My Library

Oh horrors! This would really draw things out of proportion -- to have a show of my own paintings at a reception for my humble self. Parapsychologists would certainly think I was trying to become a psychic personality and was using the ASPR to flaunt my own art work. So I complained: "That would be too expensive for me. The trucking and all that (some of my paintings were quite large). The ASPR walls were not lit enough for artwork, and so some temporary light fixtures would need to be installed." Osis was undaunted. And when the Ladies Auxiliary got on my back about this I gave up and provided a budget for the costs -- which ultimately came to $164, and which was reimbursed from somewhere. The labor, though was something else. It took me, with Jim Merriweather’s help, two days to get the lights and install them. And so I would get to see some of my outer space paintings displayed against the ladiesroom pink walls. I was quite early in my outer space period, which lasted from 1971 through 1977. My goal was to make ART out of the star fields, not merely sweetness-and-light or science fiction illustrations of them. The storm came as a gigantic meteor falling out of space, on about 17 May 1972. When I arrived that day for work, I found Janet a wreck, and she had obviously been crying.