View from the Sheep Incognito Office

<strong>Walls – Things That Constrain Or Liberate</strong>

We just spent a weekend in Virginia Beach – but “spent” seems the wrong word for <!–more–>
the time we were
awarded here. We gained a weekend here might be more appropriate.

We did not come to enjoy the nightlife.
We did not stop by to visit relatives.
And we did not intend to just sit by the beach and fry our white, slightly overweight, beyond youthful beautiful selves.

We came to work.

And so we did.
We set up the walls to house my paintings in my booth in a slight drizzle and wind – but once we had the walls in place, the drizzle and wind became merely a background sound that blended in with the sound of the waves.

It was peaceful, despite the blusteriness outside.

Nighttime found us in a nicer hotel – perfect beds – with Great Sheets this time! – in close walking distance from our office for the weekend.

We discovered that the walls keep out the sounds of partying teenagers, belligerent drunks, and emergency vehicles beeping through town.

As we were meeting and greeting all the lovely people during the Neptune Festival that meandered into our booth, it occurred to me, that most seem to have enclosed themselves in walls of some sort: social status to be upheld, protective walls to avoid others from seeing the real person or to protect against more pain, walls to ensure safety by keeping others out, others with walls that were pocked with hurt inflicted on them by others.

But then there were some, that walked in – those that were open to life, other humans, and emotions, and all the “dangers” interacting with other humans entails.
Their walls were either paper thin, more like rice-paper screens, or the walls were wildly decorated with wild colors – either way, they left an impression with me:

Life is so much more than what we experience in our little cubicle in life.
It pays to stand on the wobbly office chair and peer over the partition into the next person’s life – they might have a circus going on there!
Or, they might have fallen under the weight of life, and need a helping hand to get back on their feet.

As I was sitting in my cubicle for the weekend – on the boardwalk, warm breeze in my hair, warm smell of bolitas rising up through the air, up away in the distance, I saw a shimmering light, my head grew heavy and might sight grew dim, ….wait, wrong song…

Anyway: as I was in fact sitting in my cubicle at the beach, with a warm breeze in my hair, sun sparkling on the water just a few yards away, and smiling people in my booth, i realized that the lower, thinner and crumblier our personal walls are, the more we expose ourselves to the real purpose of life: living life together, seeing each others real life going on, hearing the other’s pain, reaching out to help each other past what once kept us all apart and isolated.

So, here, let me knock this panel out of my cubicle wall – welcome to an artist’s life of maaahem, incredible office locations, weird food choices, strange painting ideas, and thought processes that may be nearly impossible to follow. It’s where I live…

And, though our pyrpose here at the beach was quite different from everybody ele’s, we still enjoyed the same effects from sharing airspace here in VA Beach:
We did enjoy a lovely night-time dinner at our favorite cuban place.
We did meet more than relatives – we met friends. New ones, old ones, and some we’ve known for a long time. A lovely reunion day.

And, we did sit by the beach, and fry our flabby selves – it’s the effect of not having cubicle walls to hide behind.