Artists and Monsters

Some people like a monster truck rally and some of us prefer a monster drawing rally (conveniently, there's beer at both).

As it happened, my kind of rally was happening at 1708 Gallery today, mere blocks from my house.

Sixty plus artists took up one hour shifts to create art while no-talents like me watched.

In the spirit of gallery support, each completed piece was then tacked to the wall, for sale at a mere $65.

And by the time I got there, a lot of pieces had the telltale red sticker. meaning they'd already been sold.

Smart local collectors, including some of the artists participating, were scooping up works by talents like Heide Trepanier, Jenna Chew, Amie Oliver and Kathryn Henry-Choisser.

I already own pieces by Bizhan Khodabandeh and Chris Milk Hulbert, not that I wasn't tempted by what they'd done today.

Envy set in when I saw several talented musicians sketching away. Apparently some people end up with both mad artistic and musical skills.

Ditto for the multiple talents of the beekeeper/fabric artist I recently wrote about for Belle, here, and the studio/gallery owners I'd seen just the other night at a lecture.

But envy gave way to awe because a big part of why I have adopted Richmond is because of how many talented people have also chosen to make their home here.

And there was an unusually high concentration of them at the rally today, both making art and walking around looking at what had been created.

Stealthily, I moved around them hoping no one could tell what limited talents I had.

Then it occurred to me: every artistic sort needs an audience of one kind or another.

I am your audience.