The Escapee
The Escapee
1966, Greenwich Village Period.
The work is lost. I think I gave it to my friend Abe and
I've lost touch with him.
I gave Abe Walcheck and Jim Lacey about twenty paintings because I couldn't keep moving with so
many pieces of artwork.
It's a self portrait. On September of 1966 I left the Greenwich Village Studio for Whitehall Induction Center down by the Battery. I was leaving for basic training. I was leaving for good. And I really didn't know if I would survive. The chances were not so hot.
In the work I leave, paintbrush in hand. I vanish. All that's left is a mere trace of what was. I'll be honest with you, I never got back to the level of productivity I had while I was at the Village. But that place was like I show in the work: a pink swamp full of snakes. That reminds me of another self portrait of me with a paintbrush done earlier of my arrival in what seemed to me to be a hostile environment.
Wary Arriver, 1965. Click thumbnail to see and use backspace key to
return.
So I traded the pink swamp for the sea of vanishes. It's another one of my exit self portraits like "The Realization". I guess sooner or later we all come to the realization. I took a look at reality. It shook me up real good. It does that to everybody. Most never go that route, though, preferring to remain in the state of denial.
Later, when I left the army in 1969, I had one more good run in Oakland, California, but the saved up army pay ran out really soon and the GI Bill wasn't enough for the art school. So I grabbed my paint box, back pack and sleeping bag, stepped out to the road, stuck out my thumb and began twenty years of hard traveling.
Click here to return to the same place on the Greenwich Village Period page.
Click on the following links to go there:
Copyright © 2003 [Paul Hall]. All rights reserved.
email address: art@paulhallart.com