They Might Be Giants

I’m exhausted. The whirlwind of company, cooking, shopping, football on every one of one hundred and fifty-six channels, eating, shopping, cleaning and getting everyone packed and back on the road so that they could at least change clothes before they had to go back to work is draining.

So to even think about doing one more thing is like asking if I want a root canal without any pain meds. You’re kidding right?

No, I just want to lie here in the ruins of my house surrounded by turkey carcass and empty bags half soaked by the rains we’ve been having for the last forty day and forty nights, (What you thought that was just a biblical story without a shred of evidence or anchoring in history? No, it was what happened when the Lost Tribes passed through Oregon on their way back to the Middle East.), and I don’t want to think about doing anything no matter how rewarding. I want to be left alone!

But you know that won’t happen. In fact it won’t happen anytime soon, it won’t happen in this life, on this planet, on this trip through the Cosmos.

Have you ever noticed that the people who get the most done, have the most energy, have the greatest obligations and the most serious talents and demands on their time are also the nicest, most generous, most devoted, caring and focused people who will manage even in the face of their own overwhelming schedule to find time to do something for someone else.

Now I come from Texas where the men are men, and the women are men, and the sheep are nervous, and I lived in Dallas which is a banker’s city where even the most serious can be branded a slacker and a buffoon for just one slip on the social scale. Doing art for anything other than cash on the barrel-head is just about the silliest thing anyone ever heard of.

So coming to the Edge of the Earth, where people take time to look out the windows for some reason other than trying to change lanes is a new experience. There are grown men who go into downtown Coos Bay and don’t have on a shirt and tie, not a jacket or sports coat in sight and they might just do it again tomorrow.

This is strange and wonderful stuff indeed. And to find that the most gifted artists in a community of gifted artists, (You have to be nationally known just to be ahead of the crowd and there better be a magazine spread or a television piece on you and your work or buster you are just one of the regular guys.)

But if you walk up to one of the many nationally known artists living in the Coos Bay area, you will be greeted, invited to see their studio, which is located in their home, where you will be asked to have a bite or a drink and if you show even the slightest bit of social grace you’ll get invite back.

And should you come with a job which needs doing and no one willing to step up to the plate, you’ll find a volunteer, ready to set their own work aside and get their sleeves rolled up and pitch right in until the job gets done and not just done but done like only a world-class artist can do it, done right, done the first time, done without nagging.

And then they’ll come up with a half dozen bright ideas about what you and the community can do to promote art and artists and while they are at it they might just donate some of their own extremely valuable art to help kick start the whole she-bang.

You want something done ask a busy person. These guys are busy. Have you ever noticed, and it takes some effort cause they don’t go around banging the “Look-at-me-drum”, how many of these exceptionally talented people have second and third abilities which would in any ole ordinary Joe be a first rate talent?

They don’t just do art in the visual media, they cook or sing or play or take over the world. No, they don’t actually, but they have the talent to do it if they would just stop being so devoted to helping out other folks.

Need a bit of guidance or advice? Ask and you’ll get the top-drawer answer from someone who’s been there and done that and don’t need no stinkin’ T-shirt to tell the world what they have accomplished.

Have you noticed how many of these gifted clever and motivated people have taken a different approach to find fine art in something that would otherwise be just a craft? You don’t think so? Wait until the Ken Means exhibit opens next week. This ain’t your momma’s carousel I guarantee!

So why mention it if they don’t ask for it and do all of this without it and seem to have an inexhaustible supply of energy for doing all of the things that they do and then doing things for others and still managing to get the art that they burn for out of their ever so creative heads and onto the canvas or into the wood or even in a kiln?

Because we, the rest of us not so talented people are better, richer and more challenged by the few who do so much with so little prompting and do for so many.

So in this season of giving, take the time to look around you and acknowledge the people who do so much every day to make your world a better place.

The sad truth is there are places where the natives aren’t so lucky, so be positive, be open and be ready and when one of the people who never rest does one of those things which they shouldn’t do because it is so nice and generous, grab it and let them know just how grateful you are to be living at the edge of the world where giants still walk!