THE BLACK BOX

richard tuttle

Something is happening in the heavens this week. I am lit in creative inspiration manifesting in all kinds of ways. The part that has me most lit is painting a box black today. I drove to town to buy some black paint at Chris Davis's shop, loving the black it makes and the way it smooths brush strokes. It is paint for furniture. I needed a paint that would finish smooth without spraying it. The box, itself, is the work of art and I want the paint smooth. A flat black not too flat, an imperceptible bluish haze in the black. Just enough to take the dead out of the black. Black is a very sensitive color to work with. I prefer to make my blacks mixing alizarin crimson and thalo green. They make a vibrant black that comes to life. Black out of a tube is dead by comparison. The box I've had probably twenty years, one of those things picked up along the way --- I can do something with this --- that clutter the house and I can't get rid of it, it has such potential. I brought it out of its corner and propped it up on the leg of the table that holds the home entertainment units, to see it all the time. It is the place I put things I want to do something with. Look at it, get acquainted with its shape and imagine possibilities. The cedar board I glued the cardboard pyramids on leaned against a bookshelf for a year. This box has been out a few weeks. I swept cobwebs out of it and kept it in my mind's eye. It is a couple feet long and ten inches wide, two inches deep. 

richard tuttle

The box had a door, a wood frame and plexiglas. It was made to display something to do with pipes in the carpentry department at the old Dr Grabow pipe factory in Sparta. A friend was working there when they closed down and threw everything out. He brought several boxes and boards home. He gave me several of the boxes. I've used three of them before, that I can think of, in art projects. This box has been a puzzle. I was looking for something to put inside it, make a kind of 3-D abstract environment. It never seemed right. Nothing that came satisfied what I was looking for. Didn't know what it was, but knew I'd know it when I see it. Reminded myself, simple, repeatedly while looking for possibilities. A few days ago I saw I could take the door off. It would make a frame with the plexiglas I could use for something else. The box by itself was beautiful. Nicely made, simply made. The wood is soft, easy to sand. My friend Crystal has been buying old frames, cutting a piece of quarter inch plywood to fit inside the frame. She makes the frames beautiful with an antiquing process she uses and paints the board black with paint to draw on with chalk. She sells them to hang in the kitchen to chalk notes on. They're beautiful. I saw in her shop several of them leaning against the wall. I said, "You painting abstractions in black?" She explained their purpose. I was stunned by the beauty of a rectangle of black in a beautiful frame. I felt like I was seeing a show of black paintings.

richard tuttle

It stayed with me. A few weeks ago, possibly around the same day, I was writing about wanting my art to be simple as a line of string. From that moment on, I saw doing something with a piece of string in the front of my mind almost continually. I saw the box painted black, all of it. The sides of the box make a frame. The plywood bottom, now the back, it will hang vertically on a wall, is a black abstraction in a black frame. I put an eye-screw on the top, the underside of the frame about midway. Painted it black with the whole box today as soon as I arrived home from town. The eyescrew will suspend a line of string three feet long. It will hang straight down the middle of the black and the extra foot of string will rest on the inside of the bottom part of the frame, a two-inch shelf. Whatever shape the string takes in its squiggles is ok. It's ok even if it hangs over the edge. The string will hang down the middle, an inch from the back, and curve at the bottom making the squiggle. Thought about leaving the eye-screw silver, liking utilities to show, but it would distract. I wanted the white line to be it. To almost everyone who sees it, the string will be the subject, a piece of string. For my eye, the whole thing is the subject, the frame, the back and the string. The string is, nonetheless, the subject. It is the visualization of my will to find art expression simple as a line of string. There it is. The black amounts to a presentation of the white line. It is taking the most common, like cardboard, displaying its beauty against a surface that enhances its beauty. It's saying a string is a beautiful object seen separate from its utilitarian role that makes it too common to notice. 

