The Reluctant Collector

I have not led a quiet life. 

Although I wish my dynamic youth inspired me as an artist, caused me to cover canvases in cathartic screams of color, I have not as yet been so moved. Instead, that blue light has led me to friends, lovers, and husbands, who feel as deeply but are more blessed with talent than I. The companionship of artists is a wonderful thing. I appreciate their many moods, unique sense of time, flux between hedonism and lama-like restraint, cocky self-abandon and yearning for acceptance. I’d posed patiently for hours of sketches, and even as a rogue ant would traverse, I’d try not to laugh or flinch. I have been fortunate to receive everything from calligraphed French villanelles to oversized mixed media portraits as birthday and Christmas presents and (sometimes) loan payments. Because of my proximity, I took these gifts for granted. After years of living with art, I still enjoyed its presence, just as I would a neighbor dropping by with banana bread – but its emotional impact had definitely ebbed. (Outside of the heartfelt frustration that a certain artist had given his ex-girlfriend much more accomplished paintings than he’d given me!) I know it’s cold… and how many times had I given poems to friends only to hear “oh.” instead of “aah!” 

Mostly, I’d attempted to make tangible some elements of those precious relationships in pen, just as they had done in paint; but sometimes, well, I was just poor and spent. I would write and they would paint, late on eves, long after malls had closed. After giving each other incredible work for the first round of occasions, we saved the best for strangers, hopefully buyers, and gifted the mediocre.