Tales from the Frying Pan

It’s not so much that I am sad, or dissapointed, or angry (although I am, mildly, all those things) but more that I feel tired.  Life is something seen only in retrospect, and I had selfishly begun to harbor ideas about the future which were apparently incongruous with the vast tapestry which has been ceaselessly weaving itself off the back-end of every minute of my life.  I could speculate that it was hubris, but speculation is a vulgar affront to God and if I may learn anything at all in this muddy blink of existence it should be gratitude, it being maybe the only thing which does not spit at fate.  There are no ‘Whys,’ remember.  There must never be the question Why.

I am averaging like one view every few days on this thing (from McMullen).  How the hell do you get people to read your damn blog, or are that really just inherently worthless?  I’m not going to be that tool who posts READ MY BLOG!!!!!!!!!!1111!!!!11!1!!!!!!!! all over facebook.  I guess it’s up to Zeus, now… if it is, in fact he who determines these things (and I’m pretty sure he is)

Today for lunch (and late breakfast, and numerous snacks) I ate a sleeve of graham crackers.  Why?  Because they were laying around.  They were aVAILable and so I ate them.  Last I checked, I did not even like graham crackers.  This gallery used to have a giant plastic barrel full of pretzels (mmmm, pretzels…) but I finished those off weeks ago and don’t feel like spending $8 on a lame sandwich from Mirador (why did you guys ditch Chocolate Maven?! Their sandwiches were SO. GOOD.) across the street. 

Sometimes I worry that the next time I go to the doctor they’ll say “oh! you have a tapeworm” and kill it, and my days of fried eggs for breakfast and huge turkey sandwiches for lunch and so, so many snacks before (and, let’s be honest, after) dinner will be over and I’ll be stuck eating grapefruit and Kashi in a desperate attempt to stave off obesity FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.  And that, well.. I cannot abide that.  Eating vast amounts of (usually) unhealthy food is a fundamental TO MY VERY BEING. 

I’ll just avoid doctor visits.  Indefinitely.  

In other news, I have not sold anything yet today.  I think the tourists are starting to sense my inner apathy; I might as well just come right out and tell them that their artistic preferences mean nothing to me.   Wait, I mean, um, I love when you buy things!  Yayyyy money!  Or something like that.

A lot of people with money who come in here have this sense of entitlement about them, that whole “I could buy and sell you ten times over” kind of attitude.  Or, that I am EXPECTED to indulge them because I desperately desire their money, and that their buying from me is some sort of priviledge.  I am thinking of one Texan lady in particular but it might as well be any of them, I guess. 

This is probably not the most suitable attitude for a person in sales to have, but I can’t help just NOT caring about these people’s pretenses. 

I’d probably make a great cat lady. Ugh.

So that is a reference you won’t get because you were (unfairly) never an adolescent girl and were therefore never forced to read that book.  Spoiler alert: it’s about getting your period. 

Anyway, now that I know you read this I’m going to feel all self conscious about my subject matter and worry that my grammar is wrong, whereas before it was only McMullen, with whom I have a strict no-dignity policy.  Also most of this I will just tell you later on anyway.  But at greater length.  And with less coherency.  And more distractions. 

Welllllllllll, the sun is out again.  Time to check the forecast, also known as walking to the top of the driveway and trying to guess how long those clouds will take to reach the gallery, and whether it’s worth hanging up all twelve of those paintings outside for the second time today.   My guess is: not very long, and no.

But that’s ok!  I like to think of blogging as excercising my writing… typing?.. muscles…

Anyway…

It is another really freakin’ hot day today. Super lame.  The good news is, I made Tim breakfast in exchange for a ride, and I must say, it was a RATHER delicious breakfast. I thought so, anyway.  Fried egg with sauteed spinach and onions in half a pita with some fresh tomatoes? Hell yeah.  Sadly we didn’t have any cheese because we all keep getting high and eating it. Oops.

