Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Speaking of blobs and stripes

Once in the late 1960's on a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago with some friends, I ended up staring at a painting in the modern wing, only because it was right in front of the little bench I sat down on to rest.  It was a huge canvas, probably 12 feet square, that was painted all black except for a large, perfectly round red circle in the middle.  I muttered something like, "Even I could do that," and a nearby connoisseur of modern art who overheard gave me the old you're-an-ignorant-Philistine look and said meaningfully, "Yes, but would you?"

No, of course not.  It is one of the bane's of my existence that I cannot draw, so if I could, I would not produce crap like that.

Sometimes I wish so desperately that I could draw, because I get these artistic inspirations that make me positively ache with creative impulses, but it's impossible because I can't draw anything that looks like what it's supposed to be.  I can see it so clearly in my mind's eye, but if I try putting pencil to paper, I get something worse than a six-year-old can produce.

Right now, for instance, I see a picture that shows a king and a queen, both on horseback, both in robes of royal purple.  Below them is an airplane, but its body is actually a banana with wings, with a slice of lemon for a tail, a half cherry for a cockpit, and a section of starfruit for a propeller.

I would title it "Purple Mounted Majesties Above a Fruity Plane."

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