The Other One - Day 13

Jackson Pollock

I had a boyfriend who wanted to teach me about art.

We spent days in New York galleries looking at modern art,abstracts, and such.  I could buy a lovely Jackson Pollock print and have it framed for not too much money.  And it would exhibit the sophistication of my artistic taste.

The only problem is that I don't understand or like modern art.  Abstracts leave me cold.  Plus, I like my art to look like something that I recognize.

This is because I have unsophisticated taste in art, my boyfriend assured me.  With a little education, I would catch on very quickly to what is good art and what is not.

My boyfriend generously offered to buy a Pollock print for me and get it framed.  I knew this was very nice, but asked if we could just keep looking.

We wandered into another gallery where I saw a painting that was of dogs playing poker, smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey.  I squealed with delight!  Now here was a painting I could really enjoy.  Absolutely not, my boyfriend exclaimed.  That is not even art!  That is ridiculous!  I was getting a little annoyed.  We came back to San Francisco without a piece of art.

About a week later, I went to a local place where they had some original art and some great prints.  I saw a really nice signed and numbered Chagall lithograph and thought about it for a moment.  I kept looking and found a huge framed print of the poker playing dogs with the cigarettes and booze.

I called my boyfriend that afternoon and told him what I had seen.  He was a fan of Chagall, but when he found out the price of the lithograph, he said we should keep looking.  I went back to the gallery before they closed and the owner offered to come by when he closed to hang my new painting for me.

The next morning, I called my boyfriend and invited him to dinner.  I  told him I had a surprise for him.  When he came into my apartment and saw the large piece over my fireplace, he nearly fainted before exclaiming "Holy shit!"

Yes, I got the other one.


As a side note, after he and I broke up, I returned the dog painting (which actually was sort of hideous) and got the Chagall.