Introduction

Hi : )

My name is Bob Fugett, and I am the "Dian Fossey" of the arts community.

You may remember that Dian Fossey lived among mountain gorillas in their dwindling natural habitat while conducting an extended study debunking widespread misinformation about their character and habits.

As a parallel to Fossey, I have lived my life among artists, and although they are not so rare and endangered, they are certainly exotic enough to be universally misunderstood.

Over the years I have been carefully documenting community life in Sugar Loaf, New York, while debunking long standing myths about the lives of true artists.

True artists are in abundance here.

It is important to understand two significant similarities between Fossey's work and my own.

Firstly, in tandem with the gorillas that Fossey writes about, it is unlikely the artists that I write about will describe themselves as I do.

Secondly, as with controversies over Fossey's reporting, people removed from the situation may not immediately see Sugar Loaf artists as having the attributes I recognize in all true artists.

But consider the following two questions:

1) Are Dian Fossey's subjects any less gorillas for not knowing their phylum?

2) Could outsiders ever hope to fully understand the gorillas if never having seen a mountain rainforest?

As may be inferred from the first question, my description of the Sugar Loaf artists is correct, even if the artists themselves describe their work differently.

Also, expanding comparison through the second question, outsiders will never understand the artists without seeing their Sugar Loaf studios in person.

The two similarities aside, my expertise is greatly enhanced because my position is different from Fossey's in a very particular way.

Dian was not a gorilla writing in the native language of all gorillas, but I am in fact an artist sharing in the native language common to all artists.

Not English, of course, but semiotics.

Thus my work enjoys an advantage in precision by virtue of its greater innate authenticity.

Still, the focus of this book is narrowed to English and explains the quintessential artistic experience in terms of a single work by one artist.

The subject model is Botanical Rain, a watercolor by Mary Endico.

The what, where, why, and how of the painting is an interesting story which some will get right away, some will only get with effort, and some will never get at all ... no matter what.

Everyone is capable of getting it — it is just that some will not, and nothing can be done about that.

In conclusion, I would be remiss if I did not point out that Dian Fossey was murdered for exposing the truth about mountain gorillas, and that reflects another way in which we differ.

I have not yet been murdered for my truth-saying but merely pommeled relentlessly by aggressive misandry, miseldry, and misehrity.

Be that as it may, I will withhold comment regarding the lynch mob mentality of hostile outsiders (nonartists) who continue to swarm against me, because that discussion requires a separate manifestly more seditious book which I will write later.

In the meantime, I hope this current book about Botanical Rain provides unexpected insight, demystifying the character and work of true artists who are always at odds with an adversarial world.

Thank you for reading,

Bob Fugett