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The Hobo by LaFiglia d'Aosta
He calls himself a hobo, but he doesn't jump boxcars and ride the
rails. Still, he likes the name. I think he likes the romance of the
title. He'll tell you straight away he's neither a tramp nor a bum.
He's more of a migratory artist, following the seasons, searching for
hidden treasure. Except pirates, real pirates, never reveal the
locations of their swag. But he does. Anyway, I suppose that
would make him a pirate hobo, or else a hobo pirate.
He sails across seas of wheat and barley, following prairie winds like sea lanes and currents, up and down, back and forth through the mid- and northwest in an old '89 Ford pickup. It's an F150 with an
extended cab and two-wheel drive. I asked him what colour it was.
"Well, white?" he ruminated, scratching a salt-and-pepper beard
under cherry apple cheeks. He chuckled silently to himself, his
eyes all snappy and crackling like a couple of hazelnuts in a campfire. "Used to be white," he remembers, "but old now. I
keep him in top running order, but he's a beatup old truck. Hah!
Kinda like me." More romance, I guess. The truck's name is
"Prayer," and boasts over a quarter million miles on its bleary old
odometer.
My pirate hobo is "three quarters retired," and his freedom to
wander is very important to him. "I have to be careful about my
budget, so I take care of the things I do own. Been looking about a little for a pickup with better fuel economy, but with this new
project I just started, well, that's gonna have to wait. I guess it's
me and ol' Prayer for a while longer." His "new project" is a gallery
showing of his work, his best treasures.
The treasures for which he searches are old, abandoned,
weather-worn clapboard houses and barns and ghost towns. Old forgotten storefronts with warped and broken windows and crumbly bricks. He likes secluded valleys hidden under mountain vistas; high blue skies with clouds of fat white horses. Spring streams pregnant and swollen with winter runoffs. All these speak to him in colours and textures and shapes.
When he finds something that is a treasure, he photographs it. Sometimes he'll search for months, even years, for just the right subject. He has a good eye for the hidden things that Van Gogh and Monet saw, and what he sees there he paints into the photographs, turning them into incredible works of art, revealing the real treasures he's found.
Hobo or pirate, he's become something of a folk figure with a long
list of followers that have signed on with him, and through him
vicariously jump freight cars or board pirate ships. Some even
venture forth on their own, so taken are they with his wanderlust,
seeking their own treasures and bringing them back to him for his
appraisal, his approval, his encouragement. When he appraises, he sees with their eyes what they saw, and this is his approval, his
encouragement to them. And in return he gains their respect, their loyalty, and their love. He makes people happy.
So keep an eye out for him. You never know what wind may take him to your part of the country. If he does show up, catch hold of his coat tails!