Speaking of, I proudly introduced Tim to MST3K last night with which he was delighted.  I’m not sure how nerdy it makes me that I know “Time Chasers” almost line for line, but I am willing to accept that nerdiness.  It’s such a tried and true method; I CAN’T watch any of them without laughing.  Out loud.  The whole time.  Embarrassingly.  I still mourn the loss of my extensive collection of illegally downloaded episodes (of which there were probably over twenty): you will be missed.

What is today, Wednesday?  Cool.  I leave 4am on Friday for Ah-buh-kookie (as my boss might pronounce it), fly into CT for the night, drive to Long Island early the next morning and then home that evening, then fly back to SF Sunday night.  Whew.  And then I work on Monday.  And probably Tuesday.  It’s gunna be intense.  But I’m excited!!! I get home on the 18th and Skip gets home a WEEK FROM THEN!  I have done a very good job of ignoring the anticipatory anxiety which set in ohhh probably the day he left, but that’s going to be a rough week.  A week, no doubt, of squealing.

Work has been realllllllllly slowwwwwwww for almost the entire month, and it’s kind of bumming me out.  It would be really nice to call Adieb and tell him we sold six Regier sculptures and twelve Steven Boones.  C’monnnnnnn, tourists!!! 

Last thing (for now)/A Hypothesis:  I think I am stressing my dog out.  I run a great risk of sounding like a crazy dog lady for writing this, but seeing as no one reads this but McMullen anyway who the hell cares, right?  Besides, he already knows I’m a crazy dog lady.  He’s SEEN it.   But moving on…

Anxiety kills my appetite, and I am desperately prone to its clutches.  This summer has been particularly challenging in a number of respects, the main one (I would say) being my overall skittishness around the men of this city.  Sorry guys, but maybe if you didn’t circle the block to lean out your car and scream at me I wouldn’t think quite so little of you.  Maybe if my neighbor didn’t constantly have people over who sit on his porch and just stare you down every time you left the house, I wouldn’t be so freaked out by them.  Maybe if our doorknob wasn’t literally falling out of the door and leaving even one window open wasn’t a severe theft risk, I would feel a little more comfortable about my house.  And maybe if I wasn’t such a tremendously over-sensitive soul about these things I could just relax and enjoy myself (which, don’t get me wrong, I generally do) instead of constantly hoping that someone doesn’t break in, steal all our shit and fuck with my dog.  So, yeah, in short I have been pretty anxious all summer, and I think this is also making Sasha anxious.  She’s never been a nervous dog and now she kind of halfheartedly barks and paces around every time someone walks by.  She, too, has lost a lot of weight.  She, too, is uncomfortably hot.  Poor Sasha.  I’m sorry I suck as an alpha female pack leader! 

Sigh. How dissapointing.  For her, I mean.

I think I might pop across the street and order my coffee now.  Adios, muchachos!

I would have counted it as highly improbable that I would live to see such a beautiful day as this.

But then hey, I did. 

The sky is a stainless blue and Santa Fe, it being Monday, was awake and doing things pretty early today.  There was a livliness about everything as I walked to work that I couldn’t help enjoying.  It was like having coffee before I had coffee.  Then I checked my facebook and voila, word from Skip.  Happiness.

And now: may I sell $10,000 worth of art. Ole!

I am not, by any contemporary stretch of the word, an artist.  Seeing as I am now 22, chances are I never good that I will never BE an artist, and that is fine by me.  But I do love art, and have loved it for a very long time.  I have also known for a long time that my future would somehow account for this faithful love, a feeling which contributed significantly to my choice in SJC campuses as well as my current summer arrangements.  So now, by some unaccountable twist of fate or luck or determination, I work in a well-established (although highly eccentric) gallery in one of the biggest art markets in the nation.  I spend five days a week surrounded by a multitude of artistic styles and renderings; I get paid to send people home with something beautiful (even if that beauty is a highly subjective thing).  I’ve really stumbled on a great gig here in the great Southwest, and the work I’ve done this summer has only reinforced my desire to do other things in the ‘art world’ (as it is so often called).  I have also, however, discovered some unsettling absurdities here on Canyon which bear meteing out.  Where to begin?

