Darkover Is Over

I'm back from DarkoverCon which was in Timonium, Maryland just north of Baltimore. This convention has gone on for 31 years, which is in my opinion about 10 years too long. The 2008 iteration of this gathering was poorly attended, since most of the people who would come to it are forever teetering on the edge of destitution. The bad economy kept a fair number of them from coming. Those who did, except for the few young children and teens, seemed depressed and dispirited. The same people come each year, mostly, and I have watched them become more and more physically decrepit. Once upon a time, DarkoverCon was full of a kind of swashbuckling bravado, but twenty years later it had none of it; the attendees seemed especially damaged, with many of them hobbling around on canes or riding little scooters. They were disheveled and unkempt, their pseudo-medieval clothes ragged and stained; they looked like one of Brueghel's satirical paintings. I am, of course, one of this group, so perhaps I look as worn-out to them as they do to me. 

I showed some of my "space abstraction" paintings, with prohibitively high "gallery" prices, since I need to save these pieces for a "mainstream" gallery show. Thus I didn't sell any of them. I got a number of positive comments for "The Photons of Pentecost." But I am just glad that picture, and the convention, is over.