Mervil Paylor (Mervil Paylor Design) and I met for the first time in 7th grade at Charlotte’s Quail Hollow Junior High. The next year it was Carmel JHS where we sat beside each other in the back of Mrs. Mosley’s language arts class. We loved Mrs. Mosley, but she was a considerably-less-than-spectacular teacher, so Mervil and I engaged in a kind of Dada banter we called “ChitChat” during the otherwise boring two-hour sessions. We invented a language art of our own — trading endless, random, nonsensical strings of words as if in actual conversation. The currency of ChitChat was the unexpected, so a winning contribution was one so outlandish that it halted the non-stop flow of the game. Although we were not in the same school tribes, our intellectual connection transcended all boundaries, and we became life-long friends. Through all these years we’ve delighted in collaboration … like two parts of the same brain separated at birth … giddy with reunion … and dancing across the universe.
In the last decade — in both research and art — I’ve found it troublesome to take on today’s work with yesterday’s technology. Of course that sounds wonky on its face — a classically trained portrait painter is, by definition, using ancient technology. But it’s not the essential nature of art or research that bothers me, it’s the business models. I love the old ways of observing people, reading their secret micro-expressions, asking them questions, truly seeing them, and painting their portraits … I just want to do those things within the context of modern life. So I’ve been tinkering with a new business construct for Studio C Shute … for a start, the Amazon store (in progress). But c’mon, using new marketing channels is a no-brainer. The part that’s really keeping me up at night is the painting itself … how the portrait lives in the world today … certainly not the way it did in the 1500’s … or any century since. How is the portrait … individualized art …. the personal narrative … how is the hand-crafted portrait consumable today? Perfect opportunity for a collaboration with my “shared IQ”. Trust me on this: Big. Things. Are. Afoot!
It’s been almost exactly two years since I made my way back home … to the Carolinas … where my roots are deep. When I arrived in my little mill town, I was lower than penniless. Somehow I managed to find a home, keep myself and the pets alive and healthy, and claw my way back. But there were some dark nights of the soul. Struggling to rebuild, it was a year before I could afford a hot water heater … nothing like a cold shower on a freezing winter morning to test one’s mettel. I remember plenty of times having to decide who got food …. me or my house-mates — Alia Atreides, The Amazing Poppy, Romulus Prince of Maryland, and Duncan Idaho. Needless to say, on those occasions I always went without, and they never did. Funny, having lost so much weight, people commented that I was such a successful dieter … I certainly didn’t want to scare the hell out of them with the truth.
Last night I watched Two Popes … fabulous. The future Pope Francis tells of a time, his dark night of the soul, when he could not hear the Voice of God. There were moments in my life … during times of prosperity and big white houses … when I didn’t hear God. But there was never one single nano-second in the past two years that the Voice was silent. On those hungry nights I would feast on faith for dinner, and make my way to sleep knowing I’d have the same for breakfast. The Voice always said, “never give up … go to sleep … you have arrived … you just don’t know it yet.”
When Mervil turned 60 she wanted to let the occasion go unmarked. Well that didn’t happen. One of her talents is creating amazing events, so no one was going to let her off the hook for this milepost. We all received an invitation with only an address in Davidson NC and a time. Turns out she had rented an old movie theater for a private screening of African Queen, followed by a themed dinner at a nearby bistro. It was the first time I’d seen African Queen on the big screen. What a difference, right? As is always true with great art, the movie spoke DIRECTLY to me: it washed over me with “never give up … the lake is just on the other side of these reeds … and the rains are coming. Go to sleep … you have arrived … you just don’t know it yet.”
