Hung Up

Last weekend we rounded up the family and went to a arts/clothing fair in town, mainly because a woman who makes pants that are very forgiving to the post-preg body was going to be there. Also, Aaron and I have always been interested in art, but we've never had the money to start collecting anything. We're certainly not rich these days either, but we figured we could drop a little bit of cash if we saw something we really liked and if we continue to do so a couple times every year, before long we should have some okay pieces in our house. We spotted a booth full of really cool pop-arty wood carvings and Aaron was really drawn to this one. It's by a local artist named Lisa Brawn and her subject is Tom Mix (also known as the Fancy Cowboy), a silent movie star from the early part of last century.

I love this guy. I wasn't too wild about buying a piece of cowboy art, since more traditional cowboy art really dominates the market here and, of course, I prefer to rage against the machine and all, but this picture is pretty awesome (and I will stress, Lisa isn't a traditional Western cowboy artist -- her recent pieces just happen to feature cowboy movie stars). I like that it's pop-arty but not ironic in any way. She did have some pieces with more famous iconic images, but I like that Tom Mix is so unfamous in my circles that he could just be any random guy. I am pleased.


Bringing Tom into our house has also inspired us to, at last, hang some other art that's been sitting around. I finally put the swatch portraits up in Henry's room (though my desk/computer is still where his crib will go once he's out of the cradle in our room). We also hung up a really intense black velvet desert landscape that we bought at a rummage sale last year. It's over our bed. Pictures really don't do this one justice and I'm still not totally sure of it, so instead I've included some of Ruby's recent art. I too, was concerned when she came out of art class yesterday with an all black painting (is she really that upset about having a baby in the house?), but I soon realized that black was the colour of paint sitting directly in front of her, so that's what she chose. Sometimes kids don't need to be psycho-analyzed, I guess.