37. Fame

This one-man show at Il Poggio was my third in this lifetime one-man show.

The first was at Gima's Gallery in the Ala Moana Center in Honolulu many, many years ago--an exhibition of oil paintings in a sort of abstract mode I developed during my years as an undergraduate. I grandly thought of the style as "abstract expressionism" and considered myself to be a contender. I didn't sell anything.

The second show was outdoors--no gallery--on the beach near Marmaris, Turkey where I found temporary work one summer at a beach camp for German tourists in "caravans".  I made paintings in house paint on scrap boards--abstract subjects again and Mexican colorful. I sold everything I painted cheap so I could have some traveling money.

This one-man show at Il Poggio was a huge success though I didn't sell anything. Everyone who came to the opening--all Elisabetta's friends--liked my ceramics and the things my friends had created--but nothing sold.

But by this time I had decided that I didn't need any money at all to travel as a pilgrim. In fact, I had discovered that it was more interesting to give any money I had away from day to day so I would start each day fresh without any money at all.

And I never begged for money either. It just seemed that anything I needed would come to me anyway--I still  don't know how it happened, and looking back at those pilgrim days many years ago it does seem rather impossible--but there it is.

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