Lucky Find!
Its been a productive day shopping wise. Got a ton of groceries for decent price, Renee found some new shoes relatively quickly, I got to take advantage of a nice sale at Gamestop (finally own the Playstation 2 collection of all the classic Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog games, those were the first video games I ever played so I'm more than happy to have them once again).
But far more important than all that, Hermes got himself (gave himself) a little present today. :-)
This is Artscape weekend in Baltimore, and we live pretty much at the Epicenter of the event. I've only ever been to the event once, the first year I was living here, and was deeply disappointed by the whole thing (unless you're someone really proud of your African heritage or the kind of Christian tacky enough to want to have I <3 Jesus emblazoned on every single article of clothing and piece of jewelry you own, there wasn't much there for you), plus that was the first time I ever experienced severe sensory overload (waiting for about any hour in line in the parking lot serving as the food court, in the middle of a literal sea of people practically elbow room only, so much fucking noise and about a hundred different smells from all the food cooking there alone; I had to push and shove my way out and by the time I finally broke through the crowd I came dangerously close to fainting, not fun to say the least). The second year we were moving into this apartment the weekend of (finding parking was fun), so naturally we missed it. We weren't entirely certain we wanted to poke our heads out this year or not, but today we had errands to run and weird sleep so we figured we'd miss it.
On our way back from the grocery store, we pass by a couple of tables set up across the street and up the block from the main event. One in particular was selling paintings, and several pieces of work caught both Renee and my eye. But since we were quite overloaded with groceries (including a fucking twenty pound bucket of cat liter that we already had to carry across a huge parking lot and had gone about two and a half blocks with already, with three more blocks plus four flights of stairs left to go), we decided we would come back. After getting home, putting away said groceries and just lying down and resting thank the gods, we both decided we were at least interested in going back to check things out closer.
A lot of the work is very cool, definitely and I see a few pieces I'm kind of interested in, two original paintings involving ravens and a framed print of a lighted path done in greens. All perfectly suitable for the Hermes shrine, I is thinking. One of the raven paintings was kind of big and therefore $40 (since it was an original as well), so that one was out for me, and I decided on the lighted path in green because it was $15 (the second raven I believe he said was $20, but it was very small and I sort of decided I didn't like it quite that much).
Renee was a lot more attracted to a piece that had sold just before we got there (but which would have been out of our price range anyway). The artist talked about his inspiration for the painting with us a bit, called Effective Utterance its about the power of words to create reality, which deeply interested both of us. We were given a card and Renee is going to see if she can't get a smaller print of that painting for herself.
But getting back to myself, we didn't have any cash on us at the time and asked him if he could hold on to that for us while we walked a few blocks away to Rite Aid where Renee wanted to get some hair dye, we could get cash back and return for the painting since we'd pass by on our way home anyway.
After a bit of a hang up at the drug store trying to find a register with cash to give back (???), we were back. The man was talking to a few other people and so, while waiting to make the deal, I turned back to the table once again to look through it all once again.
And there saw something I didn't see before.
It was another raven, but this one much more interesting than the others, instead of bird or bird sitting in trees, this was clearly highly symbolic. This also a framed print though not a store bought frame, this was one of the ones he said was handmade. So I picked it up and asked about it.
Apparently he was not going to sell this one since, at some point, the picture had been damaged. Indeed, there was a small tear in the bottom left hand corner, honestly I hadn't even noticed. He had only been using it to prop up another painting and he seemed surprised that I had seen it at all. It had been sitting right out on the table face up in clear view when I returned, it had definitely not been that way the first time through.
So, purely out of curiosity, I asked if there was any story behind this painting like there had been with the other one. Why yes there was! The painting was supposed to be of the trickster Raven (and he also seemed surprised that I knew what he was talking about) taking a piece of the creative power of the world for himself, explaining that the rest of the symbolism was that creative force at work bringing life to things, and that which the force created reaching back in to the center that it came from.
Oh, now I knew I had to have it. I connect Hermes with crows and ravens (a UPG it seems several other people have had as well), and the trickster angle just made it that much more appropriate in my mind (I don't believe them to be the same being of course, but it is just a painting and the connections are fun and meaningful nonetheless). Again he seemed surprised, but he pulled out some black paint to put over the torn corner and touch it up a little, and knocked down the original price making it the same $15 I was going to pay for the other one.
And now Hermes has something new and shiny on his shrine!
