Canton Sunflower Farm

This life offers some odd interactions.

I am painting on a recent morning, on the side of Route 44 in Canton (pronounced the Ohio way, not the China way), when a red truck pulls up.

The door opens, and out steps an old guy wearing a T-shirt and a sort of strange hat. He looks to be in his 80s.

He comes over to me, and peers around the easel.

He stares at the painting for a moment, then turns to me.

“Do you ever paint regular?” he asks.

***

This whole interchange got me thinking. What is regular for me is just not regular for everyone else – and vice versa.

It’s interesting to see painters at any show, side by each, selling their work. Interesting to see the approach, the technique, the framing – and the variety (or lack of variety) that each show’s jury selects.

At my most recent show, there was one abstract multimedia guy who made very long skinny pieces, like 36 inches by 4 inches. There was my friend Ronet Noe, who makes fabulous, colorful, whimsical paintings that often have areas of papier mache that are raised from the canvas. There was a guy who paints nautical scenes so gorgeous and so detailed that I wondered whether they were photographs (he was mean to me when I asked). And another guy who paints finely detailed but not completely realistic scenes. And then there was me.

There’s no measuring one against the other. No judging. It’s just interesting to see the variety. And I am always glad to be included, regular or not.

***

So what does the old guy mean?

He wants someone to paint a scene on a saw.

Guess it won’t be me.