art.

Paddy is on a quest to become petit bourgeois and I fully encourage him in this. It may have something to do with getting a real job, turning thirty, moving to the city, getting his own place… Anyway, he decided that he wanted to buy art, preferably from someone that he knows; since he knows relatively little about art, he may as well support a friend. Being an engineer, he likes bright colors and geometric shapes. Not to say that there is anything wrong with that, of course. We went around to some reasonably priced galleries, but there didn’t seem to be anything that you’d want to look at everyday. I told him to get suggested it might be better to get a landscape or still life, but he insisted that he likes pictures with people better.

He had an old friend in College Town whose work he really liked and he mentioned to him that he wanted to buy something of his. Of course his friend started hounding him. Five years ago, this friend of his had painted a portrait entitled “An Irishman,” which Paddy really liked, mainly because it reminded him of himself. Egoists, we are not. Eventually, his friend offered to give it to him if he bought another one of his paintings. This weekend we made an otherwise utterly pointless trip to College Town, but he did get his paintings. I guess the artist had always really liked it himself, so he had it hanging in his house. When we got to the studio, he put it in Paddy’s car before we went inside, so he couldn’t back out. Personally, I was glad that he didn’t have too many choices, because otherwise he can stretch out this sort of thing for months.

When we got home, he said that he could have sworn that the Irishman had a cup of coffee in the painting that he remembered. He started to think that maybe it was another version of the same guy. He thought he might have the old card to the original showing at a coffee shop in College Town. He found it in an old box of photographs and sure enough, there was a cup of coffee in the picture–drawn in black Sharpie by his “favorite barista” at the cafe who gave him the postcard (with cute note). In classic Paddy style, ie. truly oblivious, he never realized that she drew it on or that she had a crush on him.

He calls me on Tuesday complaining that the Irishman is giving him the creeps, because he keeps staring at him while he is sitting on the couch. He was thinking of keeping it in the closet. I’m fine with anywhere but the bedroom, because I think it is creepy too, but suggested that he put it above the couch where won’t have it looking at us all the time. At least, as I pointed out, the other one he bought is a landscape.