My super-talented sculptor friend Rafael Navarro just had a birthday. “Happy Birthday, you talented fellow!” I wrote on his Facebook timeline. Afterwards, realized: about a year ago I asked Rafa for permission to do a blog entry on him and his work. He answered some questions about his career. One of the things that came up was his trip to the famous marble quarry at Carrara, where Michelangelo got HIS marble. Rafael was granted permission to quarry and take away all the marble that he could carry at a single go. Marble is heavy, Friends, and it’s a good thing the talented Mr. Navarro didn’t take away a hernia to go with his marble.

My blog post never got written. In early August my younger brother Brian died, and things turned sideways for awhile. The three-week vacation I had started was cut short, and my aunt Diane, with my clumsy assistance, attended to the many details subsequent to the death of a loved one. And things like planned blog posts fell by the wayside.

Aside from the Carrara anecdote, I remember almost nothing of my chat with Rafa. I see his work when he or another art friend posts it on Facebook, and it’s uniformly both magical and professional. Interested parties may feast their eyes on his image-laden website, https://www.rafaelnavarroartes.com/ — and I hope that they (you) do so.

After I did my Index Card of the Day today, I had both urge and creative juice left over, so I started skating a white pastel pencil on the surface of a sheet from my Canson BLACK DRAWING/DESSIN NOIR/DIBUJO NEGRO 7×10 pad. A bird emerged. Then a young man, arms spread imitatively. Damn if he didn’t look a little bit like my friend Rafa. So I tried to make him look a bit more like him, and then I realized that I was finally doing the blog post I’d committed to do.