The artist's web site is here with several of the paintings we saw for sale although not all of them (not any of the ones I had been initially looking at). My raven painting is there, but it doesn't look like I'll be able to direct link you to it, so ....
But far more important than all that, Hermes got himself (gave himself) a little present today. :-)
This is Artscape weekend in Baltimore, and we live pretty much at the Epicenter of the event. I've only ever been to the event once, the first year I was living here, and was deeply disappointed by the whole thing (unless you're someone really proud of your African heritage or the kind of Christian tacky enough to want to have I <3 Jesus emblazoned on every single article of clothing and piece of jewelry you own, there wasn't much there for you), plus that was the first time I ever experienced severe sensory overload (waiting for about any hour in line in the parking lot serving as the food court, in the middle of a literal sea of people practically elbow room only, so much fucking noise and about a hundred different smells from all the food cooking there alone; I had to push and shove my way out and by the time I finally broke through the crowd I came dangerously close to fainting, not fun to say the least). The second year we were moving into this apartment the weekend of (finding parking was fun), so naturally we missed it. We weren't entirely certain we wanted to poke our heads out this year or not, but today we had errands to run and weird sleep so we figured we'd miss it.
On our way back from the grocery store, we pass by a couple of tables set up across the street and up the block from the main event. One in particular was selling paintings, and several pieces of work caught both Renee and my eye. But since we were quite overloaded with groceries (including a fucking twenty pound bucket of cat liter that we already had to carry across a huge parking lot and had gone about two and a half blocks with already, with three more blocks plus four flights of stairs left to go), we decided we would come back. After getting home, putting away said groceries and just lying down and resting thank the gods, we both decided we were at least interested in going back to check things out closer.
A lot of the work is very cool, definitely and I see a few pieces I'm kind of interested in, two original paintings involving ravens and a framed print of a lighted path done in greens. All perfectly suitable for the Hermes shrine, I is thinking. One of the raven paintings was kind of big and therefore $40 (since it was an original as well), so that one was out for me, and I decided on the lighted path in green because it was $15 (the second raven I believe he said was $20, but it was very small and I sort of decided I didn't like it quite that much).
Renee was a lot more attracted to a piece that had sold just before we got there (but which would have been out of our price range anyway). The artist talked about his inspiration for the painting with us a bit, called Effective Utterance its about the power of words to create reality, which deeply interested both of us. We were given a card and Renee is going to see if she can't get a smaller print of that painting for herself.
But getting back to myself, we didn't have any cash on us at the time and asked him if he could hold on to that for us while we walked a few blocks away to Rite Aid where Renee wanted to get some hair dye, we could get cash back and return for the painting since we'd pass by on our way home anyway.
After a bit of a hang up at the drug store trying to find a register with cash to give back (???), we were back. The man was talking to a few other people and so, while waiting to make the deal, I turned back to the table once again to look through it all once again.
And there saw something I didn't see before.
It was another raven, but this one much more interesting than the others, instead of bird or bird sitting in trees, this was clearly highly symbolic. This also a framed print though not a store bought frame, this was one of the ones he said was handmade. So I picked it up and asked about it.
Apparently he was not going to sell this one since, at some point, the picture had been damaged. Indeed, there was a small tear in the bottom left hand corner, honestly I hadn't even noticed. He had only been using it to prop up another painting and he seemed surprised that I had seen it at all. It had been sitting right out on the table face up in clear view when I returned, it had definitely not been that way the first time through.
So, purely out of curiosity, I asked if there was any story behind this painting like there had been with the other one. Why yes there was! The painting was supposed to be of the trickster Raven (and he also seemed surprised that I knew what he was talking about) taking a piece of the creative power of the world for himself, explaining that the rest of the symbolism was that creative force at work bringing life to things, and that which the force created reaching back in to the center that it came from.
Oh, now I knew I had to have it. I connect Hermes with crows and ravens (a UPG it seems several other people have had as well), and the trickster angle just made it that much more appropriate in my mind (I don't believe them to be the same being of course, but it is just a painting and the connections are fun and meaningful nonetheless). Again he seemed surprised, but he pulled out some black paint to put over the torn corner and touch it up a little, and knocked down the original price making it the same $15 I was going to pay for the other one.
And now Hermes has something new and shiny on his shrine!
The artist's web site is here with several of the paintings we saw for sale although not all of them (not any of the ones I had been initially looking at). My raven painting is there, but it doesn't look like I'll be able to direct link you to it, so ....
