Speaking of ‘risk’ this is a quadtych series photograph by Stephen Plunkett of Danny Allen climbing up a waterfall in the nude—swimming upstream to the extreme. The images rotate to create a Rorschach effect, but my understanding is Dan is climbing upstream in all of them. When he reached the top, there was a sort of natural “infinity pool” where he rested. This image was located too late to be included in the book. Collection of Susan Plunkett.
I’m rapidly approaching the one year anniversary of the book project, although It seems like it was much longer ago. I’ve had an unusually busy year, writing a book, and completing quite a few major paintings of my own. I’ve restored an important historic dollhouse with a fascinating pedigree, and settled two lawsuits about which the less said, the better. Both suits were awarded in my favor, which is all that matters. The real question is: When do I sleep? I don’t. I never have, nor do I know how to be idle.
This Friday, February 22nd will be one year since I received Sarah Gerin’s email forwarded to me by Kathy Calderwood, prompting me to write An Early Work Late in Life. I wrote the book initially on a different blog site so Dan’s friends and family could comment and contribute in an open forum. But the book began more or less as a stream of consciousness outpouring of my own thoughts and memories which had been lodged in my heart and head for decades.
Now I’ve committed all that, plus what additional information I’ve learned to paper. I’ve spit-polished the words through a professional editor and made them beautiful through an excellent book designer. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished, but I haven’t done any of this with anything less than a realistic eye on what I should expect by way of return. This has been a spiritual project seeking out long overdue closure—but financial gain will not be one of the rewards reaped. My KickStarter fundraising campaign will bring me about two thirds of the way toward paying the for the initial project costs. The remainder will need to be out of pocket. There will only be a printing of 500 first edition copies.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1149501600/an-early-work-late-in-life-the-art-and-life-of-dan – A little better than one week left before the funding time limit runs out.
When I did the math on projected total costs for editing, design work, printing and binding, baring those 500 copies in mind, if I sold them all at cost, without building in any profit for my own time and energy, the book would already be priced out of the market. I’m going to have to sell the book at well below cost, and eat the financial loss. It’s a good thing I did the KickStarter campaign, or this project would have sunk me.
A number of the copies will need to be “comped” to contributors, booksellers, agents, publishers and the like. In my own typical fashion, like everything I do, this will be an anesthetic triumph, and a financial failure. At least I remain consistent.
An Early Work Late in Life 