I got to work this morning to find that someone had apparently been building a fort in my office while I’d been out sick. There was a big stack of cardboard boxes with my name on them waiting for me off to one side. Had I been fired? Apparently not. My parents found some of my books that they had been storing and decided that we should be reunited. It’s an odd coincidence then that I would come across the work of Victoria Reichelt, an artists who paints “portraits” of people by painting their bookshelves. If she had sat down to paint me yesterday, I would’ve been a big jumble of random crap that I haven’t found a place for yet. After this weekend she can paint me as my entire Vonnegut collection stacked up next to my collection of funk records (also in the boxes). I’ve been away from these books for so long that I have no idea what I’m going to find in these boxes. I know that almost every one of them will be a happy surprise. I love these paper motherfuckers, even if they are becoming increasingly obsolete artifacts. And that’s why I think that Reichelt’s paintings are probably pretty accurate portraits, because you can know a lot about a person by seeing what they love. Of course, it’s probably a little off…or maybe I really do love Three Dog Night that much.
{ 2009 03 27 }
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