#the Man behind The Name
continuation of #the Lingering Moment/ Memories
Pulling up the browser window, I typed in “Daniel Stern” and hit enter. Once I had to sort through the pages on an actor and other random people, I amended my search with “Daniel Stern artist.” That brought around better results.
They weren’t quite what I expected.
I found page after page talking about Daniel’s paintings, the ravings of critics that called him “a rising star in the art world” and “a bright jewel among an array of otherwise mundane new works.”
I clicked through several pages, finding reviews for shows he had. There were pictures of him posing next to paintings.
He looked so young and innocent. I didn’t see a hint of the haunted look he carried in his eyes sometimes.
On one page, I found a picture of Daniel and another man, arms wrapped around each other’s waists and smiling broadly for the camera. The caption read “Daniel, with partner Gabe Harwell.” Ok, realistically, I knew he had been with other men before, but seeing them together, and the look of complete happiness and contentment on Daniel’s face was hard to look at.
This man had made him happy. So where was he now? All the pages about Daniel painting had information that stopped about 5 years ago. Before then, he was everywhere, apparently becoming incredibly popular in the art scene.
Then, suddenly, it just stopped. I searched through what felt like hundreds of websites, trying to find any kind of information about what happened to make him drop out. I finally pulled myself away from my search around midnight. I hadn’t found anything that might tell me why he seemed to just vanish off the face of the earth, and show up in a tiny Pacific Northwestern town, hiding in a cabin in the woods alone.
