He knows that the old blood needs the new blood
to keep going, no matter how much they bitch about it, and he moves between the seemingly mutually exclusive habitats of Conch
land and newcomer land like the world's mellowest hummingbird, picking up a little nectar here, dropping off a little pollen
there, spinning in the air once in a while just for the fun of it.
His work is informed by the woodcarver Mario Sanchez, and by the big-eyed kitsch paintings of the 1960s, and
also by DaVinci, Picasso, R. Crumb, Thomas Hart Benton, Magritte, what he saw on TV last week, what he saw on his drive
into work this morning, by several decades of reading the funny papers, and by the long forgotten guys who hand painted the
signs for long forgotten restaurants. Picasso should probably get another mention.
Behind the smile and the crew cut and the cuzzy bubba fast talk are a lucid set of eyes that
take in everything that is and was Key West: the blue skies, the poinciana trees, the coffee stands, the bicycles, the dog
walkers, the leafblowers, the chickens, the Cuban finches, the rust, the rot, the rain, the mom and pop stores, the street
dancers, the smugglers at sea, the hemophiliacs, the doorway drunks, the lobstermen, the fishermen, the firemen, the cops,
the queens, the kids, the pretty girls, the nuns, the soup-making tias and abuelas, the hustlers of both genders, and the
mad dogs, tourists, and Mosquito Control employees in the noonday sun.
Mention offhandedly that your drunk neighbor Charlie knocked on the door at 2 a.m. and asked for a tire iron,
and a week later he will hand you a small painting depicting such a scene.
It would be surprising to learn he actually has to pay for his cafe con leche.
Smart people have paid good money for his paintings. Other people have stolen them off the
wall. Mark Hedden
