See this guy? He’s a shepherd I was asked to make for my church’s religion class. He is a painted wood cut out, and I think the goal is that he will someday have a whole flock of sheep that kids can move around and play with. I was happy to do him, especially as I had seen the guy they had before. He was nice enough, but far too white for a dude hanging out in the middle east in the sun all day. And he had sport socks which sort of offended me. My secret vendetta as an artist of religious themed works is to make everyone black or at least clearly Arabic. Jesus-as-blonde-frat-boy does not work for me. I fight whitey, and I have a whole host of paints to prove it.
Most of my art is sort of like this shepherd in that it walks out the door fairly soon after being created. I don’t know what it is about the things I make— they don’t stick around. I think some of it is that I am just not very motivated so I need people to ask me for stuff (like shepherds) in order to get myself organized enough to create something. Maybe some of it is that what I make is really just not that useful! I am okay with admitting that. Not a lot of people need wooden shepherds or hand puppets of married couples. And I have come to accept that NO ONE needs green tomato pickles. (I broke open a jar of those that I canned in late September. Sort of spicy and slimy. Not super great. Sorry if I gave them to you for Christmas. You have permission to compost them.)
One day I will be gone and my kids will cast about the room for something that I made, trying to prove that their mom was an artist of sorts. Meanwhile, my creations will be tucked away in some box somewhere, having forgotten their inception but retaining a lovely amount of pigment.
2 Comments, Comment or Ping
Oh, no! I just bought some pickled green tomatoes because I’d never heard of them before and they looked interesting! That’s too funny.
You will make more art for yourself when the kids are not relying on you for every little thing, so you can have more time to yourself. Maybe?
January 3rd, 2010
A speaker at an art meeting that I once went to commented, “When the item is useful, it’s a craft. When useless, it’s art.” I’ve always found that amusing.
Last year I repaired and retouched the crib set for St. James in McMinnville. On New Year’s day I overheard a lady commenting that baby Jesus looked new ….. I smiled because I had repainted his blonde curls in brown, darkened his complexion, and gave him brown eyes.
Your shepherd looks pretty buff…. way to go.
January 3rd, 2010
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