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.
Losing My Cents 