Life is an Adventure

So you don't think I'm going to all this trouble to unearth details of an artist based on one lonely etching - I've actually amassed a collection of Huberts. While working in a network photo department I met a comrade, a fellow rebel with disdain for corporate politics. Tom, who was in the IT department in an office down the hall, also worked among what we once referred to as the living dead -  those crazed individuals with no lives outside the office. Helen Keller once said "Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all". These are probably the people she had in mind when she said "nothing at all".

When your job occasionally entails retouching the wrinkles off a well-known TV journalist or photoshopping the love handles of an A-list actor, you find yourself frequently questioning the meaning of life. This often necessitated a walk with Tom to the vending machines to commiserate over Vienna Fingers and Cool Ranch Doritos. Tom was an incurable optimist, a glass half-full kind of guy. After one particularly meaningless morning I related my Hubert discovery to Tom who was totally intrigued, convinced I was sitting on a windfall, and in disbelief that I hadn't pursued it. Because he looked forward to a fun distraction he immediately set forth on a quest to help me find Hubert. Lucky for me, his computer skills were far superior to mine and within a week he found a Hubert etching for sale on ebay from Canada. He emailed the antique dealer and although she had no info regarding the artist I was jubilant at finding a mate for my lonely print.  He made a bid for me and I became the proud parent of a new Hubert etching, this one a night scene. Thus began my addiction and Tom became my supplier ferreting out Huberts on the internet. A new high was attained with each acquisition. Our curiousity grew and although we found many more Huberts, each as lovely as the next, no one ever had any details on the artist.  But chasing Hubert surely saved us from a slow painful death from ennui.

Until that horrible day exactly two years ago today when I received  the call telling me that Tom had been killed in a motorcycle accident on his way home from work. Tom taught me many things - among them friendship, optimism and perseverance. In keeping with his character I'm trying to remain hopeful that somehow, someway, sometime, I will discover the identity of Hubert. Meantime, I like to picture Tom and Hubert sharing a carafe of wine in some little French cafe in the sky...