2012-12-12
So today at lunch (at the P&J ...of course) an older black man sitting with his daughter
at the table next to me asks,
“Young man, what do you do?” I say, “I’m an artist.
He asks, “what kind of art do you do?”
I say, “There’s one of my paintings hanging right behind you.”
He gets up and turns around and takes a long look at the piece and he says,
“That’s Fantastic!”
I’m pretty susceptible to flattery and while he is paying out his tab, he picks
up my lunch too.
He asks, “Where can I see some more of your work?”
I give him a card and show him the painting of The Mansion Family on my iPhone.
He asks, “Do you have any more work on there?”
I pull up an album and he sits down and scrolls through all 145 pictures asking
questions about many of them...
He’s says. “You like women!”
I laughed and said, “yeah, I like all kinds of things, especially women.”
Looking back at the painting of the P&J on the wall he says,
“You really capture the spirit of the Black Man and I’ve never seen anything
like this painting.”
...Again, I’m pretty susceptible to flattery and just tooting my own horn I say,
“I can capture most anything on canvas.”
Afterwards while driving back to the house - that made me feel pretty good for
him to say that about capturing the spirit of the Black people - sometimes I wonder
if I am truly capturing the spirit of that which I am painting... I guess I am.
