No. 156. The Floral Cardboards. His latest project had become his passion. Always in thrall to the elemental beauty of corrugated cardboard, the authoritative calm of its honeyed browns and its imperfect surfaces, he began painting big rough bowls of flowers, in raw black acrylic, on huge sheets of the stuff. He exhibited the paintings by mounting them, under glass, in ornate golden frames--usually Victorian. He loved the juxtaposition of his abject, upstart cardboards and the dignity (possibly an outraged dignity now) of the opulent, venerable frames which now held them.
No. 155. The Canadianization of Emily.
His cousin, Persephone, was visiting from Detroit. He had asked Melissa to show Persephone around until he got back.
Melissa: ...and this is his portrait of the 19th century American poet, Emily Dickinson.
Persephony: Yes, I remember he was painting writers last year....
Melissa: Well, this is another one. Do you like it?
Persephone: I like the window,
Melissa: You see how the figure of the poet is made out of sheets of printed text?
Persephony: Uh huh.
Melissa: Yellow and blue seem sort of like Emily Dickinson colours.
Persephony: Do they? I haven't read much of her. I do like that patch of blue sky above her head.
Melissa: He says that's a representation of Dickinson's thinking.
Persephony: Oh.
No. 154. Carless Driver. He found himself searching endlessly, obsessively, for constructable images of the leaderless society he deplored being a part of. This search was born of a restlessness he seemed to share with everyone he met, talked to, read or watched online. This week's offering to the oblivion he so reluctantly inhabited was a hammered sheet of aluminum, cut in the shape of a driver without a vehicle. The driver's absurd attentiveness to nothing whatsoever, his concentrated piloting of an entirely imaginary automobile, struck him as both funny and bleak.
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