But Is It Art?

Dude, where's the righteous indignation? Where's the contempt? You're an artist.

Okay, let me back up a step. Last Sunday, I came home from a bike ride to find my wife very excited about an art sale nearby. We went down to one of our local shopping centers and sure enough there was an artist set up in front of the Italian restaurant showing off his art for sale. My wife was right. Most of it was really good stuff with the types of European settings that already occupy many walls in our house.

We avoided the cliche "Oh look, it's the Eiffel Tower, so it must be Paris" and the "Oh look, it's a guy in a gondola, so it must be Venice" paintings and settled on one that over looks a little village on the sea. It's a place I've never been, but would like to visit some day, which sort of fits the theme of the art in our home.

We were all ready to make a purchase when my wife brought up the issue. One of the walls in the room where the painting will reside is purple...really, really purple. It's nearly 30 feet tall and the majority of it is purple. The painting under consideration had red flowers, yellow flowers, but no purple flowers...none at all.

So, in order to bring the painting into alignment with our home, my wife asked the artist if he could add some purple flowers to the painting. This is when I expected the outburst from the artist. After all, he's an artist! This would be like going to a chef and saying "I'd like to have the Osso Bucco, but could you make it with chicken?" The chef would grab the butcher knife and threaten bodily harm. So, I waited for the artist to say, "Dis (implied French accent) is de painting of de place I was at and there were no purple fleurs!"

But, it turned out our artist was from Ashland, Oregon and a really, really happy guy. Really, I can't emphasize enough how happy this guys was. If you look up "blind enthusiasm" in the dictionary, you will see a picture of this artist. My guess is when he is not painting, he is tending to a pretty good sized herb garden up there in Southern Oregon. He didn't blink an eye. He whipped out his paints, did a little mixing and soon there were purple flowers in the village where previously none existed. He did a great job and it is on our wall in our home.

Still, I have to say I was a little disappointed. I mean he's an artist. He shouldn't paint to match furniture. Where's the tempor tantrum? Where's the "How dare you change my artistic perspective" type of talk? Where's the flinging of paint in our direction as we are chased from the porch of the Italian restaurant?

Oh well, I guess times are tough and if it takes a few purple flowers to sell some art, then I guess we can all be a little flexible.