Threat of Stars at 912 Main

Начало книги

Michael Martin, the photorealist, is alive and well and painting in Houston, and nearing the completion of his best work to date. That’s a great capsule bio, isn’t it? Especially considering the rest of the whole truth. He nearly ended up either dead or disappeared off the face of the Earth.

It was a close call as to which outcome it would be. And the irony is, I wasn’t looking for a new painting idea that night. Or for trouble either. It all just happened out of the clear, black, night sky.

Thursday night, July 22. The art opening was going great at first. My paintings had a white wall to themselves, with track lighting that showed them off to best effect. The rest of the group show at the Hart Gallery was strong, too. We had Thaddeus Cooper’s Afro-American-motif collages, Tam Adkins’s surrealist paintings, sculpture from the studio of Ben Glaze, and drawings in charcoal and crayon by Roger Easterling. There was only one mistake in the show—a messy, three-dimensional, mixed-media piece, situated in a corner between Thaddeus and Roger, so I wasn’t sure which of the two was responsible. At least it wasn’t dragging my stuff down. I’d already spoken with a potential buyer, a lawyer with offices downtown. He sounded serious about buying my painting, “Bayou Gothic Skyscraper.”

Читать дальше →