have ever met in my entire life.

It’s like, at long last, I have found my tribe.

Do they have limitations as concerns their abilities?  Hell yes. Who doesn’t?

But with them, they wear it on their sleeve. It’s who they are and it’s completely accepted by them. It’s all up front. Deal with it. Everything is real. They think what they think, and they express exactly that.

They don’t even know how to be anything but. It’s like, to be anything but real, to do or say anything except what they are experiencing in the moment, has never so much as crossed their minds.

You simply cannot imagine how refreshing these people and this environment truly is. Spending time at the Wae Center is like visiting an advanced planet of sorts. No one could spend any amount of quality time there and not be deeply moved.

And it’s not just the members. It’s the quality staff.

I think there is something magical about the place that it attracts these individuals to work there. It’s like all the planets have lined up, in order to create this exact environment.

Special thanks to Marilynn, the founder, who is a real piece of work in and of herself – but is a pleasure and an ongoing wonder to work for.

I don’t care how successful I become in life, I don’t see me ever leaving the Wae Center.

I may cut down on my hours as I get older, but I simply cannot imagine life without the relationships I have made there.

It would be like leaving Renee.

Unthinkable.

I experience the Wae Center as being the center of the universe at this time.

I simply know of no other place that I consider to be more core when considering essential values as pertains to the individual.

********

I work in the art room.

Not all of the members visit the art room. Some of them don’t want to. Their interests are in theatre, or spoken word, music or dance.

But most of them come into the art room.

Those who do, their abilities vary.

I have no doubt that some of them will go on to successful careers as artists, as some of them have that kind of ability and drive. It is my fondest hope to somehow, some day, be able to open a few doors for them.

But what really amazes me, is how unique and special each and every artist and their work truly is.

If you showed me a Wae Center drawing, I would be able to tell you the name of the artist. No two are even close to being alike, just as no two individuals are anything alike.

Some of the artists I work with are very hands on. Due to their disabilities, all of my time with them is spent in assisting them.

But that’s not true of all of them.

Many do not require, or desire, my assistance.

But they like me to be there, to talk to them, while they do what they do.

Me, I like to do something too, so I spend my time drawing portraits of them, while talking to them. They seem to like that. They know that I am a professional artist, and many more or less appreciate the quality of my drawings – though none of them are the least bit intimidated by my work, as in feeling that “you’re good – I’m not as good” (the kind of response that you might find in any other art class in which the moderator is a professional).

They seem to recognize and accept what I do, but it in no way directly influences what they do (though I do see little pieces of me showing up in their work from time to time – which is good and natural. I’m a new experience. They are open to new experiences.)

I’ll often ask the other if they would like to have the drawing that I did of them.

Some of them will say no, so I don’t ask them again.

A few will ask for and take every drawing I do.

Others will take it, fold it up, and shove it into their pocket.

But by and large, I end up keeping the majority of what I do.

I never really thought much about these drawings. I just thought of them as being what I do to pass the time. I save them because I have always saved everything I do.

And then, one day, fairly recently, I started reviewing them.

I was blown away.

These are some truly amazing heartfelt drawings of rather intimate subjects. If the same had been done by a famous artist, they’d be hanging in a museum, as the quality of the work is clearly evident.

It reminded me of something that Tim Boone once said about my essays.

He said that sometimes he will read them, and not be the least bit impressed – but at other times, he will be deeply moved by the exact same essay. It’s all in how you look at it. What often determines what you see, is what you yourself bring to the table.

I sent Tim Boone all of The Wae Center drawings from 2011.

I told him not to sell them.

I just want them sit, settle, until the time is right.

I want them to be appreciated.

Understood.

Respected.

Loved.