Robert Flinkman

Robert Flinkman
Bethesda Fountain
pencil and colored pencil on paper
14" X 17"
1982
copyright 1982 Robert Flinkman

September 25, 1982       Saturday

As I was drawing the scene for the painting, I realized how good it is to see beauty everywhere. While painting the scene of Fitzpatrick's, I kept on thinking to myself - I see so much beauty. It does make life worth the effort, the struggle, the pain and loneliness, to be able to see something so common yet perceive something special in that which you pass hurriedly day-to-day. Ironic how so many hurry off every morning, pushing and shoving to make their way to jobs most hate and find boring. Yet for me to see this scene and many like it, is like finding a flower growing out of a crack on the sidewalk upon which so many trample.....but they are records for me, give me strength, show me the value of life, and so I guess I have accomplished something in that, and should God will it, I'll live a long life to love this life even more.  I guess I've come some way to be able to write what I have, through the aggravation, pettiness, frustration and loneliness that I've encountered. And I'm sure I'll encounter them even more. But there's more to life than that, I know. And if in these years here in New York I've come to realize this, then my time has not been spent in vain, something that I do will survive.