midnightinchicago
Being a visual artist (painter), I have been to many shows where my works have been displayed. These are oftentimes soirees where people in evening dress stand around holding drinks whilst frowning ponderously over my canvasses.
It pleases me that people take an interest in my art work and try to figure out what it means to them or what they mean to me. Art is not only about expression, but it is about reflection and finding new meanings, both within oneself, and without.
However, sometimes the production of artwork is a bit more earthy than the later displaying of it.
A couple weeks back, Elyse and I decided to get some prints made of four of my paintings. We have a person that does this for us. He does an excellent job.
The usual modus operandi is to drop the original paintings off at this person’s place of business and then pick up the originals and the prints when the prints are ready. Turn around time is about a week which is amazing considering the amount of work involved.
This time, however, our printer was in the area and offered to pick the paintings up, which was fine, except there is a big long trench being dug along the street where Elyse lives. They are replacing a water main, evidently, and work is progressing at a snail’s pace. The construction going on often prevents anyone from getting in or out of her place of residence and this day was no different. Our only recourse was to meet half a block over at the IGA/Foodland and hand the paintings over in the parking lot.
I had picked Elyse up from volunteering at a local club, and we parked in the lot and waited, with my paintings wrapped in plastic in the back seat.
No printer.
So we went in and shopped. (They had a dollar-days sale going on, with chicken drumsticks at a dollar a pound.)
Still no printer.
So we went home (managing to make our way through the construction) and put the groceries away.
Then a call to Elyse’s cell phone. But the call got dropped, so we did not know who it was, and we did not have our printer’s cell phone number. Figuring it was our printer, we walked back to the store.
Still no printer.
So there we were — me, Thomas D. Taylor, painter extraordinaire, whose works are hanging in Canada, the US, and Hungary, and Elyse Bruce, singer/songwriter/composer, whose albums are selling in stores, playing on the radio, and selling on the net – sitting on a bench at the IGA/Foodland with a bunch of unmarked white plastic bags containing my original artwork. A front end loader pulled into the parking lot, dragging with it a cloud of dust and blue diesel smoke which descended upon us like a mist. We coughed, our throats irritated.
We could only take so much of that and so it was back home, where the printer called, saying he had just arrived at the IGA/Foodland parking lot.
Back to the IGA/Foodland we went once again, where the exchange was made. The paintings went out of the backseat of my car and into the back of his van, which was full of kids – his own and their friends – he had picked up from school.
The prints from these paintings will be seen around the world.
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars through difficulties.
