A few months ago--it was spring when vitality animated a green aura of happiness, and vice versa--Daniel and I sat on a bench, some awkward distance from one another, he curtailing anecdotes about artistic practice with tales from the labor line, frame building, his favorite matcha. I write from memory; and succumbing to the swirling fantasma of memory's aids, sparks, open my palm of stars and look back at the votive images I captured with Daniel, as he walked me through the gallery of renderings, each hearth-like in cast and shadow (48" x 60"), each an ironic well of Americana and its imaginative force. Daniel explained--the paintings were created quickly; each completed in a single session--except one, a young woman's affectionate wrangle gathering a goat, its constitutes of joy and otherwise meaningless expansion of cells, entraining either her flesh to its, or its to her, as if before sleep, matching external rhythm; and goat, pensive, disguised, even playl...
