Saturday, July 11, 2009

The Art Teacher

Last night we did our now annual thing of going to the Cain Park Arts Festival, and then joining roughly twenty other gay men for dinner at an Indian restaurant (not woo-woo Indian).

We are great for stimulating the economy because the gays love their art and we eat and drink like no one's business. Seriously though, how often does a hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant have a party whose bill comes to $800+? There were a few other occupied tables, but if not for us, I am not sure they would have cleared $175 for the entire night.

We didn't know a few of the couples (and they were mostly couples), so that was nice to get to know them. And I have become more acquainted with some more of the guys I usually only see at this event because it seems every homo in the city now goes to the same gym....except Denton. So conversation was good, but difficult at one of those long Last Supper tables. But after the food some of us bounced around talking to others - so it was nice.

It is a bit frightening how many of them work of have worked at my former employer. At least eight of the 20. Overall, though it was a similar group to last year, the tweaks to the list of who came, and more importantly, who did not, worked for the better. I think.

And before that show, there was the art show. We go every year in hopes of finding "that piece". We never do. And it's not liked we'd probably agree on what "that piece" is either. But we try.

Actually, yesterday, I think we may have found it - and it surprised us both. We have a very traditional house and this is a very non-traditional artist and his work. It is nothing either of us would have thought of.

This was not the piece, but I liked it. Not enough to see it every single day. I think you can embiggens it to see Superman talking to the WWII troops.

This was not the piece either, but again, I liked the contrast of images about war and super-heroes. That is Uberman standing on that ladder. I'm not sure about the SPQR - though a lot of the artists other work used seemingly random Scrabble letter tiles in the art.

This is the piece we did like. The pic did not come out great - but you can see me taking it in the reflection and a rare rare sighting of Denton in the same shot. Something about the warships, the horizon, the mezza-luna like shovel thingy, the colouring and the clock just worked for us.

All the pieces were huge (that's what she said!). Like 6'x8' - but we have a wall for it that we've been looking to do something with since we moved in. It is artless.

The other thing that was huge was the price. $10,500! ($11,500 for the Superman / jigsaw puzzle one.)

A new friend at the dinner, Gregg (yes, three gs) - asked if found anything, and I told him the above story. He tried to rationalize it for me: if you really like the piece, you have been looking for that certain space to fill and you're committed to your house - why wouldn't you get it.

He almost had me. But it comes back to price. It's not that we can't afford it, but is that what we want to spend our hard-earned dollars on? I'm thinking of going back and saying - if you do not sell it and do not want to lug it all the way back to NY, call me.....we'll talk.


Song by: Rufus Wainwright

3 comments:

cb said...

two things.... LOVE that you clarified the Indian (woo woo) thing! So unPC! tee hee!

Second... LOVE the superman one. Not for 11K... but still love it.

Morty said...

Too much. Nice, but too much.

Victor said...

S P Q R


Senatus Populusque Romanus ("The Senate and the People of Rome")