Jack Balas, 2017; LIGHTS OUT (#1531); watercolor and ink on two paper panels, 30" x 45" overall.

text:
Every night at lights out we would feign sleep, but then with flashlights slip our bags and climb far out into the night, our only witness Orion or the Big Dipper, and once a cloud the shape of Newfoundland wading across the black sky. Sworn to secrecy, we would drift towards the moon, a spotlight plunging through cotton, obscured, glowing, hidden, dead ahead, fish (us) in search of the net. And every morning we would return at dawn to once again sharpen our pencils, dip our pens and start in on that next blank page before us, never knowing its beginning or end, shape or purpose. And yet it was seamless. AND IT WAS GRAND.