I live in downtown Wilmington De. On New Year's Eve, the city hosts First Night, a celebration with music, street vendors, a temporary ice skating rink, carnival games and small rides, and indoor events. We listened in one of the churches to the Sweet Adelines (a very good, all-women's choir that presents show tunes, standards, etc.), a jazz band playing beneath a tent in Rodney Square, a ghost storyteller at the library, and an art exhibit in one of the lobby banks (it's Delaware; everything is a bank. We even live in a former bank.)
The exhibit presented art by 92-year-old Edward L. Loper, Sr., a local but internationally-recognized artist. (This is the land of N.C. Wyeth, Howard Pyle, Frank Schoonover, Maxfield Parrish and others.) As I studied a complex painting, I was approached by a scruffy old black man, one of the numerous street people we encounter every day, living downtown.
"What do you see?" he asked.
"A reflection of the world outside."
"What else?" he asked me with a cackle.
"Furniture."
"Is it in the painting?"
Two minutes into our conversation I realized I was talking to Edward Loper.
"The outside world is a reflection, while the furniture is both outside and inside the glass. But it's all run together."
"What else do you see?"
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" We shook hands. "I'm an artist, too," I said, and I admire this work. But it's challenging."
"What else do you see?" he asked.
"That things are not always what they seem to be."
"What else?"
I realized finally that he was in teaching mode and gave up. I was tired, and my wife was across the room. "Thank you," I said. I wanted to go up to my apartment across the street and get my Loper print and bring it back for an autograph, but I let it go. He waved as I walked away.
Art is enough.
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