Replacement Theory: the Color of the Year

Other than the pandemic, and its continuing unfoldment, everything is pretty good in my life, calm and still. I’ve had the really strong feeling lately that my life is all mine, that it’s its own sovereign little country, and all I have to do to be happy is to obey some laws that are as small or as large as I make them.

I’m making paintings. I never thought I’d make paintings, never dreamed of making a painting. When I’m painting I’m having fun, not knowing what I’m doing or thinking too much at all about what I’m doing. Making a painting for me is like seeing the sun rise or looking at pornography for the first time, but only when I’ve become the age when I’m ready to know what I’m seeing and not by peeking through a neighbors window or scrolling through the internet. I’m pretty much at peace, even though my email in-box keeps leaving news messages that crawl across the screen of my laptop, a trail of ants.

I’m not ready to be replaced yet, but when the time comes for my replacement I’ll be ready. The goal is to live at least until 2040 when the white population in the US will be in the minority. I’d like to be around and conscious enough to see what happens then, at least for a year or two. I’m betting that people who are now having their day in the sun are long gone by then, but I could be mistaken; it could get worse, everyone says it could be worse; the ants, which often appear as new bulletins on my laptop, could be some sort of foreshadowing

I’m going to the art supply store today to see if I can pick up a tube of Pantone’s 2-word “Color of the Year”: Veri Peri. I’d hoped for something a little darker, with hints of foreboding, dread, despair—a Periwinkle Black maybe, if such a color exists.

Painting-in-progress, “The Gallery”, 24” x 24”, acrylic & magic marker, 2022.