What one hears from tourists and locals visiting the studio after fifty-plus years holds few surprises. You've heard it all before, some things many times over. It can be complimentary or abrasive regarding this or that painting and sculpture, a work evoking groans of disapproval from one viewer triggering approbation, even occasionally tears, in another. Disagreements between husband and wife about a purchase, one or the other "loving" a painting, the spouse not able to "stand it." Once, a couple in heated argument, suggested that I should provide a Quarrel Room where such disputes could be privately resolved.
Of course we all harbor preferences -- even if strenuously and admirably suppressed, biases and prejudices. Yet, lately, I've been exposed to overmuch. Tourists from across the US as well as abroad detour from discussions of exhibited art to that of politics. The comments I overhear are often as ugly -- and loud -- as those I hear on television or the screeds I head by columnists. And it's difficult to remain above the fray. Too frequently, my silent forbearance is challenged with the blatant demand "Who'll you vote for!" The response that I'm not partisan but an Independent, watchfully weighing my choices, can open floodgates of rhetoric equaling that which thundered from both recent national conventions.
The issues of race and gender in the presidential election of 2008 are difficult to accept in fellow Americans, even harder when expressed by non-citizens. The man from South Africa who insisted that I should opt for Obama now, not wait and watch, listen, to make up my mind, concluded that I was one of those Whites who wouldn't vote for a Black man. A lady from London strongly "recommended" the Republican ticket, "you Yanks need Sarah Palin, a woman in Washington, we had our Thatcher." A feminist from South Carolina with obvious unease about a forced decision, disappointed that Hillary Clinton had not won the nomination, told me "as a loyal Democrat, if I can't vote for a woman, I'll vote for a black man." A macho, elderly ex-marine, staunchly Republican but repelled by "liberated females" will vote the ticket even if McCann "has that butch Alaskan on his side." I can turn off the TV, do not have to read the newspapers and journals. But of course I won't, determined to attempt making sense of the vile attacks and lies perpetuated by Republicans and Democrats, and their shrill partisan advocates, seek to decide who, regardless of party, promises the best course of government for out troubled nation. For one's who's been an Independent since first attaining the age to vote and for over a long lifetime, I can't remember having ever been under such vehement pressure from those of entrenched political persuasion.
There are moments when the tourists on Camino Canon are few, no one comes into the studio, and I'm alone at my work. The current project is a sculpture of Saint Francis nearing completion. I think of how the man from Assisi renounced it all -- politics, wealth, worldly hates and fears, contentions -- and for a little while I, too, am free of it.
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