Tate Museum loneliness. Larger version is here.

Just a short note to you, my friends here on Open Salon, that I'll be traveling again without much of an itinerary for the next week or two. Eventually I'll end up in Santa Fe to help my friend do some things in her gift shop that she has near the Plaza. I'll be taking the long way there on back roads and will be off before dawn tomorrow.

Even though it's well out of the way, I'll be taking the southern route. I heard through a friend that a much beloved art installation, the Prada Marfa store near Valentine Texas, has been vandalized to the point that it will not be restored or rebuilt. Bullets embedded in the bullet-proof plastic windows and door and the outside walls covered in graffiti makes me sad indeed. Boyd Elder, the long time caretaker, said it was always the intention to let the store disintegrate over time, but hoped that it could have happened in a more natural way. It was never intended to be what the Cadillac Ranch became—a collaborative work of art. I don't think vandals add anything to the Prada Marfa store. 

So I go to take some images of its demise. 

The image at the top reminds me of sadness in public places—and then what we ought to do about it. It was taken long ago—some thirty five years in the past—outside the Tate Museum in London on a lonely wet October day. The original Kodachrome image was a bit unremarkable—a little out of focus. So I painted it. There wasn't much to be done with the slide at the time it was developed, it had to wait for the advent of the digital age for me to work some magic into it, to make beauty out of the sadness. (The woman and I did talk after I took the shot—she wasn't homeless, but nearly so. She just loved to sit in this small park next to the museum as part of her routine. I'm not sure what she made of me, but we had a nice chat.)

I'll be checking in, off and on, but there is a beauty in the silent solo photo road trip, and I intend to nurse what I can from it, so my visits here will be sporadic and infrequent for a while.

It's a horrible shame that the Prada Marfa store has such an ignoble end, but I'm happy I've documented a bit of it. I'd like to get some photos of its passing to honor the artists and caretakers.

Here are my OS pieces on the place:

Dawn at Prada Marfa

A town called Marfa

getting over myself

So, this is just a heads up to let you know that I'm on the road, and haven't left OS. I'm saddened by the departures of some friends, but things change and evolve. We grow, even if diminished.

Make some beauty today, in some form or another. I'll be back.