Bad Example, Terrible Warning

You may need to learn how to set up your paints and such… but this is what people did, live, while the show aired. That’s what the show was for. I had family members create lovely works of art they enjoyed, which I still have on my walls, because William Alexander and Bob Ross both said:

SCREW METICULOUS CLASSICAL ART PRACTICES — JUST GRAB A PALETTE KNIFE AND BIG OLD BRUSH AND PAINT!

They freed a whole generation of people who were taught to paint detail and realism and exact representation of reality — people who largely gave up this kind of thing because it got tedious.

I watched the joy of family members as they rediscovered art as a messy fun spontaneous half hour activity.

Now, the way this goes is that I have everyone show up around 4:30pm. People show up, it's a big crowd, it's pretty warm out because the sun is still up and the mingling is great. People eat, share food, the kids run around in the trees and check out the lake, and we all just generally enjoy ourselves and catch up. Then the sun starts to go down.

People start getting under the pavilion, it starts getting a little chilly, and maybe those with really young kids start to pack up and say good-bye. This is usually when I light up the fire in the pavilion's fireplace and people will begin gathering around there. I let the grill burn down and sit down with everyone as everything gets a bit more mellow. Maybe we make s'mores or have cookies or something but this is usually were you start having more people say their good-byes and head out. That's how it goes for the next couple of hours, little dribbles of people winding up and heading on home until it's 9:30 at night and there's just a few people left in the pavilion in the woods sitting around a little fireplace quietly talking.

You know what? That's the best time at these things. Some years we'll be out there until almost midnight, just chatting quietly and staring into the coals. You learn things about people then, you hear interesting things, and you just feel closer.

So what does this have to do with fandom and moving on? Well, I see it like this. The show is still on, that's the early part of the day. Plenty of people around, lots of activity where art gets made, headcanons and meta fly fast and furious, and tons of fic gets written. Then the show ends, people are still creating but a few peel away, they have other things they have to do or just aren't interested in sticking around. Slowly but surely it goes until it's just a few people left.

That's when the interesting things really start coming out. You still have the other stuff but you start to get off the wall headcanons and wild meta, you get odd art, you get fic the person finally decided to write, and it's good. And hey, every once in a while, someone shows up late and you grab some food out of the cooler for them and warm up a burger for them over the coals while others grab a chair for them and you get them up to speed on the conversation and maybe show them some pictures from earlier in the night and they get to have some of that glow from earlier even if they missed the original.