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Art, advertising and a short-lived love affair.  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ David played and it pleased the Lord Art, advertising and a short-lived love affair ​ --------------------------------------------------------------- PSA: If you're at all enthralled by the stories you read in these newsletters and would like to learn how to write stories of your own, you should consider enrolling in [Meet Cute](=). --------------------------------------------------------------- This is about a 24-hour love affair. But, it takes me a moment to get there. So, bear with me. I flew into Philadelphia to write advertising for a brand whose headquarters sits about an hour outside the city. Generally, I do most of my work at [Honey Copy](=) from various cafes in whatever city I find myself in or my writing desk in Nashville. I've written about the latter in tremendous detail once or twice before. My father built my writing desk for me out of a thick slab of walnut that once served as a rafter in an old tobacco factory in Southern Indiana. Decades ago, a fire broke out in that factory and burned good and strong. When the words are frozen, I'll run my fingers along the charred places in the wood until I feel something in me has had the chance to thaw. For clients who have the budget and the desire to fly me out and put me up, I'll cut short my travels or extricate myself from my writing desk and show up in the flesh. There is a beautiful magic that can only happen when you're in the same room as other creatives. Everybody gets their respective parchment and writing utensils out––for me, it's always a yellow legal pad and a Black Pilot G2 10––and with enough caffeine and divine intervention, the room manages to pluck an idea from the ether. We've done a great disservice to advertising by doing away with these in-person creative brainstorms. There is an old story about John Lennon and Paul McCartney that very well may be bullshit but I adore it anyway. McCartney goes over to Lennon's house one day to write a song. Lennon, at the time, was hoping to finance a new swimming pool in his backyard. McCartney pulls out his guitar and says something to the tune of... Let's write a swimming pool. I try never to embody this commercial mindset when writing [poetry]( or spoken-word, simply because I don't have the same artistic firepower as McCartney and Lennon and I will certainly be left feeling disappointed. However, when [I'm writing advertising](=), I'm doing so with the intention of writing swimming pools, both for myself and for the brands I'm servicing. David Ogilvy has a marvelous quote on the subject... Most good copywriters fall into two categories. Poets. And killers. Poets see an ad as an end. Killers as a means to an end. If you are both a killer and a poet, you get rich. Anyway, I'm rambling. For this particular client, I was in cahoots with my friend and colleague Dave Peterson. In fact, it wasn't so much my client. It was Peterson's client. My responsibility was to simply show up reasonably sober and shit brilliance. Peterson knows me well. He knows that if I have to sit in too many meetings for too long a time, I will begin showing signs of mania, scanning the room for an open window. So, Peterson goes to great lengths to protect me. He only makes me go to meetings if absolutely necessary and will always book us rooms in the most interesting parts of town so that once work has commenced for the day, he can set me loose like a fucking dog off the leash. For this particular trip, we ended up in a neighborhood called Fishtown, a patch of land that has changed hands more times than Battambang. Fishtown was originally inhabited by the Turtle Clan of the Lenape Indian tribe... then came the Swedish farming families... then the British shipbuilders along with the German fishermen... then the Irish-Catholic working-class... then the smack and the crack cocaine... then the artists... then the deep-pocket investors... then the hipsters. Now, Fishtown is well on its way to becoming the next Brooklyn. So Peterson and I are walking through Fishtown in search of a restaurant whose name I can't recall. By mistake, we walk into another restaurant whose name I can recall but won't recite here as not to divulge too much information. When we walk in, we find ourselves in a tiny room no bigger than a walk-in closet. The host is drawing a sketch on a tiny notepad. It's very messy and violent and beautiful. It reminds me of something Basquiat would pen down on a cocktail napkin if bored at a dinner banquet (not that I imagine Basquiat attended many dinner banquets). I'd later find out she's a painter. She looks up at me with these pretty brown half-drawn eyes and I nearly faint. The painter soon realizes our mistake, guides us outside and points us down the street towards the restaurant we're looking for. I can't get this woman out of my head. So, after dinner, I tell Peterson I have to go take care of something but that I will rendezvous with him in 15 minutes at the bar next door. I jog down the street, order two shots of Fernet at a haunt called Johnny Brenda's, down them both and then walk back into this wrong restaurant that is now very much the right restaurant. She looks up at me and says, "You're back." I say, "I am." Because I'm as shy as a fawn, I don't ask for her number. Instead, I make a reservation for the following night. She tells me I can make a reservation for the following night but she won't be working. I take the hint and change the reservation for the night following the following night. At the time, I wasn't aware that this particular restaurant was one of the finest Omakase bars on the East Coast. When I return with Peterson a couple nights later, I pick up the tab to say thank you for allowing me to share in his business. It's $850. The next morning, Peterson boards a flight back home to Bend, Oregon. I miss my flight because I decide to have coffee with this painter. After coffee, she takes me to the Barnes Museum. She's been classically trained and so her knowledge is astonishing. She tells me about Cézanne and Matisse and Soutine as if she knows them personally. In a way, she does. In Hemingway's Iceberg Theory, he states that much like an iceberg invisibly towering below the ocean’s surface, most of a story should be hidden from the reader, leaving ample room for imagination to wander and fill in the gaps. Hemingway wrote believing that by omitting something, the something being omitted would ultimately become stronger because of its omission. And so I will say the rest of the day was beautiful and the evening beautiful still. I saw her once more after our time together and then life pulled us in opposite directions. She took an artist residency in Iceland and I drove across the country in search of something I have yet to find. At times, I feel saddened by the fleeting nature of it all. It was as if the two of us closed a very good book after the first chapter. But, I mostly feel tremendously grateful. She found me in a season when I was in an incredible amount of pain and throughout the 24 hours I spent with her, nothing hurt. I wrote her a poem and spoke it into song. It's called [Matisse](=). By [Cole Schafer](​ P.S. New art coming next Friday (please remember to [pre-save]()). --------------------------------------------------------------- You want my attention? Then tell me a story ​ You just read a couple thousand-word email from a complete stranger on the internet. It's not because you're a loon with nothing else to do. It's because I told a story. Storytelling has the power to demand attention like a gun in the face and tug at the heartstrings like King David straddling a harp. ​[Meet Cute](=) is a creative writing guide that will teach you how to turn your life experiences into stories that readers can't put down. [ENROLL NOW](=) --------------------------------------------------------------- [[linkedin]​]() ​ [Update your email preferences]( or unsubscribe [here](​ © 2024 The Process 113 Cherry St #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205