HAVANA CAFE WITH CYNTHIA

cynthia and double selfie as retired cop

A couple weeks ago Cynthia and I spoke of making a run to West Jefferson to have lunch at the Havana Café and see Selma again. Selma had the coffee shop in Sparta before Becca. Selma's spirit fills the air of this small restaurant of extra good Cuban food the same as her spirit filled the air at the coffee shop in Sparta. The aroma in the air is so Cuban you can almost see it, floating vapors in the air of scent from a Cuban kitchen, it surrounds you before the door closes behind you. We wanted to go last Friday but the weather was too intensely cold. The oppressive cold would take some of the fun out of it. We were looking for a fun time, not survival. The weather looked good for this Friday, so away we went. It was an excellent sun shining day over familiar highway I'd not been on in several years, highway I drove once a week for about five years. The drive was a good review of the landscapes and houses all along the winding mountain road, Hwy 18 from Sparta to Laurel Springs, Hwy 88 to Jefferson, then to West Jefferson. Cynthia goes another way from the way I drive to West Jefferson. When we passed my turn off point I was lost from there on. Everything had changed along there so much since I last drove the highway I did not recognize anything but the McDonald's M. It was my only landmark telling me where we were. She was going in from that end. The drive from there to the part of town we were headed to was unrecognizable from the McDonald's onward. It has been more than twenty years since I've been on that road. It's been a lot of years since I've been to West Jefferson. It was like I had never seen any of it before. I recognized a few spots, just enough to mark location. It is a pretty town now. The Havana Café is on the back street that faces the old railroad track, the road to the library.

 

selma and cynthia

 

As soon as we stepped inside I heard an explosion of "MAMI!" Cynthia and Selma fell into each other's arms for a big nurturing hug. It was joyous for both of us to see Selma again. And to see Ralph, her husband, the chef. He is aware of the subtle flavors in Cuban cooking. I can tell because his cooking makes me aware of subtle flavors. Selma's decorating is a simple suggestion of Latin ambiance in a place with a familiar American feel, nothing pointing its finger at the Cuban but the aroma in the air and Selma's Latin style. Though nothing on the walls is "Cuban," the interior of the small restaurant  is packed full of tables and there is no feeling of being crowded anywhere in the place. Chairs of a beautiful contemporary design, black seat and back, chrome structure; light weight, easy to handle, sturdy and firm on the floor while moving easily. They give the place a feeling of style. It is Selma's decorator's eye. The chrome chair legs enhance the floor with a pattern of faux tile. It's the floor that gives the place a Latin ambiance to accompany aromas in the air. With the kitchen beside the area with the tables, it makes the place feel alive. The atmosphere in the place is lively talkative people feeling comfortable liking their context. I was feeling good being with Cynthia. Her light-hearted spirit balances my deadbeat spirit. Like I interpret myself having crow energy, I feel Cynthia is wren energy. You might see a wren through the window land on the deck railing. It will look this way and that, turning every which way looking around, looking deeply, not just glancing, attention shifting in a mind that goes too fast almost to live with. Cynthia's mind is instantaneous, so she's very quickly bored.

 

on the left the kitchen, on the right the dining area

 

Cynthia's world and my world intersect just a little bit, such that we see each other every once in awhile by apparent chance. I'd not seen Cynthia in so long and hadn't had a quality visit with her in so much longer that we spontaneously decided to make the run to the Havana Café to see Selma and have some good Cuban cooking. I may have bored Cynthia out of her mind, but I felt comfortable with Cynthia the whole time. She once apologized for her driving, but I told her I'd not had an anxious moment yet. She was keeping it in the road to my satisfaction. She felt to me like a driver with good experience who knew the roads, never went into a curve faster than it allowed, nor too slow. She's a good driver. The whole round trip I never felt anxious the first time. I enjoy conversation with Cynthia. I've missed Cynthia and today didn't seem like quite enough. We talked about driving to West Jefferson again before too long. Cynthia is petite and vulnerable like a wren, too. I feel protective with her, like Steven Seagal said to a woman he was with in a gunfight, "If you want to get out of this place alive, stay with me." So heroic a thing to say. The same quotation came to my mind the day I sprung Jr Maxwell from the Sparta nursing home. Cynthia is from Asheville, has traveled all over the country, worked here and there. She came to Sparta to be the director at the Teapot Museum that was in its time of quick wane when it became apparent no money was coming from anywhere. Mr Vanity from LA who had a fortune in the teapots wanted the working class citizens of the county to fundraise fourteen million dollars to build his museum for his teapots in a time of rural Depression in America.. Mountain people didn't drink tea anyway, except for iced tea Southern style with plenty of sugar, and not from no tea pot. It didn't work out.

