A Path To Abstraction

RONALD L. JONES

Marcus Wilson was the first new friend I made when released from prison, early 2010. We met originally at the local skate shop in Bay City, Texas. He was a teenager, then still in high school, maybe a sophomore at the time. I entered the skate shop, which had moved locations while I was away. I wanted to say hello to the owner, a friend, and the mother of a friend. I was actually arrested on the premises of the previous location, so I was a little nervous about entering the space. Moreover, I was scared that I would create a scene, not knowing how anyone would react to my presence with the understanding of what I had been through.

As I was speaking to the owner, Marcus walked in. I could tell that he was interested in who I was;

maybe he would have heard of me while I was away. I did not know what he could have learned, but only hoped that it was kind. At the time, I was very nervous about being out in public, afraid that I would not find a kind face while out. At that time, I was repulsed by the idea of going outside. This was primarily due to my fear of retaliation; a fear that I have yet to lose sight of in the past nineteen years since the occurrence.

He approached me and asked if I was who he thought I was, “Big Ronnie.” I said yes. He had heard of me. I was something of a legend to many of the younger skaters in Bay City. The town, a population of less than 19,000, did not have a handful of skateboarders when I was last present. There were fewer Black kids skateboarding. I believe I was the only one. Everyone in town would see me pushing up and down the street, skating to and from the places I would skateboard.

As an adolescent, teenager and young adult, not everyone in the community I was raised within was so accepting of who I was or what I was into at the time. I would chalk that up to my being six feet, eight inches with no real interest in playing basketball. However, truth be told, I really loved basketball. I just never wanted to allow the Bay City School District to benefit from any accolades I may have procured during any athletic extracurricular activity. I never felt like I was ever given a fair chance in their education system and so never wanted them to attribute any of my successes to their involvement. In addition to that, I was frequently bullied by the folks that played basketball until I decided to play, and at that time I realized I was only good enough for them if they stood to benefit from my involvement in activities where they would also be participants.

While in the shop I learned that after years of petitioning, visiting the Mayor’s Office, and

fundraising, the city finally established a skatepark. This was really mostly due to the shop owner’s willingness to be a champion, raising funds which the Mayor agreed to match. This is where Marcus was planning to go after his stop at the shop. It was where I informed him I would go right after our conversation.

Life is funny in that way. You meet someone randomly and through them a new pathway, or journey is unlocked. It was Marcus’s reaction to meeting me that made me feel a little more comfortable in my skin. It was the welcoming back that I did not know I would receive, but was so sorely needed.

Over the span of three years, or the remainder of his high school career, we became best friends. Well, he was my best friend, at least. Being a skateboarder you are often in the presence of several different generations or age groups all at

once. The common bond being our love of the activity. Skateboarding, like any other pastime activity offers the participant a sense of self, community, and comradery. Marcus was my comrade, not just as a skateboarder, but as the subject of many photographs, video clips, and conversations about life.

Marcus, like myself, was interested in more than just one activity. He was also a very talented musician. We would, late at night, ride around looking for places to take photos. There began to be times when he just wanted to preview a new song he wrote, which at the time did not contain lyrics. I would always give honest feedback, never negative really, just observations. I was, and still am a fan of the songs he wrote then and those that he has since.

In the early stages of our friendship my film camera was left in the car of a friend, who later sold it for drugs. After a period of frustrations and

threats to involve the police, it was returned but in the damaged state I received it, I could not continue its usage. This created an opportunity for the purchase of a replacement, a digital camera, one with video capabilities. It was with this new camera that I recorded the video snippet which became the music video for his song titled “Red Bricks”.

I was familiar with the musician Jeffrey Perales and his ability to record demos based on his own testimony and that of those close to him. At the time, Jeff, an Angleton, Texas resident at the time, was in the band Earhart. I was familiar with their music primarily due to my being present at shows that he would put on at The Beehive, a small venue located on his parents’ property in Angleton. Jeff, one of the most active musicians I have ever met, was at the time probably responsible for recording every local band in Brazoria County.

