Number 4

I haven't quite been up to a rant lately. Maybe it's the art world, or the weather, or me.

I was saving this for the intro to the rant that never was, but before it gets too warm for it to be relevant, and before you forget about me, here's a very short story:

The benefit of an expensive art education

Last week, leaving a bar with a friend - another Master of Fine Arts employed in the construction industries: The snow has mostly melted, except for the remnants of the piles left by the plows. We passed one of the piles which, as I heard described by a radio commentator, look less like snow than petrified foam. Still very white with a jagged icy surface from the rain, dusted with very black soot from the cars. We both stopped to look, and then laughed.

It was a beautiful thing under the streetlight against the glistening black road, and somehow essentially Chicago - it conjured the vagaries of the weather, the unavoidable dirt of city life, as well as the political tumult always caused by a heavy snow, and the plows. An excellent image, but what? A painting would be inadequate, even a photograph would be superfluous artiface. With almost twenty years of formal education between us, our best response is to recognise the moment, realize it is shared, and laugh.

A poem might work. Too bad we never did much reading and writing in art school.

Not much of a rant this time, I'm afraid. It takes a while for the steam to build enough to overcome the embarasment of the last venting. While I'm calm, this is a good time to mention that the previous rants have been archived at spaces.org/rants. Another unoffical project of Jno Cook. If you are reading this there (or anywhere else for that matter) send me a note - bulka - and I'll spam you directly if there is another time.