Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Art Board Meeting

I had a doctor's appointment to get some blood work done, so I left work early. I checked in at the front desk and the nurse told me I was not there for a physical. I said yes. Then she looked at me confused. Then she said I was just there for lab work and I agreed. That sounded right. All of this was said as if I should have some clue what was going on. I gave a blood sample and went to give my urine, but I'm never sure how much urine they want in that little cup so I filled it partly and then in the middle of peeing I decided to add some more and I think I got some pee on the side of the specimen cup. I cleaned the cup with a paper towel and washed my hands.

When I got out I was hungry having gone a good 18 hours without food and I wanted some food. Fasting made me appreciate that I was lucky enough to eat every day. By the time I was done I realized it would be almost 5 if I went back to work. I went and took a nap, and when I woke I decided to go to a community art center and see some art. Time for Art! There was an exhibit by Kenneth Hale, Ginger Geyer, and Jacqueline Bishop. Kenneth Hale's exhibit was titled Landscape into Art. Some pictures featured a tree superimposed into a variety of landscapes. Some work had classical works of art blended together. I liked the Palace of Fine arts that appears in the Garden of Eden. The Golden Gate bridge also appeared in the background of what looked like a 17th century Dutch landscape.

Ginger Geyer's porcelain landscape featured porcelain facsimiles of everyday items. There was a wheelbarrow with cantalopes and eggs smashed on them. There was a porcelain chainsaw, and a porcelain basket of porcelain canned vegetables. Seeing these things in porcelain gave them a strange, uncanny quality. There were also porcelain works with classical works of art painted onto them, Van Gogh's Wheat Field with Lark on a backpack for example. I found some of the works amusing and others strange. Picasso's Guernica painted on bathroom products like shampoo was more like some comment on the commercial nature of the Arts. You've seen the painting, now buy the shampoo. Or maybe it was the arts being subsumed for commercial purposes.

I only got a short look at Jaquelin Bishop's work when I was interrupted by a woman who complimented me on my attention to the exhibits, but this was just flattery so that she could inform me I needed to get the hell out of the museum since they were about to have a board meeting. That was the reason for the table in the middle of the exhibits with wine and mineral water on it. I thought maybe it was some kind of pop art or installation. As a consolation prize they introduced me to an attractive young woman named Stefanie who asked if I wanted to become a member, and generously gave me a from I could use to donate money to them. I also gave them my email so that they could keep me up to date on their activities.

When they had thrown me out, I decided to go for a walk down the Avenue. It seemed a shame to drive since it was beautiful outside. I walked down to a sports bar, and I sat down at the bar and ordered a Coke. The guy next to me was eating a massive plate of ribs and he asked if I liked hockey. I said not really, but I had been puzzled by an ad for the NHL with the cryptic message, “What if Roy played like a rookie,” so I asked him about it and he explained it. He was a big Philadelphia Flyers fan. Another Flyers fan appeared to my left and soon there was an animated discussion as to whether their team had the right personnel for the system the coach had implemented. The guy on my right said that the team consisted of second and third line guys. They both agreed the center sucked, but the goalie was okay. I listened to some more chatter and left when the period ended.

When I got back to my car I listened to the radio for a minute. The host was debating whether he should visit his father, who was in the throes of what sounded like extreme senility with a good bit of hostility mixed in. He didn't know if he wanted to go through the experience of seeing his father when he didn't recognize him and screamed profanity at him. After hearing this I decided to go visit my father.

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