I'm Hung

Last night was the opening of the 4 x 4 show and after the Monk and I got our grooves on (drank beer and wine respectively) we headed to the gallery/art store. The Roommate must have had stage fright because he choose to go to the gym and clean his room instead. Bad move, Roommate, as there was FREE wine and beer at the show (what with it being a show and all), but I digress. When we arrived at the entrance we were greeted by a wall of little tiny paintings, a portion of which is shown below:

Ohhh, what cute and tiny paintings there are! I've been to many a show* but never before have I been to one where the initial thought was "oh, look how miniature and cute!". It was almost underwhelming, but in a good way. Of course. The first painting that caught my eye was the Roommate's "Francis Sleeps", at the lower left portion of the photo above; also please see the detail below:

I gotta admit I LOVE this painting, and not because it is a self portrait of the Roommate I just love the color, subject matter placement and the fact that the Roommate stuck out his neck and did the damn thing. It was also his first show, so I really wish he had been there.

We were gazing at "Francis", pointing and marveling at it's beauty when I noticed a photographer taking shots of the work hanging on the wall. I of course stepped back as to get out of the shot, figuring it was one of the artists forever freezing this moment in history. We continued looking at the paintings, which all were quite good (it's amazing how easy it is to do "good" when your canvas is 4 inches by 4 inches), until we found "Zopa".

Now you're probably thinking "How fucking hard is it to find your own damn painting in a small herd of small paintings?"; well let me tell you, it's on the level of "finding the cutest ant". Go ahead and try to conquer that one. So we finally find "Zopa", and talk about it and point at it when a woman introduces herself as "someone's name I can't remember" from the Oregonian (which is the local Portland daily paper) and I realize she's the same chick who was just taking photos because I recognize the camera. She asks our names, I say "Susan" and then she asked for my last name (oh, the chick's name was Kim---I think) and for a moment I wonder why she asks my last name until I tell her and she writes it down. Hmmm. Then she asks the Monk his name and he says "The, t h e, Monk, m o n k" and she writes that down as well. Then she asks if it's ok if she uses us in her article. Yeah, free publicity. Kick ass. And the Roommate is gonna be sooooooooooooo jealous. Now I just need to find out when the article is gonna run in the paper so I can rub someone's nose in it. But of course, we were pointing at his painting when she took the photo, so I guess the joke's on me.

Congrats ROOMMATE for you first show (the Roommate is officially hung, if he wasn't already, which he is). Oh, and the second painting, "Rufus", never made it into the show. Rules are rules, after all.

* I was the VP and treasurer of a group of artists when I lived in Louisisan so I've been to lots of shows. But that's a story for another day. Today is all about Francis and Zopa. I'm so proud I could cry.