Mr. Black Died Six Days Ago

I was just thinking about him, just talking about him actually.  I think Hemingway got me thinking about Mr. Black.  Hemingway and Black don't have anything in common,  except maybe the white beard, but there was something someone said about Hemingway that got me thinking about Black.  I don't even remember what it was now.  I was also thinking about Black because I'm reading poetry and fiction more than usual, which over the last few years had been not at all.  It takes a long time for the rigors and mindsets of academia to leave the system.  

Mr. Black taught me about perspective, texture, Dadaism, that colored pencil drawings need to pop and for them to pop you have to put your back into it.  I made one of my favorite pen and ink drawings under his tutelage.  My mother had it framed and it's still hanging on the wall in their back hall.  Mr. Black was one of the old guard and he tended to intimidate most of the students who encountered him.  He still lived in the pre Post Modern world.  His style hearkened back to ads you see in Time Magazines from the 1950's.  He didn't get in on fads.  He rarely gave out A+'s.  He grunted if you had questions.  He positively yelled at those who wasted his time or, worse, were wasting theirs.  He was a grumpy second generation German-American.  He was so much more than that.

He told me I had potential.  I could really create some great things.  But.  But.  I was holding myself back.  I needed to give into the creative side more.  I was too concerned with structure and rules to really realize what I was capable of.  So, he lent me fiction.  It was fiction they didn't have in the school library.  Eduction at that school went only so far and would stop abruptly before it would offend any sensitivities.  I don't think you could even find Hemingway on those shelves.  The books he lent weren't very good by literature standards.  He knew that.  The school would not have been pleased he was loaning them out.  He knew that too.  The point of the books was for inspiration, a tap to access the right brain, to introduce a young artist's mind to images and worlds outside the strict Doric boundaries of a private, religious education system.

Mr. Black was an ally in a soulless place.  He knew the darkness inside those of us who inhabited that school on the fringes.  In his own gruff way he taught some of us that contrary to what we're learning in the other 90 minute sessions, a little darkness is just fine.  They kept him up on the second floor in the back corner where they thought he couldn't cause too much trouble.  He still did, quietly under the radar.  In a realm of black and white rules, with a Victorian sense of morality laced with hypocrisy, with a collective soul as dark and putrid as the world that it judges, there was an art teacher who kept generations of outcasts, teen philosophers, dreamers, and timid artists sane.   He died six days ago.  He lives in countless doodles, sketches, water colors, sculptures, screen prints, oil paintings, and photos created by those generations.

I Found Myself Within A Forest Dark

When I was about fourteen or fifteen I picked a hefty volume off the shelf in my bedroom.  Like all the other books in the classics collection my parents had purchased for me when I was an infant, it was bound in leather with gilt etchings in the cover and golden page edges.  I have no idea why I chose The Divine Comedy over the other classics on the shelf like Wuthering Heights  or Robinson Crusoe, but I did.  For some reason the medieval poetry didn't stop me from reading through Inferno or Purgatorio, but somewhere I faltered in Paradiso, exhausted.  Like Franz Liszt, I suppose, all my energy had been spent trudging through the darker realms of Dante's afterlife and I couldn't put much effort into the final rewarding conclusion.  Sometime later, I returned to Paradise and finished it.  But, it was a disjointed reading.  Well over a decade later, I've returned to that same volume to begin again from the start.  "Midway upon the journey of our life..."

Alighieri's unparalleled work has had quite the influence on the world.  Some say he was greater than Shakespeare.  His original written dialect became modern Italian.  The images of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven directly created the common held views of those places today.  The Bible itself makes vague mention of the afterlife, so Dante has filled in the blanks for the human imagination.  The Divine Comedy is one of the most significant works of literature and has permeated the Western psyche.  For example, I often refer to visiting the grocery store as a journey through the rings of Hell.

But as I began my second reading another parallel struck me.  In a day or so we will be hosting some family members from the US.  We've had many visitors come and go from our house since our relocation, but this case is unique in that these visitors will be experiencing their first ever trip outside of the United States.  This is a huge life moment for all of them, and I can imagine in many ways it feels a lot like standing in the middle of a dark forest wondering where to go.  Of course, here the parallel abruptly ends.  In no way can I compare a brief tour through the region to traveling through any part of the afterlife, let alone Hell.  But, thinking back to the first time I ever left home for some place more exotic than Niagara Falls, I do remember a sense of great trepidation, even fear.

There is nothing like one's first trip.  It's an experience that can never be repeated or compared to.  Everything, from going through customs to encountering "foreign" bed linens is a new and exciting experience.  While you feel like a fish out of water, you can't help but look forward to what's around the bend.  It's a rush, and at the end of the journey, brief or long, you find yourself a different person.  For many of us who keep planning trips, we're after that feeling of another scary thrill and the rewarding feeling at the end.  We never find the same one we had the first time we set foot off the plane.  But, the beautiful thing about travel is, it always provides that sought after new experience.  No matter how it goes down, we always come back a little more enlightened than before.

I have to admit, I'm very excited to be apart of someone's first step down the unlit path.  While we're certainly no Virgil, it is an honor so serve as guides.  It will be our first time serving that capacity to virgin travelers.  I expect that to be an experience in and of itself.  Hopefully, no one's journey over the next 10 days is anything like a Canto from The Divine Comedy, unless it is from Paradiso, of course.  My desire is for everyone to have a trip for which they are grateful to have taken when they "walked out once more beneath the stars."

No matter what happens, I'm sure to have a list of do's and don'ts to share with those who may be playing Virgil in the future.

Dungeons, Dragons, & Handmade Soaps

Summer time in this part of the world means it's also Medieval Fest season.  They range from small affairs to enormous festivals that draw people from all over the region.  These are popular events to bring children to so they can see jousting, hear some music, and watch all sorts of demonstrations from blacksmiths to falconry.  The adults like them because they're usually cheap, have plenty of food and drink, and they sport the best people watching this side of the Rhine.

Besides all the obvious reasons to check out a medieval faire, there is one other reason I try to get to at least one a year.  Believe it or not, these festivals are a great place to pick up some fantastic handmade goods.  Carpenters, potters, cobblers, soap makers, basket weavers, bookbinders, leather craftsmen, blacksmiths, and purveyors of home raised & crafted foods all have their wares for sale at medieval fairs.  Basically, these events are kinda like farmer's markets, except with choreographed violence and elaborate costumes.

At a recent fair, I picked up this leather book cover which the
book binder custom made while I waited.  The leather is local
and tanned with historic processes.  He also had bound books
with handmade paper and parchment.

Many of the vendors travel from fair to fair so they are used to speaking with tourists from all over.  Most of them are happy to discuss how they produce their goods and some (depending on what it is) can make custom products while you wait.  The prices are usually quite reasonable, and are a higher quality than anything you would find at a souvenir boutique.  Many of these items are also made in the historical traditions of the period and the vendors are quite proud that their products are authentic.

So, if you're looking for something different to do or are in the market for a unique gift or story, seek out one these medieval fairs.  There are even a few with a Roman theme, if you prefer gladiators and pickled olives with wine instead of knights and camembert sausage with ale.  One thing is for sure; you will definitely get a show.