The old artistic Jones

Every once in a while, I’m called upon to make an artistic decision.
Over the past year there have been three color-choices: —1) the house stain; —2) the garage paint color, and yesterday (Tuesday, May 20, 2008) —3) the color of the window-shades on the back porch.
These artistic decisions were made pretty much the same way I made artistic judgments in college — totally devoid of tact and seeming consideration, which drove the artists crazy.
My good friend Tom Eades (“EEDZ”), part of the dreaded Summer-School Gang at Houghton, made a small sculpture that won Best-of-Show in the Academé art show.
“Are you kidding?” was my reaction. “That thing is a joke!”
“It’s little more than a lump of clay that’s been glazed and fired.”
My comments, of course, engendered the usual ad hominems; intimations that I was clueless and stupid.
My friend Charlie Gardiner (now “CG”) produced two paintings he hung at opposite ends of the hall.
They were identical, except the colors were reversed; i.e. one was a mirror-image of the other, except it wasn’t, because the colors were reversed.
“This looks really cool,” I told Charlie. Why I’ll never know, so I couldn’t explain.
The usual gut-reaction; impossible for an artist to parry, except by ad hominems.
—1) Our house-painter came last Spring with his usual 89 bazilyun paint-chips.
“What stain do ya want?” The usual sensory overload.
We narrowed down to a somewhat greenish stain.
“This looks like what we already have.”
Then finally, after a few minutes: “nothing doing!” I said. “It’s too green. I go with this (more grayish).”
That’s the stain we used, and it looks great.
Not too dark; not too light. “I ain’t livin’ in no puke-green house.”
—2) Same house-painter, assigned to paint the garage interior. Same 89 bazilyun paint-chips.
“I could just paint it white.”
“Nothing doing!” I exclaimed. “That’ll look ridiculous.”
“I go with this (a lightish green color).”
And that’s the color we used, and it looks great.
—3) Yesterday the blinds-guy showed up to suggest and arrange for window-treatments on our porch.
We switched from individual roll-up bamboo curtains to a sort of venetian-blinds treatment.
So now, what color do we want the individual slats to be.
The salesman uncased the usual 89 bazilyun samples.
“I’ll let my husband choose the color,” my wife said. “He usually does pretty good.”
Uh-ohhhhhhhhh........... On the spot again; another choice where I’m expected to make the greatest color-choice of all time; out of 89 bazilyun samples I don’t have hours to peruse.
At first we tilted toward a faux-wood color; match our rocking-chairs, and the finish-stained cedar on one wall.
But then here I am at our picnic-table in our famblee-room, and I picture these slats on our porch windows; giant blocks of wood-color on peach-colored walls.
“Wait a minute!” I cried. “Can you imagine these things on our porch? They’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”
“We could switch to white slats.”
“That’ll stick out like a sore thumb too.”
“Well, we could go to a more striated shade. This is our darkest.”
“NOPE!”
“This is our lightest.”
“NOPE!”
“This is in between.”
“That looks okay. I go with that.”
Gut-reactions as usual.

RE: “Summer-School Gang.......” —Me and Eades had to attend Summer-School at Houghton in ‘62 to prove we could do college-level work.

“Houghton” is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it. Houghton is a religious college. Eades and Charlie Gardiner (now “CG”) were in my class.

“Academé” was a small intellectual discussion-forum I belonged to in college.

“Puke-green” is the common description our family has of yellowish-green color.

My wife of 40+ years is “Linda.”