That's what he told the PBS viewers out there as he led the cameras on a tour of the more outrageous commissions on display in his wood-working studio. Lately, he's been depicting New Mexican interpretations of saints driving contemporary cars.
After-hours on public television is a world unto itself, beckoning the exhausted, the drunk, the bored, to settle in and engage the quirky subjects and muted colors and soft-spoken voices.
Glass ornaments line a simple wooden table. Their creator explains that her work is largely feminist, and that she draws her inspiration from the inevitability of death. One woman goes on a cross-country journey to interview her late mother's favorite cartoonists from the New Yorker, while a British food traveler forces a smile as he eats a thick brown paste containing at least one raw egg, so as not to offend his Saudi Arabian host.
It's hard to say when that transition occurs. When what begins as camp, as awkward funny, slowly becomes endearing, becomes unendingly fascinating, becomes the comforting glow of an old friend in the dark—always open-minded though somehow never full-of-it, if ever a little tongue-in-cheek.
