Exactly one year ago, I somehow convinced a good friend to help me turn a blank wall into something better.
Last night, we finished it. And it is glorious. 11 feet tall, 13 feet wide, and guaranteed to make the leasing office feel really guilty for having to paint over it if I ever move out. What more could you ask for in a wall mural?
A photographic progression of the wall over the last 12 months, you say? Well, you are in luck! I happen to have just that ready for you today. Continue reading
Those poor, poor baby carrots.
Last night at Art Club, a terrible thing happened. There was a murder in the kitchen. The poor innocent baby carrots saw it all. They will never be the same. Warning: the following pictures contain graphic depictions of a fruit-related homicide. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking the googly eyes make it any easy to see.
Let me back up a bit, and explain how this all started.
For being such a low-pressure social setting, Art Club can do funny things to a person. It makes one person bring in dragonflies, makes another root through desk drawers to find old art supplies, and makes a third put a poll up on a blog asking/begging for inspiration. (That last person is me, in case you missed it.)
The winner of yesterday’s poll was “D) Nothing. You should just hover by the food and put googly eyes on the carrot sticks.”
You people know me so well.
As soon as I arrived at Art Club last night, I was informed that despite the Internet Having Spoken, I would be forced (forced I say!) into making An Art. No hovering was allowed. My well-crafted plan to eye-bomb the vegetables and have them stage an off-off-off Broadway musical number at the end of Art Club would not be allowed to proceed (not least because off-off-off Broadway show tunes aren’t allowed at Art Club. The fascists.)
I dragged my poor injured self (seriously- I partially dislocated my patella on Saturday. I have a fancy knee brace and everything now) over to a chair and sat down. I promptly stood back up and started wandering. I wander a lot, but especially at Art Club. There are just so many places to get inspiration from. I grabbed one of the 12” x 16” canvases and snagged two jars of Scrabble letters and typewriter keys. I sat back down in my chair and stared for a second. Then I got back up and got a pencil. Then I sat down again. Then I got back up and got a ruler. Then I sat down again. Then I spent five minutes trying to convince fluffy-white-muppet dog to come over and let me pet him. Then I gave up and stared at my canvas again. Surprisingly, after all that effort, the canvas was still blank.
I opened the typewriter key jar and started spreading out the letters. A line from my blog has been spinning around in my head for a while, and now I can’t actually remember if it even made it into the blog. In any case, I thought it was a cool quote, even if I did write it, and I wanted to illustrate it.
Yes, I know. “C) A quotation-based piece, since it turned out so pretty last time” came in last place in the poll, but I can’t help myself. I like words, and especially the way they can evoke beautiful images through the simple lines of the letters.
Also, I’m really good at drawing trees. And this particular quote let me draw a nice forest scene again.
But I’m getting off-track. We were discussing a murder, not my artistic tendencies.
So, before all this chair-sitting and not-chair-sitting stuff happened, the apple bird came into existence. Carved carefully with a rather large (for the job) knife, the apple bird was painstakingly crafted, crisp slice by crisp slice. The three of us in the kitchen (definitely NOT hovering over the food, as that wasn’t allowed) just watched in amazement. Once completed, the apple bird stood in majestic repose upon the cutting board. We all stared, transfixed by its beauty.
The apple bird: the most majestic of the fruit-based avians.
The artist scooped up her creation and went to show it off to the others. As soon as she left, a voice was heard to say sadly, “Now that bird is going to have to die a terrible death tonight.”
No one admitted to saying it, but we all heard it. And we all knew it to be true.
That bird would have to die that very evening. Beauty can never last.
Fast-forward an hour or two. I am now sitting in my chair, and have been for some time. I am sketching a lovely forest scene on my canvas, and everyone else is doing Art Stuff too.
Actually, that part is kinda boring. Fast-forward another hour.
Now I am painting a lovely forest scene. I am using a sponge (I know, I know, I’m so clever) to create an authentic worn path/ field of grass/ tree canopy look. Everyone else is still doing Art Stuff too.
Suddenly, there is a scream from the kitchen, cut short by the sound of a knife hitting a plate with a sickening thwack. I leapt up from the table, ready to spring into action. No one seemed to notice, or more likely, were purposefully ignoring the now-muffled weeping emanating from the kitchen.
You guys, the scene in the kitchen was awful. The baby carrots were sobbing, the baby tomato was poking the apple bird’s severed head with a toothpick, the cookie mobster (code name: Salacious Crumb) was falling apart with laughter, the cucumber was contemplating the life choices that had brought him and his three adopted offspring to the park this evening, and the apple bird died a beautiful yet tragic death.
