I Just Make People Up

The life and work of painter Clark Walker have had their effects on Montgomery, Alabama. Based on a series of conversations with Foster Dickson when the two men were neighbors, this book uses Walker's life and art as prisms to look at creativity, relationships, the ways of seeing, the nature of community, and the meaning of everything. Dickson writes: "Through the course of our talks, a discrepancy showed up here and there. I didn't quibble about them. None of our memories are perfect, not mine, not Clark's, not anybody's. As time passes, memories fade and distort themselves, causing the shreds of untruth to weave themselves into the fabric. Sometimes our thoughts on an event will wrap themselves around the facts of the events and blur them, even to ourselves. It really makes no difference whether some things were not true or just so long ago that they were difficult to pin down . . . I didn't sit down with Clark Walker to pick his life apart, get down to the ultimate truth of it, or get his movements pinned down to specific dates. I sat down with Clark Walker to let him talk, which, thankfully, he did."