Wondered Where I Got It From?
I spent yesterday with my parents - yay! They had an art show on the other side of Williamsburg from home, so they picked me up on the way. We were going to meet at the bookstore; on the way there, I walked through a huge outdoor art show with painting, clay, glasswork, photography, live music, and much more. It was quite neat.
Momdad told me about their recent adventures coming back from New York City. They took the train down, and they were put in a car wherein a dozen Amtrak employees were seated. These employees were on their way from NYC to South Carolina for a fellow Amtraker's retirement party, and they were, as Momdad said, "not intending to arrive sober". They had an enormous cooler of beer and hard alcohol, and two people going up and down the aisle getting everyone drinks. One, Mike, "had the build of a silverback gorilla", and the other was a tiny, skinny woman ("she was like a tiny little pencil", said Mom) with a very dirty mouth. Being employees of the railway, they knew all the stops, so they would herd out for smokes and then come back in and drink more. Meanwhile, the young conductor, who Momdad described in a way that gave me a powerful image of Percy Weasley, tried to keep them in order. He didn't want them to leave their seats. Eventually, another conductor came through and introduced herself, trying to do the tough-woman I'm-in-charge thing:
"My name is Avia. I'm going to get to know each of you, and I'm going to know your faces, so I know who goes with which seat." As soon as she left, the tiny woman strode down the aisle imitating her. Meanwhile, the fellow right in front of Momdad, who had drunk quite a bit, would periodically start singing tunelessly out loud with the music from his headphones. Every once in awhile, Mike would come by and say,
"Too loud," and once, he commented, "And to think he wasted all that money on singing lessons."
"He was robbed," said my dad.
The thing to draw from this story is that my parents also have random adventures sometimes. :)
Anyway, so we went to Momdad's art show. They were showing in Portlock Galleries with a woman Dad once taught in Penland; the people had asked Dad to show, and he almost said no, but he decided that he would ask if they would show Mom's paintings, too. She's shown her sculpture loads of times and won prizes and stuff, but she started the paintings more recently, when her back began protesting the large-scale wood-and-metal work she was doing. She hadn't shown her paintings yet.
The show looks great. Each of them has about a dozen works in it. Mom's are bright, pretty paintings of shells, marbles, and - in one case - a bean. Some of them look like more than they are; there's one with two tulip shells which are lined up but look like they're chasing each other, and one with a round piece of rough coral and a marble, like an evolution. Dad has a two drawings each from several series, the oldest dating back to maybe 1995. I remember all of these series. There's the cameras, the skeletal torsos, the columns, the swords, the sabertoothed cat skulls, and the coral - I believe that's the correct order. I love the sabertoothed cat skulls; they look so personable. Dad says they've won prizes. He said that some of the series are hard to show now because private collectors have bought the best pieces of them - the columns in particular. The coral he still has all of, because it's new, and the skeletal torsos I think he has all of, but I think a lot of the cameras were purchased. If anyone wants to see Momdad's work, they have a website at:
http://www.lewcox.com/
I think both the pieces on the main page are actually in the show!
Anyway, then we drove past a lot of cotton fields and took the ferry back. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant, and then Momdad took me back to my dorm and dropped me off. The rest of the evening was pretty quiet.
Momdad told me about their recent adventures coming back from New York City. They took the train down, and they were put in a car wherein a dozen Amtrak employees were seated. These employees were on their way from NYC to South Carolina for a fellow Amtraker's retirement party, and they were, as Momdad said, "not intending to arrive sober". They had an enormous cooler of beer and hard alcohol, and two people going up and down the aisle getting everyone drinks. One, Mike, "had the build of a silverback gorilla", and the other was a tiny, skinny woman ("she was like a tiny little pencil", said Mom) with a very dirty mouth. Being employees of the railway, they knew all the stops, so they would herd out for smokes and then come back in and drink more. Meanwhile, the young conductor, who Momdad described in a way that gave me a powerful image of Percy Weasley, tried to keep them in order. He didn't want them to leave their seats. Eventually, another conductor came through and introduced herself, trying to do the tough-woman I'm-in-charge thing:
"My name is Avia. I'm going to get to know each of you, and I'm going to know your faces, so I know who goes with which seat." As soon as she left, the tiny woman strode down the aisle imitating her. Meanwhile, the fellow right in front of Momdad, who had drunk quite a bit, would periodically start singing tunelessly out loud with the music from his headphones. Every once in awhile, Mike would come by and say,
"Too loud," and once, he commented, "And to think he wasted all that money on singing lessons."
"He was robbed," said my dad.
The thing to draw from this story is that my parents also have random adventures sometimes. :)
Anyway, so we went to Momdad's art show. They were showing in Portlock Galleries with a woman Dad once taught in Penland; the people had asked Dad to show, and he almost said no, but he decided that he would ask if they would show Mom's paintings, too. She's shown her sculpture loads of times and won prizes and stuff, but she started the paintings more recently, when her back began protesting the large-scale wood-and-metal work she was doing. She hadn't shown her paintings yet.
The show looks great. Each of them has about a dozen works in it. Mom's are bright, pretty paintings of shells, marbles, and - in one case - a bean. Some of them look like more than they are; there's one with two tulip shells which are lined up but look like they're chasing each other, and one with a round piece of rough coral and a marble, like an evolution. Dad has a two drawings each from several series, the oldest dating back to maybe 1995. I remember all of these series. There's the cameras, the skeletal torsos, the columns, the swords, the sabertoothed cat skulls, and the coral - I believe that's the correct order. I love the sabertoothed cat skulls; they look so personable. Dad says they've won prizes. He said that some of the series are hard to show now because private collectors have bought the best pieces of them - the columns in particular. The coral he still has all of, because it's new, and the skeletal torsos I think he has all of, but I think a lot of the cameras were purchased. If anyone wants to see Momdad's work, they have a website at:
http://www.lewcox.com/
I think both the pieces on the main page are actually in the show!
Anyway, then we drove past a lot of cotton fields and took the ferry back. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant, and then Momdad took me back to my dorm and dropped me off. The rest of the evening was pretty quiet.