Francois Emile Barraud

Everywhere, it seems, people are talking about the here-to-fore little known painter Francois Emile Barraud. I won't be the last. Swiss. Born 1899, same year as Hemingway. Died of T.B. at the age of thirty-five. Contemporary of Balthus. So much talent. So little time.


This is his most famous work, maybe. I say that only because I am familiar with it. I've seen it many times. Where is it housed? New York, but which museum?


I will only look at the works of painters for awhile. It is how I want to photograph just now. Not forever, but I find I can only do one thing at a time now. I can't even switch cameras successfully. It is one thing and then the other.


I am happy with my recent work. Happier all the time, really. There are no competing voices in my head just now. Not about that, anyway. I'm listening to no one. When I'm finished, I'll listen.


Change of topic. I've noticed that a lot of blogs that I go to have been dormant or have been removed since Easter. I think that maybe their authors don't feel their efforts are worth the lack of rewards. I'm not talking about blogs like mine, but blogs by players, names, movers. I've noticed the change, too. So many egos counting on something, some loyalty, some reward. I can't figure it out.


I used to have a friend who told me, "You want people to think about you all the time. Hell, you're lucky if they think about you when they are with you!" I've changed it a little, for he was talking about a particular girl of whom I was fond, not people in general, but it didn't make as much sense that way.


It made sense to me who has never thought that he existed for people if he wasn't in the same room with them. I never had much faith in that direction.


And maybe, as Frost says, that has made all the difference, for here I still am scratching on the cave wall as if to let someone know that I was here. For a moment.

This was me. Qu'elle damage.