IN WHICH WRITING IS LIKE PAINTING

A few years ago my friend Foster Dickson wrote a book called I JUST MAKE PEOPLE UP: RAMBLINGS WITH CLARK WALKER.

Clark is an artist from Montgomery, Alabama. I love his work. And I love his words too. Consider this:

"You could paint forever. You could paint and paint and paint on one painting for five years, and you might not even like it. But people don't know the struggle and the agony that goes into painting. Sometimes paint will come right off the end of your hand, and it'll be wonderful. And other times, you fight with it until you don't know what to do with it, and you're still pushing that brush, and you're still trying to get it to -- and it's all sort of abstract in your mind. You don't know what you're going for. At least for me, because I'm not painting any - I'm painting imaginary things, I create people and create situations. Not all the time. I have painted portraits, and I have painted the still life, but I like to invent, I just make people up. To make the world the way I want it."

YES.

It's a gorgeous book. Thank you, Foster, for taking the time to record an important story. And to you, Clark, for telling it!