Artist-at-Large
I hope you are sitting down reading this because I would like to tell you something very important. Life is hard. There I’ve said it, the cat is out of the bag now and you may quote me.
I read an article just the other day that stated that most folks have an average of about 60 good years before things start falling apart. Oh you might live to be 90 and that’s great, but on average your good days of getting around and having fun don’t last much — and a good number of folks don’t even make it that far. In light of the limited good years we all have left, I am going to start being more upfront and honest with my opinions on things. Hopefully my innate sense of style, taste and all things artistic will help you live a more beautiful life and help me get some things off my chest that bother me.
First up, the Lottery. Now I don’t have anything against the lottery per se, and in fact, even though I do consider it in many ways a tax on idiots, I have been known to throw down a buck here and there. No, what irks me greatly is not the lottery, but lottery WINNERS. Inevitably they step forward in all of their blue collar splendor to accept the prize, surrounded by a throng of grinning kin dressed to the nines in K-Mart’s Jaclyn Smith collection.
While that makes my eyes ache, that is not what bothers the vermiculate pathways of my mind. What bothers me is what they always say next. When asked about how life will change for them upon being payed 100 million bucks, almost without fail they say that they will “keep their job, pay some bills, buy the wife a new Harley and give to the church.”
My brain implodes each time upon hearing this catechism of the newly rich. People of style and taste, please start playing the lottery more often. This is a cultural war, and right now we are out numbered a thousand-to-one. We really need to level the playing field and start putting some of this money to good use. The Jet Ski, ATV and aluminum siding dealers are getting rich off of these instant mountaineer Midases, while galleries struggle, artists are on their last case of Vueve and Tiffany’s just barely keeps the doors open.
What would I do if I won the lottery, you ask? Well, I will be happy to tell you. First things first: I’d check my pulse to make certain that I was alive and refill my glass and turn off the phone after calling my lawyer; then most likely check into The Umstead Hotel and Spa under an assumed name to relax and contemplate while having a massage, manicure, pedicure, salt scrub, tooth veneers, Botox, Juvéderm, haircut, highlights and a high colonic.
Since you can’t legally remain incognito and accept your hard won cash, I would show up wearing something sedate but stylish, like a simple black cashmere turtleneck and that gorgeous $150,000 Hermes Crocodile pea coat (www.hermes.com), blue jeans and those Emporio Armani sunglasses that Bono always wears. I would come alone; my entourage would wait in the limo. And when the press asked me what I would do with my newly acquired windfall, I would take the microphone and in my very best Michael Jackson voice say, “Go on a lot of dates with vapid models and buy art.”
There you go, case solved. Of course, while the dating would be fun, I’d actually have much more fun shopping for art. From what I have observed, money acts like a magnifying glass for the personality. If you are uptight and greedy to start with, more money just makes you more of a miser. If you are generous of spirit, you become even more generous, and if you happen to have a natural inclination towards acquisitiveness, then you turn into Citizen Kane. It’s too bad they don’t have a question and interview section for potential lottery winners, weed out the dullards and give the cash to those that would use it with dramatic abandon.
RDU Mural Commission
Artist Jane Filer may not have won the lottery, but she came close by being selected to create a 40-foot wall mural for the new international baggage claim area of RDU airport. The two other finalists were Jeannette Brossart, a talented mosaic artist, and Steve Nurkin, a well-known muralist. It was however Filer’s whimsical painting style that won the hearts of the judges. Filer says that she plans on completing the commission sometime this October, and I can’t wait to see the final result. So the next time you are flying back from Zurich and waiting for your Louis Vuitton Taiga to come around the carousel, take a good look around at the homegrown art welcoming our international visitors and returning bon vivants.
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