Title: The Original Design
I don't remember the title of this one.
I don't remember the title of this one. It was something about reality and symbolism and religion.
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Friday, September 13, 2003
I got the urge to do some painting. Here I am a stranger in a stranger land. Washington.
In this unusual area, everything one needs is in another town. And there is no town in town. Pasco and Kennewick and Richland, Tri Cities as they are called, are all just clusters of homes and shopping centers. It is Suburbia with out an Urb.
The Tri Cities phone book lists three places that carry art supplies. Since I am in Richland, naturally they are in Kennewick.
The first and second listing turned out to be in business no longer. Finally, in a shopping area I found a small office supply store that carried art supplies. Earlier I had purchased some raw canvas in a fabric shop so what I needed was some stretch strips to mount the fabric for priming and painting. The sizes I needed fell in the range of 28 inch to 34 inch. Any combination within that range would be fine. The painting I had in mind could be square or nearly square.
The shop had on their shelf, one 30-inch, a 29, a 33 and a 28. One of each. In case this does not strike you oddly, the explanation is that one needs a pair of each size to make a complete rectangle. I asked the clerk why they only had one of each of these sizes and she replied that they have a regular customer that is a kook. That seemed to explain it. For her.
So I went to another shopping center. This one has a Michaels Craft Shop that is not listed in the phone book. Michaels is a large chain. I figured they would have the stuff.
On their shelf the only sizes above 24 inch that the store stocked were 31 inch, 27 inch, 34 inch and 32 inch. They had one of each…. The clerk was mystified as to why this was important.
I asked her the location of the nearest lumberyard. Naturally she gave me direction to go back to one in Richland. Everything you want is in another city. I went out the door, drove to the other end of the same park lot to a Home Depot. I guess technically, that isn’t a “lumberyard.” No reason why she would consider it that.
I bought a couple pieces of two by two and left.
Later while I was cutting and forming my own stretch strips and then mounting the raw canvas, I realized what a lot of work artwork really is. The work in this painting not only includes building my own media but also a lot of self-restraint. Stifling guffaws and rolling eyes and forced smiles should be included in the total.
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