art and the imitation of life.

“That’s one thing that’s always, like, been a difference between, like, the performing arts, and being a painter, you know. A painter does a painting, and he paints it, and that’s it, you know. He has the joy of creating it, it hangs on a wall, and somebody buys it, and maybe somebody buys it again, or maybe nobody buys it and it sits up in a loft somewhere until he dies. But he never, you know, nobody ever, nobody ever said to Van Gogh, ‘Paint a Starry Night again, man!’ You know? He painted it and that was it.” Joni Mitchell,
Miles of Aisles (1974)

i love art. okay. not true. i love some art. and i can’t stand most art. admittedly, i am probably the least well-versed person on the subject that i know. i find it compelling (read: irksome) that many people talk ad nauseam about artists, the famous and not so famous among them and that they can speak intelligently about sub genres (are there even such things as sub genres? i just made that shit up. see..?) and stylistic differences. contemporary art. modern art. abstract impressionism. pop art. aboriginal art. art madi. ugh. i typically check out (waaaayyy out-) and stop listening when such conversations begin.

all i know is what i like.

on saturday, at goodwill, i found the kind of art that i like, though. i hung it in my bedroom. i have absolutely no way of knowing anything of the provenance, but it doesn’t really matter. it speaks to me in a way i cannot describe. like a song. when i look at it from my Big Brass Bed, this painting –this piece of discarded art– makes me really happy. it grounds me with it’s shades of brown, with the moon that is placed and painted so perfectly. when i look upon it, i feel settled. i’ve, um, not been feeling so settled as of late. i’ve been spending quite a lot of time alone, by myself, with me. it’s been a couple of years since i have been so unattached and so untethered. it’s an interesting feeling. kind of like when you are a kid and you get separated from your ‘rents at a big department store. alone. left wondering where the hell the important people in your life have gone. (down another aisle? to the bathroom? to another city? to another person?) yeah. like that. i am an aquarius and being completely and totally grounded is not really in my nature. i like to float around city to city, friend to friend, goodwill to goodwill. BUT sometimes even i need a little grounding…and sometimes, my untrained eye finds something created by someone i’ll never know that helps me feel just a little less lost, both feet on the ground. what i like.

 ©littlebrownbutterfly