Oh please, what where they thinking?!!

Obbie and I went to an art show Saturday night. The same place had sponsored one in the summer, and it had some really interesting things.

Alas, Saturday night was far from interesting, at least in the art department. After we paid our $3.00 each to get in, we found our hostess for the evening turned out to be the less than delightful diva of art in the Big City. She stood watch at the front door surrounded by some of her paintings and an adoring fan. Fan, singular. After we wended our way thru her & her spiel about the classes that are being offered in The Big City ("I see you're a fan of jewelry, there's a jewelry class offered" more on that later.) The first group of art we came to was a bunch of horse, deer and dog pictures, all in the paint by number style. Oookkkaaay...next we made our way (quickly) into the 'big area', where to our great astonishment, housed an 18 piece big band. No kidding. Moon River, Tuxedos, all that shiz. Oh dear. We were somewhat taken aback by that, since the room was probably a quarter of the size of a high school gym.

In front of the big band was more of the paint by number style art, with the cutest little old lady proudly telling anyone who stopped by about her paintings. I felt bad because she was practically screaming to be heard over the band. Next up was the first of many 'indie' artists, sitting on a folding chair looking bored in front of his cartoony anti-Bush 'paintings'. Mmmm-hmmm, next. Some nice photos of the local scenery, then a classroom with some boring jewelry (nice stones though) and some more really nice photos. I asked the photo guy for his card because I really liked the one picture. "I don't have any money right now" I said, "But I really like this" "I'll be here til 9:00" "No, I don't have any cash" "Oh, I take plastic" "No, I don't do plastic." "Oh. I respect that. I'll ship it to you if you want..." Don't beg kid, it's not becoming. We slipped out of the room before this went on any further.

These classrooms I'm talking about were big enough for one 6 foot folding table, two chairs, and two people. You get the artists and a couple lookers in there, and it's fairly close quarters. So both of these fine folks (and their lip rings) were really in my space.

We then made it to the other jewelry vendor. He had some nice work, and I enjoyed talking with him. The wire work wasn't as tight, and was a little sloppier than I'd put out for sale, but thats just me. Apparently he's very good at self promotion, and has websites, and does all kinds of shows. I gleaned a lot of information pretty quickly from him. People do love to talk about themselves.....

It went pretty quickly after that, several rooms of more indie art with each artist trying to outweird the previous in dress & deportment. My favorite was the girl who probably weighed 80 pounds, wearing huge combat boots and multi colored tights. She was a cartoon of an artist. Then there was the guy with dreadlocks who didn't bother to bathe for the occasion. Nothing says artist like some dude stinking up the whole place with BO and ass. Eeeew. After you went thru all these little rooms, you came to the very last room in the place, and it held....COUNTRY CRAFTS!! Complete with the rustic Santas & the whole schmiel. Quite the bizarre contrast from the other art. (When I called on Tuesday to see if I could possibly secure a spot for the Beadwhisperer, they told me they were full. So glad the rustic made in China Santas usurped handmade chain maille...)

So the Olive Garden catered this 'do. On the way in, Obbie & I debated on what that might entail. We both agreed meatballs & bruschetta. How wrong we were. The idea of 'finger food' was two pans of dried out baked ziti, salad, and breadsticks. They didn't even bother to take the breadsticks out of the paper sack they came in! Beverages were your choice of generic grocery store brand orange soda or cola, poured from the 3 liter bottle into a plastic cup with one ice cube.

Tacky much? We didn't eat, and bailed after talking to the jewelry guy a little more. We hadn't even hit the car before Obbie started ranting about 'no class' and 'tacky'. It wouldn't have taken much more effort to go to Sam's Club or Costco or even the local grocery for a cheese & meat try, hot meatballs or some other kind of finger food type nibble. Not to mention the beverage situation! No booze, but those cute little old ladies would have most likely had at least one punch bowl lurking in their closets, and someone would know how to much punch with pretty floaty ice things! Jeeezus.

We got home and I made two very strong vanilla vodka & cranberries, and Obbie & I ranted and raved for a little while before passing out on the couches.

What the hell? Where is the art scene around here? I encountered the pretentious people earlier in the summer ("you'll have to send us pictures of your jewelry, we want to make sure it's not junk...true statement!"), and now this. Where the hell is the middle ground? Gah.