Román Romero was a good friend for nearly 20 years. I met him in 1971, when I'd moved to Colorado. We were members of a fundamentalist christian church and wound up in each other's lives due to similar distaste for religion's excess rules. He made an accommodation with christianity with a creative set of filters for sorting baby from bathwater. I kept looking and never found the baby, even when the bassinet appeared empty. We remained friends, agreeing to disagree.

He moved to Brighton, then Denver. I moved to Maine, then Nebraska. We kept in touch through letters written and spoken, and phone calls. The years went by and we saw each other when opportunities offered themselves.

He taught me what affection means. It just sort of grew. He had more experience, having tried various experiments in his attempts to be warmed. One of the experiments killed him, the slow death of AIDS. It was like watching a movie: I knew the ending as more years unfolded. He died Christmas day, 1994.

I don't really know how to say good-bye. I never got a chance with him; my life was falling apart and I never got around to calling him. He didn't have the energy, in the last year of his life, to do anything but survive. To this day I will see something or hear something and think "Román would like that." And then I remember he's gone. He's irreplaceable.

This sculpture was supposed to be a hike. A fast-moving rainstorm blew into Los Angeles. Don called me and said "It's raining!" Yah, cats and dogs in Santa Monica. It cleared up soon, however, and the tide was right. Don told me later the mountains were covered with clouds until late afternoon. The sun came out and I headed for the beach.

It didn't start out to have anything to do with Román. The storm wind was still running and that necessitated a strong sculpture. One of the current airy ones would simply blow over. So, I made it heavy, and I leaned it into the wind a bit. It was whimsical, serious, rather monkish. It was grounded on the beach, part of the world. We were out there under the fantastic sky, as we'd been in many places. The wind howled, clouds built and streamed overhead, the air was so clear I could see forever. Memories collided, shattering time and revealing things normally hidden. Rain fell as it did on Loveland Pass, carrying scent from the sea, from the past.

Good-bye, Román. I still miss you.

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Human Touch Museum	Image Gallery