A good friend of mine spent some time this summer working for another Canyon Road gallery (the name of which I will respectfully leave out of this blog post, but WILL mention that the initials quite fittingly are ‘BS’), one whose success here is well-known and, from what I’ve seen and heard, little respected by fellow gallery owners and employees.  The artist, who runs the gallery, paints four things: flowers, girls, hearts, and butterflies.  I do this artist no injustice through simplification, these are literally the only subjects which make it onto his canvasses.  The paintings range in size up to some rather expansive measurements, but with each painting simply a slight variation of every other, they are produced assembly-line style within an hour or two.  And then sells for thousands of dollars mere moments after the paint dries.  Now, as I mentioned, I am not an artist, so perhaps these paintings actually require a technique far subtler than my eye can detect.  Unfortunately, what I do know about art leads me to believe that there is a technique here, but it is one of sales, not of artistic expression.  But we’ll return to that in a moment.

One of the many perks of my job is meeting artists, whether they’re the ones showing here in the gallery, professionals checking out the market or novices looking for inspiration.  About a week ago I was chatting with a couple who’d stopped in who turned out to be a gallery owner and her husband who were exhibitors in the SOFA West expo (SOFA stands for sculptural objects and functional art) which is in town this very weekend.  After enthusiastically expressing interest in attending said expo, they kindly offered to set aside two will-call tickets for me, which would be good for the enitre event.  SOFA usually has two giant expositions: one in Chicago and one in New York.  It is, as they say, a Big Deal.  I attended on Thursday, it being my only day off which coincided with the event. 

Galleries from all over the world filled the convention center with their ‘sculptural objects and functional art.’  After being ignored for a good minute and a half by an entire group of convention staff at the will-call table (the woman at the desk literally looked at my face and then continued nagging her five underlings to put out more signage), I gathered my ticket and the remains of my dignity I entered the fray (although admittedly already somewhat miffed). 

And here, in four words, is SOFA: Rich. People. Buying. Things.  Alright, so maybe it’s unfair of me to pin this label on SOFA exclusively, as this description also fits Canyon.  I guess my dissapointment with SOFA was more that I had been expecting a showcase of really stunning and important pieces of art.  Perhaps my ignorance is really to blame for my overall unfavorable impression, but while SOFA did have an inexhaustible array of extraordinary pieces to look at, for most part it really was simply that: rich people, buying things.  If this was the much-alluded to ‘art world’ that I was now standing in the midst of, then I am forced to re-examine my own views of art.  Are the much-lauded artists of the past lauded simply because they sold well at the time?  Is the art world dictated entirely by the whims and generally questionable tastes of the upper classes?  Is art anything that YOU think will look neat on your wall?  I was, and still am, confused.  Perhaps I am also at fault for imagining that SOFA was anything more than a mad-grab for the ‘best of what’s out there’ right now; surely it’s easier to attend one large expo than travel around looking for just the right… whatever.  Wasn’t art supposed to mean something, or was I thinking of something else?  Since my plebian outfit may as well have been a garbage bag in this setting I was, for the most part, completely ignored by all gallery owners salespeople.  Clearly I was not here on a buying trip, which left me in the realm of quiet spectator; a role I was happy to assume under the circumstances.   I decided to find some artists. 

The first artist I spoke with was a sculptor working mostly in metals to make these really interesting sort of kinetic pieces.  He was very nice and seemed quite happy to chat and answer my questions.  Pointing to one piece in particular which I liked, I said ’so tell me what’s going on in this one.’  His response, while informative, dealt exclusively with the materials and methods used to create the piece, which wasn’t quite what I’d asked.  I had been hoping for some kind of personal, artistic statement regarding the sculpture, something which would give me insight into the creative vision of this fellow human, which he alone had managed to bring forth in the material world.  I mean, his sculptures were gorgeous and the technique had taken him over fifteen years to perfect, so surely there must be some amount of feeling invested in each piece.  I’m sure there is, too, I just never got to hear it. 

