New Legacy Project Part 11: A Time to Pause and Reflect
Dear Friends and Fans,
On December 30th, I sent the last of the semi-final versions of all 36 chapters to my editor, Dorion Sagan, for a final read-through. Then on January 4th, I “celebrated” by turning too quickly in my kitchen, falling sideways against the hard, sharp edge of the sideboard. Mega ouch! On my way to the Emergency Room for X-rays and a CAT scan, I kept thinking “It’s a good thing that this happened after I sent off all the chapters, so now I have no deadlines on my mind.” The diagnosis: three fractured lower left ribs, but no damage to the internal organs. As my mother would have said, “It could have been worse.”
Cosmic Neural, detail, 2004
The last two weeks have given me ample time to do very little but recline in the cheap, fold-out poolside chaise lounge that replaced my couch when I turned my living room into my studio, and consider this whole legacy project. First, writing a memoir is a great way to bring one’s life into focus and to see the shape it has taken over the years…decades. Fortunately, I had journals and letters dating back to late childhood from which to work. Memoir writing gives one an insight into what one’s life has been about, what one has done in the world, and what one has yet to do before departure time. For me, if I accept a teleological interpretation, there is no doubt that I came into the world to be a visual artist, and more specifically to focus on seeing and creating beauty. As my first psilocybin journey taught me, “Do your paintings. Remind people how beautiful and perhaps infinitely strange the world is.” I highly recommend that everyone keep a journal and that at some age over 50, write a memoir, short or long.
Dance of the Whirling Seabirds, detail, 2014
Next steps on the Legacy Book: make all final corrections; send the manuscript to a few most-likely publishers; hopefully sign a contract; enter the “marketing phase,” and, hopefully, eventually get paid.
About the money.
As you know, I am now 81 years old; I live off of savings and social security. Until the book is accepted by a publisher, it is up to me to pay for all the expenses of making it happen. I have decided to ask you now, dear friends and fans, not to give me a donation to fund my legacy book project, but to purchase one of my paintings, drawings, or collages, for yourself or your family.
Life Began in a Pond, detail, 2016
Three days ago, my friend and colleague David Deamer, biomolecular engineer at UC Santa Cruz and expert on origin of life, who inspired my Protocells Triptych (https://www.cybermuse.com/inspired-by-biology/5aop79o3lswufwe3dprs2ol0hys62n) purchased one of the three paintings, thus enabling me to pay my superb editor without dipping further into my retirement funds.
Life, from the Protocells Triptych, detail, 2016
This is the way I want to go: I want my remaining artwork to go out into the world and be with people who love it and appreciate it. Please look at the art work displayed on my website and consider whether or not you want to be one of those people.
If not you, perhaps someone you know who collects art.