Part One: Heart Attack
Well, it's the eighth of September, 1988 and as streams of
light pour through the windows, washing my
fingers the soft morning, I sit to write an explanation of both
observation and change as they've come
over me the past few years.
There's no such thing as a coincidence was a work that was
in progress early in January of 1987, and
was my use of a phrase I’d often spoken to try and explain
magic (like a tree falling over in a Rocky
Mountain meadow when you're standing there). The day before
my forty-second birthday, my boss and
I went to proclaim a great corporate success, and explain
about a "few" situations, when he fell over
dead as we were on our way to the meeting.
The title for this book slowly turned to me and with life of
its own, smiled, engaging me. This book is
about awareness, and it's about continuous journeys. It's about being what you want, and must be, no matter what. It’s about faith and it’s about love, growth and understanding. It’s about being alive.
My boss, whom I never really thought of as my boss, had a
heart attack on January 28th, 1988, and almost died at work. In his period of
recovery, because I was most senior in "our" group, I was appointed
"acting" during a five-month period.
The image laid out in ATTACK came on my forty second
birthday, the day following the incident, and was done, to straighten out, as
best I could, how I'd felt about what I'd seen, and felt. ATTACK represents what
it felt like to be at the scene of the near death of someone I knew, with
electric paddles,
cardiac needles, blood from the nose, and the worried looks
of nurses who knew what was happening. The painting has that sense of fear, and
hollow gestures from upper management as the event unfolded
upon "their" space. I'm at the upper left, and
that face is why I had to paint this picture as soon as possible.
ATTACK
(1988) -owner Dr. and Mrs. Ted Evans
"the
coincidence of this event, and the effect it has had
upon me for the past six months, began this
book
and brought the title to life."