richard tuttle

It is a way of saying an individual is a beautiful thing looked at with compassion as art. I have found living among American hillbillies, people looked down upon from everywhere in the country as too common for notice, people who live their lives true human beings. Working class people. Stay away from them. The gum chewers. They've not been to college, so they can't know anything. Mountain people are at about the bottom rung of status among white people. And mountain people don't care. They like being dismissed. The exurbanites look past them and don't see them, and that's just how the mountain people like it. When it gets down to the nitty-gritty of a collapsed economy, the mountain people know who the exurbanites will be turning to calling for help, because they don't know how to do anything. Can't work a chainsaw. Thirty-eight years of living among the most common people, from the point of view of flatlanders, I've seen deeply enough inside the culture and the people to know that of all the varieties of people I've known throughout my life, it is the mountain people I am glad I live among. It's something you have to be on the inside to see. It's a matter of living by the heart. Outsiders see it as emotion, but from the inside it is heart. I'm saying with the string that common has art in it too. If I were to be a novelist or playwright, I'd write about mountain people and put them in relation to the invasion of the flatlanders as a contrast to bring out their beauty, like the black pushes the white line of the string forward and says, behold beauty. I'll wait til morning to attach the string. The paint dries fast, though I want it to dry overnight before I handle it. I've spent the whole evening practicing waiting. 

richard tuttle

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DONKEY JENNY FALLS IN LOVE

running wild african ass

A big cloud settled on the mountain today from first light to last. It I was a nice fog, not too dense. I could see the far fence of the donkey meadow, donkeys like soft pastel drawings grazing along the fence. The meadow was circled in white, trees drawn in soft, barely perceptible lines. I went out just before dark when I saw the donkeys at this end of the meadow to take them some carrots and visit with them. Jenny is different again. She walked toward the gate where I was waiting and Jack went on a tear, galloping ahead of Jenny all the way to the fence. The picture above is not Jack, but this is how Jack looks running. It's a smooth gallop that gives the appearance he's floating above the ground. He had radiant happiness in his eyes and his manner. I gave him a chunk of carrot and made his day. Jenny came walking up and reached over the gate for her carrot, showing teeth. It was ok to give Jack carrot first, he arrived first, but she was still annoyed Jack got first carrot. She raised her lip revealing a tier of white, straight, donkey teeth. I don't get much chance for a good look at their teeth, catching a glimpse from time to time. Jenny gave me a good view. It was not an aggressive gesture, just a view of her teeth to show her displeasure, though it didn't seem to be at me, but at the circumstance of arriving for the carrot after Jack. It galled her, but not much. I can't hold a carrot while Jack is expectantly waiting for it and Jenny is taking her time. I can't help it she walked and Jack ran. She knew it. I always give Jenny carrot first, honoring her Alpha status. It's not as easy for her to tear a carrot in half with her teeth as it is for Jack. Somebody had fed carrots to Jack before I knew him. I held first carrot to him and he broke it in half with just the right twist of his teeth. Jenny did not know how to break a carrot. I started tearing the carrots into chunks for Jenny and Jack too. Yesterday two sisters came by to see the donkeys and take some pictures. I took some carrots and let them hand-feed the donkeys, forgetting to note that I break the carrots first. Connie handed the carrot to Jenny and Jenny broke it with her teeth. It must be that by now she has learned how to bite carrots.

 

jenny, connie, jack, grumpy old batarde

photo by chris davis

 

In this picture, Chris was wanting me to kiss Jenny on the nose. I was talking to Jenny, getting her attention. She was enjoying the visitors, but unable to guess what would happen next, a little uneasy with two people she didn't know in the meadow loving up on donkeys. She and Jack have learned when I bring new people into the meadow they get special attention, affection, talked to, touched with adoring human hands. Jenny, here, is comfortable. She was mostly interested in those black mysterious things both women were carrying. She looked at them warily, ready to tear out of there, put some distance between her and them until they started pointing the black things at her. She got it as soon as the women lifted the mystery black objects to their faces. The black unknowns serve the same function of the black box I point at her. I don't think she gets it yet what the black thing does, but it's benign. She never saw anything jump out of it at her, and I've never thrown it at her or hit her with it. She has felt it with her lips that function for donkeys like our fingertips for feeling textures. I let her smell it, hold it, explore it with her curious lips, telling her it's not donkey food. Please don't bite it. She never offered to touch it with her teeth. She got that right away feeling it. I let her examine the camera until she was satisfied. I wanted her to have at least donkey understanding of what that curiosity was I pointed at her so often. My first mountain dog, Sadie, figured out what I was doing. There came a time she would stop and pose when I pointed a camera at her. She did it so consistently, she gave sufficient evidence she understood it involved her visually. I have a feeling Jenny may catch onto what the camera does. It's been a curiosity to her. She has a good mind. She'll figure it out. Jack will get it too. Every time I have brought two or three people to visit with them, the donkeys have experienced humans holding a box up the to their faces, looking at the donkeys and acting like it gives them a good time. If not projecting, I'm seeing in her demeanor the attention affirms her, helps her understand humans. She knows the boxes have something to do with a particularly human kind of attention she doesn't yet understand. It's the Alpha in Jenny that wants to understand. Jack says do what you gotta do. As long as something doesn't jump out of it onto him, he's a happy donkey.

