“Remoted” – Day 471 (Wednesday)

Twelve years ago, on this date I was “assembling my photos” for a group show in a Nashville art gallery. So it is written in  Facebook Memories and the “On this date” feed. The show was by “Underground 9,” a group my brilliant artist friend Terri Jordan conceived of and organized. Clarksville Online in Clarksville, TN called us “a rogue group of artists” in an article about a show we hung in a Nashville gallery with the theme “Sanctuary.” Or maybe we called ourselves that. It was long ago and far away and I didn't note that in my Facebook post so now I don't remember.

"Dancing Fringe" once hung in a
Nashville gallery. Now it hangs
in my kitchen.

Underground 9 members might be the same nine, might be a different group of nine, but there would always be nine in a show. We would hang shows with a central theme, and donate a portion of sales to a community organization.

The show we were preparing on in this date in 2009 was called “Tribal,” and would be up for Nashville’s July Art Walk event. My grouping for the Tribal show was photos taken at the Trail of Tears pow wow local to Clarksville, and featured the bells of dance skirts, fringe of shawls, birch baskets, and other sights specific to the Native American traditions displayed at the pow wow. Later in 2009, we hung “Sanctuary.”

It was a fun and exciting time living the life of an artist, being part of a tribe of artists and being challenged and inspired by the talent of others. I miss the camaraderie of the artist community in Clarksville and the manual labor of laying out and hanging shows. It was my intent to find that when I moved back to Massachusetts, but like so many other things including a social scene and romance, for whatever reason, it just hasn’t happened. The reason is probably me, as I am the common denominator to all that has not happened.

For now, I am pretty much a lone wolf which makes it tragically easy to just hunker down and hibernate, if not underground, pretty close to it. Being content does not help me one bit, either. For years (who am I kidding, it was decades) I was fueled by anger, which was a constant source for inspiration. With my level of pissed-offness gone now for many years, I have not created much. Without the anger, I've got nothing. It's like I need to add some crappy conditions to my life  for no other reason than the creativity generated in trying to escape the misery. I used to kiddingly say "Misery breeds creativity," when people asked about all the work I was producing, but damn, it's not very funny anymore, knowing it was actually true. Talk about a curse.