A stitch in time.

There is a function you can toggle in the blogger platform that allows you to limit your audience and only engage those wonderful souls that you deign worthy of such an honor. I can't say I understand the attitude. I like to touch as many people as I can with my artistic output. I don't do this for the money.

I have drawn and painted since I was a child. I made my living as an artist for a period of time, was first published as a writer in the mid seventies, a science fiction story of questionable merit titled Johnny Zero and published in an out of the way occasional that has certainly vanished in the ensuing ether. Wrote for two magazines, rather technical stuff, California Grower and Silver.

I have judged, curated and exhibited in many different art shows, a few solo showing my own photography. I co curated Native Palette in 2003, a seminal exhibition of early San Diego painters with Michael Johnson and Gary Lang. Two very incredible major print exhibitions, Transferring Ink. Art of the Flower, a few more. I put together a major studio pottery exhibition including the works of Beato, Natzler, Heino, Voulkos and more.  I was on the incipient arts committee for our new local library.

As an art dealer who first started selling paintings in the late seventies I have been privileged to sell a John Singer Sargent that made it through committee, a Thomas Moran, a Sir Joshua Reynolds. Two Charles Russell's. Six or eight Dixon's. Some other very major works. I have been much blessed and am extremely proud of several things that I am lucky enough to have had run through my hands. A major collection of Beatrice Wood. Maloof, Allan Adler, two men that I can say I am very proud to have been friends and more than friends with, and with certainly Allen, more like a son.

When I was on the art committee I sent out a call for textile artists. Almost no response. I asked a woman who does fabric art why we were getting the cold shoulder and she said  "They hate that, you can't call them textile artists, you can't call them quilters, they hate the fibre artists..." I was in one big unhappy internecine conflict. I, an admitted outsider, had no idea that things were so balkanized in this world of needle and thread. I gave up and finally resigned and a great guy named Larry Miller took over and has been putting up some really nice shows ever since.

I know that the quilt show that Larry put on is coming down soon and it is really fabulous. I thought I would take a few shots to share with you and went up and snapped a few frames yesterday before I saw the no photographs sign. We had never had such a sign during my tenure and admittedly it took me by surprise. I went over to the librarian and confessed my photographic wrongdoing. Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, right?  She told me not to worry about it but I emailed Larry anyway and broke the news of my gross malfeasence. He said that he had no problem with the shots but better check with Karen. Karen emailed her troops and I got a chorus line of negatories as to using any of the purloined shots. Hey no problem, you say no pictures, no pictures. Maybe this blast just isn't their cup of tea...

But I wonder what it is with these people that don needle and thread? Why is their work so bloody precious? Are they guarding the crown jewels or the secret missile documents? Are fellow cutthroat quilters sitting up at night thinking of ways to covertly steal their designs? I have never seen the like or the attitude in all my years, seventeen with this gallery. I like showing my work. I have thousands of images floating all over the internet. Copyright is a horse that long ago fled the barn. I met a very good photographer last week, a woman who won't put anything on the web for fear of theft. Perhaps I should be more protective of my own work. God forbid that someone will see it who hasn't paid the ticket.

One lady wrote that she can't say yes to a photo because after all, the signs were up. Bad Robert. So I just won't talk about it.