I would hate to be thought of as trying to discredit any of the artwork or talent at SOFA; I am merely trying to fit in my experience there with my convictions heretofore about art.   Maybe I am thinking too broadly, or too objectively, about art.  Perhaps it is just that subjectivity that makes being an artist so challenging and great.  Since not everyone is going to love, buy, or understand what you produce, when any of those three things DO happen it is all the more worthwhile and meaningful. 

When it comes down to it, regardless of what I think about any of this, I have absolutely no qualifications which would allow me to render any sort of worthwhile judgement.  Also,  I wrote this in between customers at work, so the post itself is probably disjointed and strange.  At the very least it is inconclusive. 

And despite everything, BS and SOFA included, I still love my job, Canyon Road, and all the bullshit that comes along with them.  Oh, and the art.

I will edit this some day….

And work, as usual, is slow as balls.  There’s rarely anyone here before noon.  It is just the way of the tourists.  But it is a holiday weekend, so hopefully those pockets full of disposable income will be pouring forth into the gallery.  As unaccountable as people’s tastes can be, I am always genuinely glad to send someone off with a painting (or scuplture).  It’s kind of like working at the pound, only more expensive.  And quieter. 

There was a tremendous thunderstorm for most of the night.  It was beautiful.  My recollection of last summer’s storms was that they came in went within an hour or two and rarely (if ever) lingered, so it was nice to have an east coast style all-nighter.  Besides, it’s the desert; we need all the rain we can get.  I could tell my sumac trees in the front yard were very happy.  They probably would have told me so, too, had they not, um, been trees.  But I could tell.

Peter is back for a few days again, and Tim gets in today, so it’ll be a full house at ### Alameda.

If I am going to blog, I need to blog all the way, not just half-ass it and create one more waste-of-space dead-end on cyberspace.

Not that my life is interesting, but hey, gotta start what you finish, right?

I will start by saying that it was SUPPOSED to be my day off, which I am SUPPOSED to have two of per week.  So far this summer I have had both days off ONCE.  Beyond that I have always been ‘asked’ if I could come in on one of those days.  Ok so it’s not like I work in a sweat shop making novelty figurines for 20cents a day, but still, a life would be nice.  Anyway, so I already had to work yesterday for some reason and then toDAY I called my boss to ask if he could pay me so I could pay rent and BOOM he asks me to come in for two hours.  TWO HOURS.  3 to 5.  I mean, really?  it’s really worth paying me $18 to sit here for two hours when you could just close early?  I mean, at least I got to sleep in (and make pancakes, which, as it turns out, I am really fucking good at) and relax for the first half of the day, but walking all the way here in the afternoon sun (and rain shower, I might add) for what will probably turn out to be another dissapointing afternoon was a trifle obnoxious.  I should mention that they didn’t even open till about noon anyway.  Why not just take a day off too, guys?

Alright.  That is enough griping. 

On a lighter note, we got in a huge new scuplture yesterday from one of my favorite artists at the gallery who, lucky for me, lives in the area AND knows Mr. LeCuyer.  He is a Rabbi and has invited me to tour his studio and field some of my questions about Job.  Score.  Sadly I have not taken him up on either of these offers just yet, as I have not finished re-reading Job.  But I will!  And then everything will be grand, and hopefully my confusion disspelled, although if I have learned anything from studying religion it is that the further you go the less you know.  So maybe I’ll just end up reaching even deeper and murkier regions of aporia. 

Anyway, the sculpture.  So all of this artist’s work is based on neolithic artifacts, which are believed to be the first artwork of humankind.  We have a number of his bronzes, but this new one is wooden and carved from the giant trunk of a redwood tree.  It was designed such that the back (the sculpture is a giant bust of a man) shows the rings of the trunk, and the head (which is off to the right at a jaunty angle) is carved from what used to be a large limb, so there is another set of rings and a curving superficial crack where the mouth would be, giving it a really charming expression.  The best part, though, is another huge crack which nearly splits the head in half; you can actually see through it.  The artist calls is “Broken Heart, Complete heart.”  Apparently in neolithic art, human heads are shaped like hearts to represent some sort of heart/mind connectedness which we moderns, he claims, lack.  To have a broken heart in this context denotes humility (pride being a resident of the heart), which facilitates a relationship with God.  Thus, if your heart is broken, it is actually complete, as long as you fill that crack with God. 