 

jack sez: whatever

I have confidence when I step into the meadow I am safe with both donkeys, even when they're frisky with each other. I stay out of the meadow when Jack is forcing her and she's kicking him, biting at him, Jack taking the back of her neck in his teeth and walking her in a tight circle, around and around until she breaks loose and kicks with both back legs and Jack turns his head aside. I just say, Have at it, tear it up. And stay on my side of the fence. I'm never completely certain about taking people into the meadow. I have noticed Jenny is drawn to women. The woman I bought Jenny from was good to her, was her friend. It felt like I was buying a slave, separating her from her humans and her goat friends, her happy world there. Every woman I've taken into the meadow, Jenny approaches her gently and allows being touched. I tell them Jenny doesn't like to be touched, then Jenny invites them to touch her. Jenny seemed drawn to Chris and Connie. Walked up to them one at a time without any defenses showing. She was comfortable as if she already knew them. She wanted to know them. I've seen her very comfortable with the women she meets. It's like it makes her day to meet another woman. Jack likes the feminine attention to. It seems to relax them both. As soon as I see Jenny isn't going to be getting frisky, kicking at Jack, I stay back and let them visit. I like them to meet new people. Connie complimented my training them to be so gentle. It wasn't training. I didn't train them. This is their nature. I trained them by treating them the way I want them to treat me. I'm gentle with them and in turn they're gentle with me. I've learned along the way that animals, like people, give what they get. I don't hurt them, they don't hurt me. I don't boss them, they don't boss me. I regard them with respect and affection, I get same in turn. A couple days ago I was giving them carrots and talking to them. While Jenny was munching, I said to her after she'd done something that was simply charming, I don't remember what. I said to her, Now I see why Jack loves you so much. She looked at me suddenly with very clear affection, even joy. I saw this in her eye that suddenly appeared so wet I wondered if she might be about to tear. In less than the snap of a finger her eye changed its countenance from dispassionate seeing to joy. She understood every word. It told me she's falling in love with Jack.

 

jenny munching

 

Jenny's mood swings have been hopping all over the place for two months. The last three or four days she has been calm, doesn't get antsy when Jack steps too close. She has a calmer demeanor with me. Day before yesterday she was so quiet I watched her right front leg to see if she'd hurt the ankle again. No. She has a stillness about her. Jack has been aggressive with her the last weeks. After he's had enough getting kicked, he breaks her down. This morning early I was looking out the meadow at them in first light, Jack took hold of the back of her neck with his powerful jaws and was walking her in a circle. Something is going on between them that involves some powerful sexual energy. My feeling is that Jack has learned how to take control of Jenny and stay in control. She's bigger and she's the Alpha, but Jack's libido is bigger than Jenny. Jack is no longer stumped by Jenny's size. It takes some power to bring her down, and I believe Jack has found that level of power in himself. He stays out of her kicking zone when he's not wanting to tear into her and mopes around like a henpecked man. But I know he doesn't care. Part of the game. They suggest he is taking her against her will. Her stillness with Jack the last several days made me wonder. Her response yesterday when I said, I see why Jack loves you so much, the instant change in her eye almost unto a tear of joy flowing over told me she has fallen in love. I've asked her how she felt about Jack in the past. She'd indicate she liked him all right, but it wasn't love. I saw love in her eye yesterday. It was for Jack, not for me. This answers why she has been allowing him first carrot the last few days. She's most often on a tear when Jack stands too close, kicking, snorting, blowing, ears back, biting at his neck. This morning she dove at him with her teeth for getting too close while I was talking to her. Ice cream man was talking to her, not Jack. Carrots gone this morning, Jenny turned to walk back to the meadow. She walked to Jack's pile of droppings and walked right through it. It's the second time I've seen her do that. Jack saw it too. He went to her in a straight line. She walked on and Jack walked beside her. I said, Bye y'all, I'm going to my barn.    

