Martin Guderna

“I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”

Joan Didion

I have a good friend that is becoming a better friend from one day to the next. My artist friend, Martin Guderna, is the only person I can call after 10pm who will always answer the phone.

Today in our lengthy conversation I noticed a slight difference of opinion.

Guderna, would probably state, that if there is nobody around in a forest when a tree falls, then the tree will not have fallen. He says that an artist has the obligation to show the work. It is for this reason he will exhibit his paintings in a gallery.

I had many shows in my past and Rosemary often told me how much money I was spending in framing and matting and that nobody ever bought anything. I now feel guilty when I see my piles of matted photographs and how Rosemary, in spite of the terrible expense, backed my efforts to show my stuff.

After talking to Guderna today, I thought of Didion’s statement on why she writes. Every evening around 9:30 I am shown by Facebook about 8 or 9 blogs from the past years with today’s month date. I have written (as of today including this one) 5898 blogs. It is impossible for me to remember all of them and even remember some of the contents.

So I have come to a modification of Didion’s dictum:

I read the blogs I have written to find out what I was thinking when I wrote them.

With that conclusion it is not in the least important if anybody uses emojis on my blogs links in social media (with perhaps not having read the accompanying copy). If anybody reads or not reads the blogs it is entirely irrelevant. 

I am in that forest and I did hear the tree fall.