Book Description

In August 1988, I had been cleaning out a room in my house where furniture and miscellaneous items were stored. It was during this time that I discovered an old, unused canvas that I had bought many years ago from an artist-friend, long deceased. It was a Saturday afternoon, and mainly to get away from having to make decisions on what I was going to keep and throw away, I decided that I would begin a painting. I am a very, very amateur painter, and a bad one, at that. I gathered paint, brushes and canvas and proceeded to a shed behind the house that had been used as a shelter for two of my largest dogs. I had no idea of what I was going to sketch as I painted the background white. As I stood there, with brush in hand, "something" caused my hand to begin painting on the wet background. I was puzzled because I don't begin painting until the background is completely dry and that takes several days when oil paint is used. My hand was moving fast--fast--faster and faster, and I was visually having difficulty keeping up with the speed of the brush. I felt that I was only an onlooker and had no doubt that it was not I who was forming this picture, whatever it was. And what was it, anyway? The outline of the painting had been formed, and now my hand moved without any effort, as if guided by some force. The picture was being filled in now, my hand moving with the speed of a swordsman. "A Study in Scarlet?" Sir Arthur Doyle? What? The outline of three strange birds was rapidly appearing on the canvas. The painting was completed in less than an hour. During the painting, the idea for this book formed in my mind. For those of you who will say, or would have said,. "Well, he must have been reading stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle and had that on his mind-Not so! Wrong. I had not read anything by A. Conan Doyle in many years. And all that I knew about Sir Doyle was that he was the author of Sherlock Holmes stories and had lived in England. But what about the three birds? Did they have any significance? Could they represent Doyle--i.e., Holmes, Watson, and Professor Moriarity? Maybe. I really don't know. What I do know is that I don't paint birds. Was this an "automatic painting?" Did some spirit finally complete an unfinished work - interrupted by an unexpected demise? Could the incident be duplicated if I took an old canvas, paint and brush again to the shed in the back of the house on an August day in 2088? That would be 200 years since the first Ripper murder. But wait! I wouldn't be around then, and neither would you. Oh, well, who knows, maybe I will come back just to complete my own painting--but it won't be of birds, I assure you. I hope that you enjoy the book. I have a way of knowing.