Coda
So, dad. Those are all the pieces I have any half decent images of, plus a few memories.
You were some varying mix of agnostic existentialist zen Buddhist and I'm a simple atheist, so I don't know why I would write directly to you on a website several years after your death. But it doesn't have to make sense.
We used to go for long drives and you'd talk to me endlessly about the meaninglessness of life. While in retrospect this was likely a little ill-advised to put on an 8 year old's psyche (I'm ok now, kinda), I understood later that this was a form of freedom for you. Even optimism. If everything is meaningless, we can tear it down and make it instead what we want or need. We don't need to accept the meaning imposed by others, but can create our own. Even of ourselves.
Meaning is a choice.
I mention this here because this is now the lens through which I see your art. Even with a small shift of perspective, symbols and roles quickly dissolve into arbitrariness and absurdity. Yet the new perspective is no less valid than the original.
But I'm not an art critic, so I'll stick to my original intent with this site. While there's some humour here - where would we be without a keen eye for the absurd - I know the levity was in the cracks for you, not the main show. You struggled a lot, from beginning to bitter end.
Shortly after you died I wrote a memorial post for you that said, in part:
"Although I fear you were rarely able to feel it, or know it, or accept it, or take solace from it - you were cherished by everyone you met, just for being you. [...] That’s a remarkable accomplishment."
I hope that was an emotive exaggeration. But regardless, I also hope that finally getting your work to a larger audience will help continue that legacy of bringing some wonder and curiosity and eccentricity into peoples' lives.
So here you go. Your work now has a permanent public exhibition.
With all my love,
Shortcake
PS I'm really sorry I caved under pressure when I was a kid and pulled that big weed out of our front "garden" when you were arguing about it with our neighbour. It was the only time I ever saw the look of disappointment on your face directed at me. And you were right, of course. The human intent within a planted flower doesn't make it inherently better than a weed.