Surprise reprise

Maybe I should have expected it. My old buddy Jess Coleman showed up in Portland six days later this year than last, once again with no advance notice. He has a ten-month-old grandson in California, so he left the searing heat of Texas to meet his grandson as soon as school finished for the summer, and now he’s passing through Portland on his way to Seattle, where he has more friends. 

I wanted to hear everything about the unveiling of his painting of Ms Opal Lee at the Texas Capitol. There’s a two-minute video of him talking about the experience here. He said a number of people at the unveiling asked for his autograph, which made him feel “like a movie star for five minutes.” His is only the second painting of a Black person now hanging in the Texas Capitol Building. The other is a portrait of Barbara Jordan, also painted by a Black artist.

I was dazed to learn that Jess is now 70. I still think of him as a young artist, which of course he was twenty-four years ago when we were colleagues. He still hasn’t retired, but he has a dream to buy a couple of acres of land and build himself a little log cabin house and studio. I asked him where he wants that two acres to be, and he laughed, “I’m still working on that question.” I love being on the map of his summer trips to the Pacific Northwest.

I like this photo I made of Jess in the restaurant where we had lunch because it feels like some of the work Cheeryoscuro does with his Leica Monochrom.