Jeff’s parents were really great at being there for Jeff in all his pursuits. His dad was probably the most supportive parent I had ever met in my life. He was also the coolest, sweetest, nicest dad I had ever met. He was at every show I ever attended and even helped set up the rugged art exhibitions I curated in their carport. The art shows that I curated in that space gave me a sense of purpose, even though we could not properly hang things: there being no walls to mount the artwork unto, and all. It was through that enterprise that I became what I would call, close friends.

I really believed in Marcus’s ability to perform and had heard enough of what he had produced to initiate the conversation with Jeff about the possibility of recording Marcus’s demo. Marcus did not have any income; I, having very little, primarily due to my Pizza Hut delivery job, sought to compensate Jeff on Marcus’s behalf. I approached Jeff with the proposal and he agreed to assist us in

the undertaking, something Marcus and I were equally ecstatic about. I would like to claim I was the happiest, but that probably is up for debate. It was my plan to document the act and to produce a short film about the experience. I wanted to be able to present Marcus and Jeff with a documentary that spoke to their efforts throughout the course of the experience. Over the span of several hours, Marcus and Jeff worked together to record the songs while I documented. It was the first time I had ever been in a studio space, and I would imagine it was Marcus’s as well. It was a pretty amazing experience to both bear witness to and document it with photography and video.

After the demo was recorded, and Jeff set to polishing the tracks enough to be released, I began to try my hand at sculpting a story from all that had transpired throughout the process. I had, at the time, no real experience editing video and so had to

learn from scratch. At the time, I was not familiar with the more high-end editing software, and rightly so, as I could not have afforded to purchase it for a passion project that I had no plans or making available for purchase. I set to the editing process utilizing only the software available, the preinstalled Windows Movie Maker. It was a very tedious and meticulous undertaking, one which took over a month to figure out and complete.

A year after the demo was documented, through audio, video and photographs, I received a call from Jeff. Earhart, his primary project, had since broken up and several more replaced it. One of those projects, Smooth Sailing, an upbeat fuzzy guitar ensemble, was in need of album art for their upcoming release. It was at this time that I was reminded that I had failed to compensate Jeff for his work on Marcus’s demo. It was through the creation of this artwork that I would be free of the debt, so I agreed to the terms.

At the time I had not been exposed to Photoshop, the program I would need to utilize to produce the required materials. Yet, I did make an agreement with my friend to produce the necessary items.

One sunny day, I accompanied Jeff as he drove to Galveston. It was his intent to utilize his Rav4 as the cover art for the upcoming release. At the time, I had not seen or been in Jeff’s presence for almost a year. It was nice to get to hear the new music he was working on, to reunite with his parents. His dad is still my favorite personality. I just loved to see how much he loved his son, how supportive both his parents were of what he was seeking out and following through with. I was also able to spend time with his family’s cow dogs who were always either running up to you very excitedly, or sitting lazily in the sun on their lawn.

While working on the album art, I mistakenly layered an additional image onto the project and something amazing happened. I saw the possibility for an exploration of the program; however I had to earmark the occurrence as I had a debt to pay.

Funny, as it were, I was later interrupted in the process by Jeff. It was then that I learned that the project, his new band, was splitting up prior to the release of the albums. It was a lot to take in at the time. On the one hand, I was able to repay the debt.

On another I was introduced to the editing software.

On yet another, I was able to investigate the mistake I made while creating the unreleased album’s artwork. That mistake led to the creation of a new creative medium; digital art.

I would spend the next three to six months going through old images, the good and the unusable, to find ways to explore how I could create new images from those that I could not utilize for its original purposes. All of it was spurred by a single

individual, Marcus Wilson. If he had not spoken up in the skate shop, or made himself available and vulnerable with me, I most likely would not have engaged in the manipulation of images utilizing the software or the explored digital media as an artistic endeavor. I cannot say that I give him all the credit, primarily due to my active role in a lot of what transpired. We both had to allow the other into our lives in a real and meaningful way. We both had to be present with each other for either of us to have arrived at either of the instances presented. We both were dependent, if not reliant upon Jeff to be present and willing to work with us for the demo to be recorded. I also had to be negligent and forgetful in order for the proposition which would present the opportunity for the happy mistake to take place. In a sense, we all were present exactly when we needed to be in order for the connections made, to be fruitful.