Year: 2017

This week, I found myself, as I occasionally do, wandering Reno, Nevada. Reno is an odd little city, rank with the cigarette-infused sweat of benighted men and women gambling away their days, yet with development going on all over that is veering the town away from solely being Las Vegas's trashy sister. It is a mongrel town, fitting for this mongrel age we are enduring. At a giant warehouse filled with artists and craftspeople ("makers," as we call them now), where metallurgists and carvers make giant sculptures meant for Burning Man, I met a young man in a wheelchair, almost quadriplegic - he had some small use of one hand, who painted portraits and landscapes with a brush affixed to a contraption he wore on his head, like a multi-hued unicorn's horn. They were delicate, small pieces, slightly askew in perspective but precise enough to be stunningly accurate, even if you weren't considering the artist and considering his technique.