We Have Some Talented Friends

We went to an art thing Friday night (was it a "show"?) to see some of our friend Rebecca's work (she paints). Truth to tell I was a bit nervous on the way. Just because you like somebody (and we love Rebecca) doesn't mean they're good at stuff, and I wanted to like her art. I don't know, it's like when someone you know gets up to sing in front of people and you really want it to go well. Anyway, we've been to a few of these things before, where they open up a hundred studios in some huge building and you wander around open-house style and check everything out. We've certainly seen more art than I ever expected myself to by the time I was thirty-two years old. And as we made our way to Rebecca's room, we saw more--the halls were lined with it. Coated with it. So I had a pretty good feel for what passed for art there that night. And then I saw Rebecca's stuff.

Jaw-dropping.

I couldn't believe it. I instantly felt ashamed for having been nervous and proud to know the artist. She's been painting geishas lately, and that's mostly what she was showing. They were moving. In ways that I don't have the vocabulary or depth of experience to describe, they were moving. (And I'm not used to being moved by paintings.) A kind of moving that goes way past just (ha, "just") technically well done pictures.

We made a cursory pass down the hall and back to check out some of the other artists (and drink their wine) but it was way more fun sitting in Rebecca's room watching the uninitiated come in and discover her. It happened the same way almost every time: Casual conversation after casual conversation was aborted as person after person stepped through the door, completely startled by what they found inside. Many of their mouths fell open -- literally -- and almost all of them asked, wide eyed and awe-struck, "Omigod! Who's the artist?" At which point someone would gesture toward Rebecca and the newbie would go grovel at her feet. Fun to watch.

I can't claim objectivity, but I swear that if I hadn't know her and we'd just stumbled into her room as unprepared as everyone else, hers still would have been the best work there.

Amen.

(And don't even get me started on Dividing the Plunder...)