Painting 101

My freshman year of college I took an oil painting class and honestly, I don't know why anyone would ever choose to paint in any other medium because I loved it so much. I even stretched my own canvases, not well, but I did. I love the smell of turpentine in the morning. LOL. I'm not saying I'm the world's best painter, in fact, I'd say I wasn't that great at it, but I sure had fun doing it and I was fearless in experimenting with new color combinations.

I came up with the idea that every painting had to have a little story to go along with it, along with a sprawling, epic title, the first of which was known as "The Plight of the American Farmer." The story goes like this: it was a husband/wife farming couple, radish farmers and the husband was abusive so the wife set fire to the barn which was seen in flames burning in the background. The husband was holding a bunch of radishes, dressed in overalls, while the the wife lay naked at his feet. I am in no way saying that farming relationships are abusive, it was just a little story I made up out of pure fiction. During my explanation of the painting in painting class I couldn't keep myself together, I just kept cracking up, which probably in the end hurt me because I ended up getting a C in the class (although I never intended any disrespect).

The painting went on to having an entirely separate life. My boyfriend at the time had a roommate that founded the band Cosmoflow Permaglow (it was kind of a funk band) and I don't think he actually wrote a song about it, but he did take the time to present me with a bouquet of radishes on stage during one of their performances (which was completely unexpected). His boyfriend (yes, they were a really nice gay couple) then went on to paint a triptych based on my one painting (which actually went on to winning some awards).