Ode to Jaime

My friend Jaime Gartelos moved to Chicago a couple of years ago and I'm not sure I've seen him since. We have two of his paintings in our home, which we adore. Besides being an amazing painter, he is a talented musician, composing a Russian Spaceman Rock Opera in 2004 and performing with a band he put together, The Moscows. That night was spectacular. Jaime's commitment to every detail, unwavering. The costumes his mother made, well...there are no words.

Last November he asked me to write a recommendation for a residency program. Of course I would! But then I never got the request or instructions from the school. I let him know, but I still heard nothing. It slipped through the cracks and this has been bothering me ever since. So this is an apology of sorts.

 

This Walt Whitman quote, from the preface of Leaves of Grass, is one of his favorites. I love it too.

"This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body."