Exclusion

Dunno if it’s just a sense of tribalism, or perhaps it’s my skewed misperception, but I feel excluded from the local crowd.  Last night at the kick-off for the open studio tour, both Laura and I compared our “notes” after the “doo” and found that we both felt  overdressed for the event. And certainly out of place, even though it seems easy to individually relate to many of the souls there. I can’t imagine that we are too old for the thing, as there are plenty of folks our age in attendance. We seem to need more “grunge” in our attire when in town. It does not help that the main center of all activity in the tiny town is a huge bar/roadhouse. Speaking for myself, bars are places I’ve never felt very comfortable in –I cant help feelings of disdain whenever I see one or two individuals inevitably “holding court” in these joints.

All that being said, Laura phrased the main event there perfectly: the auction seemed a bit like high-school, with the “popular’ folk getting higher bids. Truth be told, I found much of the work to be sub-par and the remainder simply adequate. The auctioneer’s helper pronounced one artists’ work as pretty good, but anything done by this artist, he said,  (a female who hung from a set of chains in a recent acrobatic performance) was terrific. ‘Nuff said?

I plan to skip this event next year unless my sales are better than expected (and I expect next to nothing). I prefer to stick to self-promotion rather than try and gain favor with this crew.

It seems as though Sarah, who I worked with at the Horse Shelter, said it all-if you don’t hang out and drink at this townie bar, you ain’t nobody. We are feeling the effects of small town life. Yet I never felt this in Blairstown-maybe cause I never really ventured forth with my work? Dunno, but we will test this out in the upcoming time to come.

This is the piece I donated to the benefit auction-"Seernore".