You know what? The googly-eyes kind of do make it easier to look at, don’t they? Interesting…
After that, it was a bit difficult to finish my An Art. But I peeled away the bad thoughts and found the seeds of inspiration again. I dug to the core of my artistic abilities, and pared off my insecurities. I plucked the fruit of inspiration off the orchard-dwelling tree of…. you know what? I’m going to stop there. I’m getting off track again.
Back to the murder scene.
Everyone was trying to figure out who did it. Was it truly the cookie mobster (code name: Salacious Crumb)? Was he really so careless as to leave a literal trail of evidence? Or was it the cucumber in an effort to keep his kids from begging to go to the park during a critical hockey match ever again? Could it have even been the baby tomato, with his gleeful expression at the apple bird’s demise?
The world may never know.
In any case, I wonder what kind of food will be at the next Art Club?
Oh, and I did finish my An Art. Wanna see?
Truly, this is An Art. Or rather, truly, those resemble trees. If you squint a bit. And turn your head to the left. And look at it in the right light. See? Told you they were trees.
Now this is the law of the jungle
As old and as true as the sky
The wolf that shall keep it may prosper
But the wolf that shall break it must die
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk
The law runneth forward and back
For the strength of the pack is the wolf
And the strength of the wolf is the pack.
-Rudyard Kipling
Last night was Art Club. I really like Art Club- even though I can barely hold a paintbrush. My talent lies with the written word, not with tubes of paint. The good news is that Art Club doesn’t care. They let me come anyway, and I get to spend hours in a real artist’s studio, just doodling or staring off into space. It’s also a very low pressure social situation, and it’s helping me make new friends out in the real world. Plus, last night they had gluten-free yogurt covered pretzels. So really, Art Club is a win all around.
But not always.
At Art Club two weeks ago, I felt like an imposter. Everyone else painted beautiful pictures, made mixed media collages, or hodge-podged papers, while I sat and stared at a blank canvas or fought with a temperamental vintage typewriter. I had found a scrap of wallpaper that looked like a cross between animal skin and tree bark, and typed a poem onto it. I’d also found a rectangular piece of canvas-covered wood. I figured the paper and the canvas would look good together, but I couldn’t figure out how. I spent most of the evening isolated from the others, growing more and more frustrated with myself.
I ended up leaving that night with a blank piece of canvas and my scrap of wallpaper.
But last night was different. As I drove to the studio, I had a minor epiphany (yeah, I know. I’m prone to epiphanies. Bear with me here). I realized that the reason I am so bad at art was because I am so good at forcing perfection. I can’t let myself go, because I might make a mistake and ruin a canvas, or use too much glue, or spill blue paint on the studio’s fluffy white muppet of a dog. But art isn’t about perfection- the exact opposite, actually. (Except painting the dog- that’s always frowned on).
So, being the well-trained social scientist that I am, I decided to conduct an experiment. I would make myself draw, with well-defined pencil strokes, something on my canvas that night. I would have to add color, I would have to figure out a use for the wallpaper and the poem, and I would have to leave with a finished art-type product. Those were the rules.
I kind of hate myself sometimes.
I sat down at the table in the studio and I picked up a pair of scissors. I cut apart the words of the poem into phrases and single words. I replaced the misspelled words with proper spellings, and laid the poem out on my canvas. Then I picked up my phone and consulted Google Images for a picture of a jungle tree.
Then I made myself start drawing.
It kind of, sort of, looked like a tree. With winding roots. Almost.
The artist who runs Art Club came up to me at one point and asked what I was working on. I meekly explained that I was creating a background for my poem, and she asked what poem I had chosen.
It’s from The Jungle Book, I said.
Oh? The artist asked.
Yep, I said. AND THEN I STARTED SAYING IT.
OUT LOUD.
AMONG PEOPLE.
You guys- I haven’t quoted poetry to anyone since I was 8 years old and it was a school requirement to pass 3rd grade.
Then an even weirder thing happened.
As I said the words of the poem, a new meaning sprang into my mind. The pack cannot exist without the wolf, but the wolf is nothing without its pack. It may be the law of the jungle, but it’s also the law of life. My family wouldn’t be my family without me (they’d be someone else’s family). I also wouldn’t be anybody without my family (because they’re the only ones who tolerate my crazy). The same is true for my friends. They’re my pack, and without them, I’m not much.
It was big moment for someone who generally avoids being out among people. (I told you I was prone to epiphanies).
It doesn’t actually change anything, since it didn’t make me suddenly willing to go out every night, but it did bring a deeper and more personal meaning to a poem I’ve loved for many years. It also inspired this blog post.
Oh, and my experiment was a success. I made an art-type product.
An art-type product? Definitely. Anything else? No, probably not. But still cool to me.
And it’s now hanging on my bedroom wall, right across from my autographed picture of Tom Felton.
Losing My Cents 