The Easel of the Unseen

I was aware of Mark Johnson at a college we both attended, but he was on his way out the door and I was hardly there to begin with. If I saw his paintings then it would have been because I had a fixation on prowling in the art building at night. I’d steal away from some party, very high, to lurk around the senior studios, contemplating what a college art major did, trying to fit myself to that prospect. I couldn’t. We became friends in San Francisco and Oakland, a year or two later. Mark knew things I didn’t. He seemed both worldly and born out of his right time. He was shocked that I claimed to like screwball comedy but didn’t know who Preston Sturges was, and hustled me immediately to The Castro, to see The Lady Eve. That night it became one of my favorite films. Mark lifted weights and listened to Sarah Vaughan’s Crazy and Mixed Up. He made drawings and paintings quoting Degas, Rembrandt, Velasquez. He revered stretchers and canvas and oils, the material process, like my father. He loved appropriation and stupid jokes taken to the limit, jokes rendered with the utmost scrupulousness, like me. We laughed like we stood outside the century, like we had nothing to prove. We’d escaped the east coast and probably the bonds of time. <a href="https://medium.com/@jonathan.lethem/the-easel-of-the-unseen-5aaa7eb5f3e">Visit Now</a>