The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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‘Convergene

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People ask me all the time why would I want to donate my glass to all these public places around the area. And I used to say, it’s my way of giving back. Which is as trite and idiotic an explanation as a politician leaving office to spend more time with his or her family. Oh right. Their family probably long ago gave up on seeing them and probably stopped caring. They leave office because some scandal or the long arm of the law caught up with them so who’s kidding who? Their family probably is about as happy having them come home to their loving arms as Covid couples enjoy the kids quarantined in their two bedroom rambler.

I even ask myself why I do this, if you want the honest to god truth, not that there is such a thing in post-fact America. When I was starting out trying to make a living creating glass art, I got a job with the WA Art Commission after I was fortunate enough to be juried into their roster on the second try. My handler told me when I was selected not to expect a commission to follow, but a few months later one did. Small, but bigger than what I’d been doing. I turned that small project into a 15 foot by 7 foot curved mural, about four times what the budget would have required. I thought why not do something on a grander scale than a bathroom residential to keep the neighbors from seeing my client tinkle. Even my handler warned me I wouldn’t make any money if I scaled up. I said what, you think I wanted to be an artist so I could get rich?

The second commission came 3 years later, the required wait until us roster candidates could receive another one. Trust me, I was spoiled by that first project and small residential windows and autonomous panels seemed, oh, a lot less satisfying. My next commission was an okay budget, but I gave them a 70 foot by 20 foot mural to fill up their curved front bank of windows. If you want to become addicted to large scale formats, this is how you do it, plunge the horse syringe deep into a vein.

To compete in the world of hungry artists hoping for these commissions, you needed, back then, a slide portfolio of work, usually 10, what now is a digital portfolio. I didn’t have 10, but that 70 footer was proof the guy could do projects of monumental size. Still, I needed 8 more slides. So I donated a few glassworks to the new Visitor Center on the island, the Stanwoodopolis Senior Center, the Camano Senior Center, the Mukilteo Library, the Mt. Vernon train station, to name the first few, and voila, my portfolio was fat even if my bank account was flat. And each one opened another door to a large art project. My foot was firmly planted in that door and I was a finalist for projects from Alaska to Florida. Nothing was too far away and none were too intimidating to keep me from going after them. I was younger then and a lot hungrier. I figured whatever I needed to learn, I’d learn.

Here at home I got stoked after building the Visitor Center and the Sculpture Park that we could turn our little backwash island into the Art Island. We organized an artist group, started a Mother’s Day Studio Tour, put art in the local schools, libraries and senior centers, gave the island a new and not always welcome identity where prior there wasn’t much of one. Why not? Well, I can answer that, but not here, not right now. But in case you’ve never worked with us artists, believe me when I say we’re not good in the sandbox together and so, after too many meetings and egos that would stretch a hatband to the breaking point, I decided to just lone wolf my efforts, skip the board meetings and drop a glass mural here and there like bread crumbs to follow back to some imagined cottage, a terrific time saver and a mental health tactic I recommend highly to others.

So why would I want to donate all this glass? I sure don’t need a larger portfolio now, I’m not searching for a ‘legacy’ and I have my doubts about creating that Art Island. I guess I’m getting older and more cynical. The simple answer is I like working large and there aren’t enough projects and commissions out there now to get my fix. I know, it doesn’t sound noble, doesn’t sound high minded, doesn’t even sound philanthropic. Just another junkie in search of his high. That, or maybe I just don’t want to spend time with my family. And the scandals have yet to catch up to me….

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Why on earth, the man asked, would anyone go to Viet Nam when they could stay home and make real money? This from the same guy who asked the same question about folks who went into public service. No big payoff in civil service, no millionaires in the government. Only a dope would work for peanuts. Only losers and suckers and, well, maybe patriots. Inconceivable to him, almost a kind of mental illness. Philanthropy would be a pathology to the man. Public service a neurosis. We were put here to make money, simple as that. You don’t believe that, you need a straitjacket.

Maybe that’s what people who like this guy think too. All those coal miners and farmers and small businesses. Elect a man who tells them he’s a billionaire real estate developer, a man who would lie and cheat and steal to make even more billions, that’s what we want for our President. A man who thinks soldiers who died in World War One and Two were stupid. Losers. Better to take Daddy’s money and parlay it into a bigger pile than get his butt drafted for Viet Nam, then call John McCain a loser for getting captured by the enemy. You can’t make much money in a Hanoi prison camp.

Take a good look at the crowd at one of his rallies, that sea of people with the red MAGA hats, cheering every angry word that spews out of his mouth. They look like folks who had bone spurs to avoid the draft? They look like they figured out how to make their first million? They think John McCain was a loser for getting captured and tortured and still refused to be released if he cooperated? I’m not sure if they’re deplorables or not but I know this, the guy they plan to elect one more time sure is. Fool them once, shame on him, fool them twice, man, what’s wrong with that picture?

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Historic preservation on the South End is slightly different than other places. Most areas restore an architecturally significant building — the way folks did in Stanwoodopolis with the Odd Fellows Hall — or you fix up a fancy theater or tidy up the old Pearson House, maybe rehab a train station. Tie a little history to art, throw in a chamber orchestra, occasional theater group, poetry reading — get some volunteers, apply for a grant, hey, we’re halfway there to creating cultural identity.

Down by us we’re toying with a campaign to save the Tyee. The Tyee Store, I mean, an iconic example of 70’s minimalist architecture done in masonry block painted a classic mildewed white with a low sloping shed roof blown off once or twice, and a fully functional outhouse. The store owners weren’t real happy with our ad hoc group to save the Tyee, but considering they’re losing money hand over fist, we plowed ahead. Jack Gunter had already restored the adjoining garage to its present pristine glory, proving that expensive restoration isn’t always necessary for the South End Historical Preservation League.

But it was the EPA that finally derailed our high hopes of creating the Tyee Opera House and Expresso Stand. It turns out those rotating rotisserie deli dogs with their infra-red warming oven carbon tracking for decades, well, apparently it created a super strain of E-coli no known agents can destroy. It was like a culinary meth lab and if they can create bio-suits secure enough to withstand the new strain of unearthly bacteria, they might have a 50/50 chance of burying the place in glass and concrete like a South End Chernobyl. That, or the Defense Dep’t. is interested in expanding it as a toxic agent lab…..

We South Enders are in no danger, we’re told, somehow building antibodies to the superbugs, but we sure couldn’t expose outsiders to the pestilence. So… for the time being our cultural aspirations are on hold. But don’t you all worry. We won’t be stopped. After all, the Elger Bay Store has that early ‘80’s shotgun stripmall architecture that will be stylish in, oh, a decade or so….

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