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| Found Colored Glass Chards Between Two Windows |
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| In Bill's Early New Mexico Years, He Lived in Homes that He Built or Modified by Hand as Here |
He Rejected, or, even, Refused, the Ordinary Life and the Ordinary Ways
Bill never lived the ordinary life in the ordinary way. He did not view everyday matters as routine. It is difficult
to explain his peculiar and singular manner of interaction in the World. Many found him frustrating because he would not relate
to matters of money, fame and prestige as our society might expect. There were occassions when his life as a prominent Taos
Artist brought him into contact with the powerful or the well known. He made it his habit to not only resist the coddling
that celebrities of the time expected but also to kindly remind them of their humanity--as if to tell a movie star that he
didn't care for the their last movie as much as their earlier work or to point out to a model some defect of their presentation
as if a bugger on their nose. He did these things sincerely in the manner of being present. And, it might seem that
someone accustomed to pampering might not appreciate such straight forward rough faire from a somewhat hermetic contemplative
such as Bill but the result was always quite the opposite--they found him authentic, complete
and real and the "treatment" both endearing and enduring--not a put off in even the slightest. Perhaps they would allow
no other person such a license to dispense plain dealing--but they came to expect, and treasure, it from Bill.
On his one trip to Europe, late in his life, to Paris, he wanted to see a few paintings by relatively lesser knowns.
After long struggle to find the paintings he wanted to see, he visited the Museum of the City of Paris and found a particular
artist's work. Everyone assumed that after working so hard to find a remote painting he would naturally want to talk about
the painting as he left the museum but he did not--that was not what was on his mind. Instead, he would only say
and repeat "can you believe that... can you imagine how difficult that is for those people...." Nobody
with him could imagine what he was saying. It took prying and finally he said this of the security personnel (who sat on either
side of one of the paintings--looking quite stern) in the museum "those poor people have to sit by that painting
looking serious all day long, day after day, for a whole working life... it just isn't right."
Bill could never reckon
youth engaged in "weight training" because he viewed it as a waste of precious energy. He figured that they ought to be, at
the least, making houses for people who had no muscles of their own such as the elderly or impaired. Thus, in his view, they
would be "buff" and the World would have one more home for, say, an old single lady who couldn't find a place to
live. It might not make sense to a serious weight trainer but it was perfectly obvious in Bill's mind and sensibility.
People ought not waste resources to meet goals that could just as easily be met while also creating--that was his view of
things.
Bill found for himself a particular creative imperative, or drive, and assumed that this was, or ought be,
universal and not simply personal to him.
He often told visitors to his studio, especially ones he liked, if they happened to demur
that they could not financially afford art, that "you should make your own paintings".
It sounded like a uber cynical line or, perhaps, an extraorindarly clever sales approach. But for Bill it was absolutely
dead-canned serious, flatly sincere and entirely loving. Everyone should create beauty and surround their days
and lives with it. It wasn't so much an imperative, perhaps, as just damn obvious in his view.
And
so it went with Bill..... a unique man defined in part by a unique view of the World and the people in it. His powers of perception
as to the experiences of others were profound. It is somewhat difficult to explain these points but his painting "Kitchen
Painting" illuminates his love of the everyday and his refusal to assume the obvious:
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