My Eye As A Beholder

© 2024 Luke T. Bush

PLATTSBURGH CITY, NY  - 3/6/24

I was walking by one of the many thrift shops downtown when something caught my eye in a cardboard box.  The FREE box held items discarded because the shop thought they weren’t worth selling, no value.

Standing out from the miscellaneous debris was a small painting, a view of a lake with sunset colors over the mountains in the distance.  It piqued my attention so I picked it up for a closer examination. There was a $2.00 sticker on the back but apparently it wasn’t even worth that. Interesting but not enough for me to carry.  I put it back.

After making a visit to the bank I doubled back to the FREE box, the painting on my mind.  It was still there.  I took it home.

I liked the image, the colors, the view framed on three sides with silhouetted vines and grass.  Simple but effective.  Art snobs would sneer at this amateur painting and then go into an orgasmic thrall while viewing Andy Warhol’s stupid soup cans.

For me simple beats pretension.

Even an average person can be an art snob.