  

selma

 

Since the time I said no to the world of the false, I've turned my focus inward onto my world, the people in my world. Cynthia is someone in my world I don't see enough of. My new awareness makes me want to give more attention to the people of my world I want to be around rather than the frauds in the media. Cynthia is a refreshing spirit for me. Makes me wonder about past life connection. I feel like we know each other better than we do. I've known Cynthia from the time we first met. She's in her world and I'm in mine. We went to see Ralph Stanley not too many years ago. It was a good show. She was teaching a course in the community college on Southern culture. Made me glad she could have a Ralph Stanley experience with her appreciation of the culture. Again, as I remind myself every day, I want to focus my attention on appreciation of the world immediately around me, the scenes along the highway, the restaurant, the car, Cynthia, Selma, I was feeling full appreciation. It was appreciation day for me, like yesterday was and the day before. I have tremendous more fun when I'm appreciating the people I'm among. I wanted to be with Cynthia today because she's someone I appreciate, respect, like an awful lot and feel comfortable in her presence. We're like inter-racial. Her world is not my world and my world is not hers. The coffee shop is about the only place our worlds intersect. That's ok. She's a huffin-puffin go-getter who gets things done, good organizer. I'm a donkey laying under a shade tree wearing a sombrero with holes in it for my ears to stick out, listening to reggae, Burning Spear, waiting for Babylon to fall. On the drive over we discovered we both like rum. It was a good day, my celebration of having Cynthia in my world day.

   

winter foliage

 

 

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REJECTED

     me as dumpy old turd, photo by lynn worth

        

It's been a fairly interesting process I've seen my mind go through since rejection from the show in West Jefferson last week. It's a complexity of old thinking and new thinking of my own intersecting and separating, in constant motion. Never once did I feel anything like self-pity for not being included, or mad for the rejection. Before I went to pick up my paintings I talked with the husband of a woman I know who entered some things and was rejected. He'd gone to pick up her paintings and said the exhibition was up and none of it was any good, all of it trash art. He said he didn't see mine. I'd not had a phone call or email to tell of the rejection. So I called the place and then drove to WJefferson to pick them up. Driving there, a 40 minute drive, beautiful country, not more than half a dozen stop signs between here and there, a tape of the Green Mountain Boys playing mountain bluegrass. In my mind, all I had to go by was what he'd said. I didn't have a great deal of confidence in his notions about art, as he's a retired engineer who went to the Citadel in Charleston. But, that doesn't really tell me anything, except that he and I have different eyes for art. That's all.

I was about half in a mood by the time I got there. My full confidence my paintings would get in the show was shattered. It's a blow, albeit without a sting. I couldn't imagine why, though I tried. The town of W Jefferson had painted parking space lines on the street at the opening of the arts council building's parking lot. A car was parked diagonally in the middle of the entrance to the parking lot. I squeezed by it to get in there, hoping nobody parked in that little opening before I needed to exit. It's one of those situations where I tell myself I've quit trying to understand other people's decisions, so I let go of it in my mind. No grumblings like it hadn't oughta be that way. It is that way. That's the beginning and the end of it. I went in the door telling my ego to settle down. It's nothing personal and it's definitely no big deal. I didn't enter with any notion of winning any awards. I like seeing something of mine among it's peers, other artists of NW North Carolina, and that was my only reason.



