Saturday, April 10, 2010

Whatever Makes You Happy

For me, the hardest part of this recession is not the creative budgeting required to still have a life, it's the difficulty in justifying splurges. And, travel aside, my favorite splurge is buying art. It's funny, I can rationalize buying tickets to see bands perform every week of my life, but buying another piece of art for my apartment feels indulgent.

Last night I took in a terrific show at Black Hand Coffee over on Sheppard Street, a place I'd never even been in since I don't drink coffee or PBR. Showing were Bizhan Khodabandeh, James Callahan and Matt Deans in a show with a leaning toward line, although painting was also represented. I already have a James Callahan hanging in my hallway and I was interested to see a show that featured solo and collaborative work by two artists with whom I'm familiar.

I walked into the place, stopped at the first frame and I was in love. Seriously, Bizhan's 2008 silkscreen titled Softening Our Footprints totally captivated me. It's a triptych with the borders borrowed from an Iranian rug pattern. The three scenes depict a guy with a paint roller watching an approaching car, sneaking up on it and ultimately rolling over it to reveal a bike replacing the car, all in shades of pink and green. I knew as soon as I saw it that I had to have it.

I walked the rest of the show which is most definitely worth checking out (it's up through April) three times. A really big guy doing the same thing finally leaned over and pointed out his favorite piece to me, so I showed him mine; we agreed that the other had made a good choice, just not as good as our own.

I wanted that piece so badly, but how to justify an art purchase right now? Then it came to me! My birthday is next month and my folks always send me a check so this year they would be buying me a Khodabandeh to add to my walls. I was grinning ear to ear when I finally told Bizhan that I wanted to buy it.

And he was grinning ear to ear knowing he'd sold a piece on the first hour of the show. He'd told me his splurge during these tough times is martial arts classes, which he was cutting back on for economic reasons. I was happy to think that I was enabling him to continue splurging on them a while longer.

Like he told me last night, everybody has their something that makes it all worthwhile.

2 comments:

  1. Congrats on the art! Carl and Pat probably don't realize the scope and depth of what their check purchases. I took a look at it, not my style, not that I really have any style, but very interesting, none the less.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congrats on the art! Carl and Pat probably don't realize the scope and depth of what their check purchases. I took a look at it, not my style, not that I really have any style, but very interesting, none the less.

    ReplyDelete