 

jack munching

 

 

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MAIN STREET ON A THURSDAY AFTERNOON

     rock mountain

Attempting to make a left turn onto Main St on a Thursday afternoon has become what Friday alone used to be. I had to wait for the car in front of me, which after waiting until he couldn't wait anymore made a right turn instead of the left turn. My turn at the stopsign and I see an endless line toward the courthouse light. A little bit of extra space between two cars. Zoom-zoom, I jumped in the space. I know better than to attempt a left turn onto Main St on Fri. I need to include Thursdays now. It's hard to believe by imagination alone that it takes as long to make a left turn onto Main St from a side street as it takes to make a left turn onto highway 17 from a side street in Myrtle Beach. It's not nearly the same volume of cars, but it takes as long to wait for a hole in both directions of traffic. The way the lights are set, when the line of cars that come from one of the lights to the next light gets by, then the line of cars from the other light starts its long parade. All there is to do is step on it and go for an opening. But every time I go to Winston-Salem, very seldom, I forgive Sparta all the times I've cussed its traffic. Once when friends were visiting from Atlanta, we were in Sparta and I was driving, griping about the traffic. Judy said, "What traffic?" Thank you for that.



Walking by Kermit's barber shop I saw through the glass door no one in the chair. I had the money in my pocket, no waiting, about-face, in the door and in the chair. Kermit has covered his walls with photographs of Sparta in the old days and people from the old days, newspaper articles, like when Bill Monroe played in Sparta, Del Reeves album cover and poster. I like to look at all the pictures every time I'm in there. People bring him pictures. I've taken him two, one of Jr Maxwell & Cleve Andrews jamming together, and one of them with The Little River Boys band, which included Estel Bedsaul and Paul Joines. He had a picture of Ed Atwood with his banjo, Howard Joines with fiddle and Clif Evans with guitar, when they were maybe in their 30s. Somebody gave him a close up photograph of a coiled rattler. It's spooky looking. Picture taken on the Parkway at Mahogany Rock. Kermit is a bluegrass bass player, country guitar player, and every year at the Hillbilly Show he lip-syncs two songs by George Jones, ol Possum. That's his nickname. His eyes are so close together he looks like a possum to country people. There is always somebody in a rural community nicknamed Possum, which grows up into Poss.



From Kermit's I crossed W Whitehead St on the way to see Chris Davis in her shop on the corner. I don't know that I've ever known what she calls it. She'd emailed me earlier asking if it would be all right to put one of my paintings in the window. I was told by somebody who saw it that it was in the window. I'd driven by twice and never noticed. It was the one of Howard Joines playing his fiddle with the chicken singing into his ear while he plays Chicken Reel. I was happy to see I like it. I never know what it's like to see one of my paintings the first time. It takes quite a long time of not seeing one to the point of forgetting it, then when I see it, it's almost like I'd never seen it. The familiarity is gone from it and I can see it more objectively, from afar. That's how I like best to see one of my paintings, the first time after so long I've forgotten it. It's like somebody else's painting then. I don't know what I would think of them if I hadn't painted them. I think I'd like them, but can't be sure.



Chris had a painting of hers from the past in there, three cows on a large field of white. Stunning, truly stunning. She'd just finished a nice piece of furniture that she'd painted in an extraordinarily beautiful way. Chris has single-handedly restored several downtown spaces. The one she's in now, she's done it up before. Completely changed it for this go-round. She can take a space with four walls, ceiling, floor, windows and doors, and transform it into any kind of look or feeling. She specializes in faux finishes. She can make a wall look like it's ancient or futurist. Chris is no stranger to work. She's the hardest working individual I know. She starts at it early in the morning and goes full speed into the night and starts over next morning. She has the work ethic of the old mountain people. Shes a good artist too. She likes painting black and white cows, the dairy variety.



Before the excursion that ended at Chris's, I left the coffee shop where I'd been visiting with Joe Allen Delp. I've taken to really liking and respecting Joe Allen. He tells some good stories of his experiences in another time when Sparta was the shopping center for the local people, the hardware store across the street from the courthouse. In that time, it was all mountain people here. Now the mountain people are rare in Sparta. Everything has changed. Sparta's center of gravity moved from the stoplight by the courthouse down to the stoplight by Hardee's where the shopping centers and parking lots are now. The downtown part of Sparta has no parking except along the street. Joe Allen is of another time. He's like me in that the times have passed him by. The world we both know is past and gone. Like in the song Angel Band, the setting sun is sinking fast, my race is nearly run. Joe Allen is somewhat harshly judged for his drinking habit in the past. No one has ever wondered why he needed inebriation so much. I think he came close to killing himself with it. He's gentle as a rabbit. Joe Allen is good people.

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