As soon as I stepped into the gallery space, I understood everything. Nothing of mine had a place in there. The entire collection on the walls was one magnificent painting after another, each in the painter's own style, every one of them I thought, by my own assessment, would make mine look lame on the wall beside it, or between any two. I'd be ashamed for my pictures to hang in this collection. I saw that I am, indeed, in the league of "self-taught" artists. Around the walls I saw the league of painters who had been art majors in college and studied art under teaching. Everything had the "painterly" way that in the 50s was radical and new and by now is the academic main stream. When you've been to art school, you paint this way. If you've not been to art school, you don't paint this way. The juror taught art at UNCCharlotte and is a very respectable artist. However many were on the walls, 20 or so, every one of them was in a league beyond what I do. I saw that, respected that, realized if I'd been the juror, my paintings would not have been on the wall either. Like I said, I'd be ashamed to see my images on the wall among these others. I have to say I felt awe standing in front of each one of them, and every one for its own reasons.



After we'd found my paintings from the back rooms, I walked slowly around the exhibit taking in each one, savoring them, one at a time, for as long as I felt like staying there. Mine I held back to back, the hanging wires in one hand. Easy to carry that way. A few other people came in and I noticed they all would stand before one painting for a long time before moving on to the next. Nobody was pushing me and I had all day, so I drank in these beautiful images. Disappointment was completely vanished. I knew maybe two of the artists on the walls and respect them both as artists. A few of them I'll remember the rest of my life. It actually blew my mind that there were at least this many really superb artists in NW North Carolina. I felt more privileged about being among them than ever before.



My own mental process over the next couple days I found educational. I had emotional response going: dammit, I wanted to be in that show! And mental response: It's no problem. I'm not in that league. That's not a problem and certainly not an issue. I found myself dampening emotional responses with mind telling emotional part of self it's ok, you'd be ashamed to see one of your own on the wall in that room. I went into it  saying I wasn't doing it to win awards or get attention, just to see them on the wall. So I don't get to see them on the wall. If I'd been the juror they still wouldn't be on the wall. It wasn't a difficult struggle, but another experience of mind reminding emotion that it's not all about self. Even when I thought I had it settled, emotional ego would creep in and tell me I oughta be at least disappointed. Then mind had to come in and remind emotion that I wouldn't have selected mine if I'd been the judge. Even if I'd wanted to be partial to self over others, I could not have selected them for inclusion.



That answer settles it every time. By now, 3 days later, the emotional part doesn't boil to the surface any more. I didn't like having it pop into my mind by surprise. If they'd just got somebody else to be the juror, I'd be in. No you wouldn't. Even if you juried it yourself, they wouldn't be on the wall. Then I give self-doubt it's say. Maybe I should alter the way I paint and educate myself into that league. Then I laugh out loud at myself. Why? is my first question. That settles it. I paint portraits of mountain musicians for mountain people. The mountain aesthetic sense doesn't reach as far as academic art. I'm not painting for New York, Charlotte, Berlin or Paris. I paint for Allehany County, for the people I live among, my world. My world is not New York. I am a self-taught provincial painter or artist, whatever you want to call it. Since the WJefferson show, I call myself a painter before artist. I'll use artist loosely on myself occasionally. When someone asks if I'm an artist, I say, "Sometimes." No need to start a monologue about definitions.



By today, I'm glad for the experience. It gave me a measure of my own place in the world of provincial art of my region. I find I've not been fooling myself about where my paintings stand among their peers. First, and most obvious, my league is the self-taught. In that league, I'd say my place is respectable, while far from "the Best." I'm nowhere near top dog and have no ambition toward it. I like that my way of learning painting was the same as a mountain musician; go at it and figure it out. How the mountain musician figures out his instrument becomes his style. In like manner, how I figured out painting became my style. Not all mountain musicians win Galax. Not all mountain artists get into exhibits. I did find, however, a universal truth about myself. I tend to think better of my abilities than works out, a lesser version of what the Johnny Depp character said at the end of the movie SNOW. He's in prison looking over what got him in there, concluding his ambition far exceeded his talent. I'm at a time in the life where I want to be fully honest about myself with myself, sweep away illusions. And certainly not think myself some hotshit artist. The answer found in my self-assessments over the last several years has been that I'm just another Joe. I say, TJ is for The Joe. The mountains put you in your place, give perspective. I like that about the mountains.



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