Dennis Hollingsworth

On the Road

The shippers left at midnight.

I met Klosa last year when he picked up paintings for Andr? at the beginning of summer. It was good to see him again. It was late, dark and the paintings looked interesting to me in the moonlight. I had stuffed my camera into my pocket for these furvitive shots.

Klosa is a funny guy. Fifty-ish, snow white sparsing hair, practical dresser, small and spry. I wasn't able to get a shot of him, it was night and I don't like flash camerawork. Just imagine a small relative of Kirk Douglas. He's the kind of guy who seems very serious until you see the humor seep out of the edges. He told me that they had recieved a request to drive from Madrid to Marbella only to find that the painter who was to release a painting, refused to do it. It seems that the painter lent the painting to a friend instead.

What 'tude, huh?

The guys called me from the center of town. I walked over and found them. A big truck, the trick was to conduct them close as possible to the studio without jamming then truck in the tight pueblo streets. I persuaded them to go via the beach. We could shuttle the paintings to the truck from there. The interior of their cab was thrashed with road warrior debris, a makeshift shelf atop the dash was astrewn with cigarettes, food wrappers and in the middle, a laptop for navigation. Klosa is a freak for driving into Spain into Germany. That's his edge. He'll go when no else will, anytime, on average every month. So he has plenty of business. He's been at it for twenty five years.

The tempo of work was funny. We would take a smoke break after every two shuttles. Klosa would pull out a couple of Coca Colas. I don't smoke, but I puffed a cigarette with them and listen to their stories.

This time, Klosa's driving partner was an older, hulking guy by the name of Eckhart. He was kind of strange, a running sore at the corner of his mouth so much so that he was always cocking his head away from you to diminish the aspect -which only added to the strangeness because his head was constantly tweeked in unnatural positions. Wierd. He was not that art smart, I had to pull his jacket away from the surface of my painting a couple of times.

Klosa hinted very strongly (a comic moment) that I assist instead of Eckhart. Eckhart stayed with the truck while we shuttled. The police stopped and checked us out. The police here like painters, this is true. The officer admired the work in the moonlight, compliments, and he was off. Just make sure you don't scrape the buildings in the outbound turn.

These guys are headed for Monte Carlo for a delivery, and from there, North to K?ln. Twenty five years.

I like the blurs:

They make me think of the great BACON.