Paul Laffoley
(b. 1940, Cambridge, Massachusetts)

The Urban Fossickated Octave
1968
Oil, Acrylic, Ink, Lettering on Canvas
51 x 51 in.

Subject: The Source of all that is Esoteric
Symbol Evocation: The Second Chance

Comments: The word fossick means to search for gold or gemstones, typically by picking over abandoned mines or workings. Every culture, philosophy or religion is based on the thought that somehow we (the human race) have been forsaken and that we still have the possibility of finding the path back home if we look again for clues in places that others have ignored or are not so brightly lit. An urban octave is the harmonious secret group of limited number that conducts that actual search. The image of the flying saucer is that of the alien that comes to help us out of our natural alienhood.

Letter dated September 5, 1987
Now the painting that you want, the Urban Fossicated Octave, has a bizarre provenance which may interest you. Of all the paintings you could have chosen, that painting has the weirdest history:

1) It was first shown in 1969 at an exhibit called To the Esoteric Schools. At the opening, the painting next to it was attacked and stabbed and torn to shreds.
2) Next it was shown at a Black Panther meeting in the South-End of Boston. The house was Painted all flat black, and the painting fell off the wall three times. So we did a séance and discovered a girl had jumped off the roof of the building onto railroad tracks and died. She was trying to communicate with someone since 1910. The painting was purchased but the person never showed up to complete the purchase.
3) The painting was in a show at the Orsen Wells Cinema. Timothy Leary showed up and verbally attacked the painting “for being to humerous”. I never meant to be humorous or satirical about the content at all.
4) The painting was one of the 18 that were taken to the Woodstock Festival without my permission. It was stolen right away. But it was returned the next day. Some fellow there became very angry about the painting and we argued for two days about the content. Then I took off with any paintings before anyone found out.
5) One year later this same person came to my studio to apologize for the way he had acted and said he wanted to buy the painting
6) Three years later, he came back with the painting and wanted to give it back to me as he wanted to disconnect with his past. He had been gay but was now straight with a three piece suite on and he was a lawyer, with three children. It seems he went to Salem, Massachusetts and became involved in a witchcult, someone in the coven had borrowed the painting. When it was returned to him, that person said it had been used in a blood sacrifice ritual. The fellow was really frightened and left in a hurry

The Urban Fossicated Octave was my first flying saucer painting.

Paul