There’s No Accounting for the Strangeness of Things Drawings from the exhibition by David R. Smith February 2020 Life in 10 Minutes 2707 W Cary Street Richmond VA
Hats off to our friend, Hieronymus Bosch Dedicated to Mary Halsted August 22, 1949 – February 5, 2019
2
The Strangeness of Things by Valley Haggard
When he was in his early 20s, my father worked as a social worker at a Virginia state psychiatric hospital. Over the years he has told me many stories f rom this period of time with his trademark empathy, humor, and love of the absurd, but one story always stood out. As he was completing his morning rounds, my father found one of his patients lying in his bathtub, hands clutching a single fake red rose, arms crossed over his chest, a perfect portrait of death. “Are you OK, Mr. Johnson?” My dad asked. Mr. Johnson bolted straight upright in his bathtub, looked at my dad and said, “There’s no accounting for the strangeness of things.” It has been one of my dad’s favorite sayings ever since. While it is the title he has chosen for this show of recent artwork, it also describes — with uncanny accuracy — the last decade, if not many decades of his life. My father has always been a seeker, a storyteller, and a philosopher. He’s partaken in counterculture, introspection, and a life that’s veered off the beaten path and largely into one of dreams and poetry and art, music and films and books. My father was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia and Parkinson’s disease at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2012, but neurological decline was not his first introduction to alternate realities and hallucinations. In some ways his diagnosis matched the vivid life of the mind he was already inclined to live. 3
My dad lives in a world steeped in surrealism, absurdism, hallucination, horror, and wonder. He shares stories with me of entering alternate realities, parallel dimensions, time portals, and worlds beyond my own perspective and point of view. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish lines of T.S. Elliot’s poetry or plotlines from Fellini films from stories of my dad’s own day. Though my father hasn’t been able to express himself through wood — his favorite medium — for years now, it has been truly exciting to see versions of his reality appear as art on the page. Each drawing is like a Rorschach test, almost certain to say as much about the viewer as the lines and marks themselves. My dad’s face lights up as he describes, in somber or hilarious detail, what he has created. Storylines and characters and descriptions emerge, and change frequently in the telling. We’ve chosen to hold this art show during February to commemorate the one-year anniversary of his wife’s death, his move into memory care, and his 71st birthday. May the story continue to evolve. — Valley Haggard
4
An Interview with the Artist by Valley Haggard
VH How do dreams and hallucinations influence your work? DS I’d say completely. Last night in my dreams, two nurses came in and put a pocket mirror under my nose to see if I was still breathing and I shot up and said “WAIT A MINUTE! I’m not dead yet!” VH Does making art help you stay in touch with reality? DS It’s when I’m not drawing that the strangest things happen. This is a way of holding onto reality. Making something is a powerful way to refocus. VH How did you get back into making art? DS The encouragement of friends. The whole new situation of being in the home and finally being declared demented...having Lewy Body Dementia with Parkinson’s really beat the shit out of me. But this is a way of overcoming that. It’s been liberating. It’s fun. It’s made me happy. I crank up the stereo. Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Vivaldi, Bach and many others too numerous to mention. >>
5
VH How do you feel about your upcoming art show? DS Now that it’s out I can breathe again. The intensity got really out of hand. There was a feeling that I had to prove to the world that I was still good, that I could still do something well. It’s a strong ego feeling of competition with everybody else in the world, and a secret desire for immortality. Like a vampire! I’d like to see it as a culmination of a lot of hopes and dreams and memories come together. What would you call that? A legacy? That sounds a little pretentious, but that’s what it is. VH How do you come up with the titles for your art? DS The title comes the second I look at it. But the way I look at it changes every time. There are some that change much more radically. It’s the nature of this paper. It absorbs different images and spits them back out again.
6
VH What’s this year been like for you? DS It’s been filled with more wonderment and magic and love than I had ever known imaginable. And it’s been Hell. Pure Hell. Famous actors and actresses say that life is stranger than fiction. And there’s a 19th century poet who says that there is more in this world than you or I can ever imagine. I have a Hieronymus Bosch t-shirt that I got at the Prado in Spain. And that’s exactly what it’s like.
7
In the early 1950s, speeding trains were a thing of the past A horse in the Eiffel Tower The golf club got mixed up in his son’s lawn mower 8
He started off as a cellphone and entered the dimension through the back door. He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named The Orange Bastard 9
This is the large tail of a whale with four big dorsal fins. But this is a rotten tooth ice cream salesman. A door-to-door to cat salesman!
10
There’s no accounting for the strangeness of things.
11
“Smith, your attitude is being noticed!�
12
I had not known that so many were dethroned.
13
The industrial revolution. A sleeping hobbit dragon, now known as the Old Smith Place invites you in for a Saturday night gala.
14
“I can totally fly this!”
15
“Mom! I dropped my valise!” — a little fat boy from New Jersey “Mommy I’ve soiled my trousers!”
16
Wolverine Pilot. I was worried I would leave my suit and tie at work but I forgot anyway.
17
Dwight Eisenhower as a child leaving a liquor store
18
Quiet Desperation
19
It had been a long and horrific week. “Why don’t you come up and see my sketches sometime?”
20
The foot of justice stands firmly upon itself.
21
Everything’s bad when you remember it.
22
The cowardly KKK member takes refuge behind the thorny rocks of time.
23
The sun rose like the bloody head of a baby being born.
24
...and above all, use the right tool for the job.
25
Prehistoric deer checking things out
26
The more things change, the more they change.
27
There’s No Accounting for the Strangeness of Things David Raymond Smith has been a social worker, carpenter, artist, and sculptor. David shifted from wood sculpture to drawing while grappling with changes in his abilities brought on by dual diagnoses of Lewy Body Dementia and Parkinson’s Disease in 2012. He is now a prolific maker of drawings, which explore and blend memories, dimensions, and realities. His mark making is expressive and urgent; blending sensitivity and openness with humor and experience. Although beautiful on their own, the drawings’ titles offer portals into the narrative layers conjured and recorded within the bounds of each page. The work is challenging and simultaneously brings delight; inspires laughter, curiosity, awe. This booklet marks a February 2020 exhibition of David Smith’s drawings and sculpture at Life in 10 Minutes in Richmond, Virginia. The show was spearheaded by David’s daughter, Valley Haggard, curated by Llewellyn Hensley, and facilitated by Tim McCready.