once we had a wonderful painting. it was given to me on my 27th birthday by my husband, Andy. sadly, it did not fit anywhere in our home. it was too large in scale and possibly even too complex in meaning to fit in with our simple walls and simple lives. in the day that we owned this painting it was one of the greatest days and yet worst days of my life.
the love affair began 6 months before at an art gallery near my family's mountain house in beech mountain. Andy and I walked by it and stopped dead in our tracks. we were paralyzed by oil on a canvas.
after that we would drive up the mountain from Hickory just to catch a glimpse. the price tag and size we always knew would be a problem, so we decided to love it like one loves a character in a movie or book, knowing we could never really live with it. but Andy, being the loving husband that he is, surprised me with it as a gift. in fact, it was hanging on our dining room wall when I walked in the house. well, I wouldn't say that it was exactly "hanging", because it was wedged, resting cockeyed on the buffet. it was too wide for the wall.
the reason that we loved this painting is the reason why we decided to return it to the gallery. we concluded that we could not hide it away in our basement or attic to wait for the day when we had larger walls and larger lives to hang it upon. the day after my birthday, we drove back up the mountain to the gallery in Banner Elk and exchanged the painting for 3 smaller paintings, all by Greg Smith.
the painting we returned is titled "chalkboard". it's a trompe l'oeil. when people see this picture of the painting, they have a hard time believing this is an oil painting. but I promise you, it is. notice the geometrical shape resting on the ledge. Greg Smith, we learned through the information given to us by the gallery owner, was obsessed with these geometrical shapes during this phase of his career. they began to consume his mind. the working out of the lines and angles is clear in the piece, as he has painted "OCD -- nonsense? -- T/F". our obsession was one in the same. and still is.
another person owns this painting now. i believe they live in texas. one day when Andy and I have a bigger home, we will track the new owners down and ask them if they will sell us this painting back, but I'm afraid it will be in The Met by then. I guess when that day comes I could visit The Met and tell strangers the story that "I used to own that painting hanging beside the John Singer Sargent one". The follow-up question I would not want to answer, but compelled I would be to reply "My husband bought it for me on my 27th birthday. Sadly, though, it did not fit on any of the tiny walls of our home. So we returned it."