So now we have a huge, smiling, wooden sculpture which physically portrays the most meaningful relationship available to us puny, fallible humans.  I really can’t tell you with what childish glee I recieved the piece into the gallery.  It felt like Christmas.  Except better, because Christmas is an awful consumerized vortex of superficiality.  But those thoughts can be saved for a later post.

But really, he(the sculpture)’s great, and makes me feel better about life, and I kind of want to go hang out with him right now.  He even smells really nice.  So if anyone has about five grand they don’t mind loaning to me indefinitely, they would be making a a very nerdy girl’s dream come true.  So, uh, keep that in mind.  I will be accepting donations.

Other than that… well, life is pretty much not worth commenting on.  I guess I could write about my trip to California, and perhaps I will at a later date.  For now, as I was just forced to carry a 4′ x 7′ painting in a huge gold frame up a huge flight of uneven, outdoor stairs from the basement, and then hoist it into a woman’s Benz, I am feeling a little tired and mopey and resentful of rich people, so now I really MUST go have a talk with my wooden friend so I don’t abandon all for a unabomber style woodland abode, forsaking all human contact forever.  What, ungrateful rich people never have that effect on you?

Alright whatever, I’m outie.  More to come later, probably tomorrow, since I will be BACK HERE AT 10AM.

This was, for the most part, a bitter and angry blog post.  And for that, I kind of apologize.

Facebook is a strange thing.  It is like a constantly updated yearbook of yourself and your friends (those who have one, anyway) on which everyone’s commentary is left behind for later perusal.  There are over 700 pictures of me on facebook from over the last three or so years.  That is SO MANY PICTURES.  So many of my experiences are now available for the viewing pleasure of whoever fits within the parameters of whatever bullshit privacy settings I’m using.  But more fascinatingly, I can see a (relatively) chronological progression of images of myself.  That is, in many ways, a very cool thing.  There was certainly a long period of time before now which I spent sort of floundering around in my own existence, hoping some sort of discernable path would make itself apparent amidst the ambiguity of my days.  Now I, if I so choose, may retrospectively witness the finding and following of said path (just a path, who knows if it was THE path, but there’s nothing to be done about that now) over this last little bit of time.  It is hard to imagine there was a time when I didn’t know all my St. John’s people, especially my JFs.  I count myself exceptionally lucky to have been (and still be!) a part of that particular group of people. 

But it is strange to see my own face at a different time, and remember what I was thinking, or the temperature of that day, or the surrounding conversation.  Aristotle did nothing to demystify time for me, and I find it deeply but very quietly troubling. 

I have started reading “The Painted Bird” by Jerzy Kosinski.  I had never heard of it, and really only started reading it today because I’d put it in my bag instead of Hemingway by mistake.  It is incredibly brutal.  Astonishingly brutal.  It is, I think, an important book, but I would caution anyone who decides to undertake the reading of it toready themselves for it’s impact.  That is all I will say about that.

And now for a GARDEN UPDATE. I spent a long time yesterday afternoon training my ivy along the fence.  Turns out there is a lot more of it than I even thought, it was simply growing in odd directions.  I bet by the end of the summer all three small patches will have met and formed one large, leafy barrier between my yard and the side street.  And I will be very happy.  We shall see about this other vine; I would very much like to transplant some but lack the tools.  I also still have not taken the time to discover where its roots are along the fence.  Once I do I will have to do some extra watering before I attempt a transplant. 

There is no one. NO. ONE. coming into the gallery today.  I think at least two hours have passed before someone last was in here.  And God knows my reading material isn’t of a most diverting quality.  Thus, blogging. 

But at least it is already almost three.  Two hours and fifteen minutes till I’m out of here.