Static Electricity
April 9, 1994 - Oil on canvas panel - 10 by 20 inches
Based on a drawing from Spring, 1990
$ 150.00
There is a hotel in Staunton that has changed names many times, but unfortunately its carpet has steadfastly remained the same. Day after day it claims more victims, people who even gingerly cross its expanses and then are foolish enough to touch anything made of metal. The cries of their electrocutions have become mere background din to the employees, who long ago learned the various coping mechanisms necessary to escape frequent and sudden torture. Some carry keys or silverware in their hands with which to tap off the accumulated charge painlessly. Others take the shock through the backs of their hands, which are not so densely packed with neural receptors as are fingertips. Such habits seem peculiar when exercised far from danger, in shopping malls and on subways, where the unknowing regard them as symptoms of a compulsive neurosis. It seems training by means of electrocution works as well with humans as it does with fruit flies.