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The
Change
has been going on for quite some time now and I'm not sure when
it started. It's probably been going on since before I left
the womb. But for some unknown reason people all of my life
have been pointing me in this direction and now here I am telling
you this. Just like people have been pointing you in this direction
or that direction and right now our paths have crossed for just
a minute. Some have lit up the way and some have tried to bury
an ax in my brain, so to speak. Except for my book covers, I
did sell them but not in the traditional sense, I've never sold
any art, (in the traditional sense), that I can remember. But
if my mother could come back from the grave she might say, "
Don't your remember that year I offered you $50 if you would
paint me a picture?" And I painted one and it was probably
the one she said, no I don't want that one I don't like the
face over there on the side. It's the one I spent $50 having
framed and I remember the girl at the frame shop saying, "do
you know the artist?" I figured it was her way of being
nice. My parents used to ask for my paintings for Christmas,
and I remember one time my dad saying, "Can't you paint
any of the people so that they have clothes on?" He keeps
my pictures back in his dressing room. I guess he thinks they
might get some clothes on eventually. Or he doesn't want his
friends to think he's a pornographer. And my brother got into
it. He asked me to do a book cover for three of his books. I
loved doing them and ever since then, and even way before that,
I've been sporadically going back to my art. In one house I
even set up an art room where I could leave my oil paints out
over night or all week long, forever if I wanted to until I
was ready to paint and clean brushes again. Then I remarried
and had another baby. I couldn't very well leave my art out
anywhere then. The house we lived in was small. My art just
vanished for a while. Then my brother suggested I get a really
great computer. No I don't think he did, I remember we both
just got a hankering to spend a lot of money on the latest and
greatest Mac we could buy. And then each of us with in a few
month had a new Mac. He suggested I get Dreamweaver and I did.
And then I'm not sure if he suggested it or not but he probably
did, or just talked about it without suggesting it. But I got
a whole package, a bundle it was called, of Adobe products and
just started reading the manuals and making little pictures.
Simple pictures like any 6 year old could do, like all my art
but different somehow because it was on a computer. I didn't
have to worry about cleaning up oil paints or putting away everything,
just turn it off. And my baby, then, almost 4 was on the old
Mac right beside me playing Put Put goes to the Moon and Pajama
Sam and all those early software games we could find. We would
spend hours together just playing on our computers. Things have
been speeding up though ever since last February when my brother
offered to be partners in taxi1010, Full partners, and all I
had to do was make a few pictures. Richard does the text and
layout. Now I've got over 90 pictures in our site. We update
taxi1010 daily. The change in me, I'm not sure I can say what
it is just yet. But I'm different. I'm sure I'd be different
even without my art, but I love my art. My art is my tool for
something wonderful. And it's hard to explain. It's like trying
to explain child birth to a woman pregnant for the first time.
You can't really explain it, but you know what it is. It's like
that with my art. Something is really different now. It's taxi1010.
It has changed me. It's by our working together we have created
something greater than either of us alone could ever do. Every
week one or two of our many visitors stays for an hour or more.
Some people book mark us. Some people run away real fast, like
they're afraid they might see something true. You might read
taxi1010 and see it, digest it over time come back again. Maybe
you'll be surprised and pleased at the changes you'll see.
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