Artists Helping Artists

If you don't think even the most insignificant of your decisions can ripple through history, here's a sign that maybe they can?

It started with a Manhattan in July 2008. I was invited to a high school friend's surprise birthday party, and there remains 3 memorable pictures from that night, one of which is a group shot with the birthday boy holding a drink in a martini glass. I always wondered about that when I looked at it later. I figured someone had just bought it for him as a joke. A summer or two ago, said friend and I were talking and I showed him this picture again and made fun of him and his "appletini" to which he corrected me: "It's a Manhattan and it's straight bourbon!" After that, I looked out for men with Manhattans... including, in my usual bar.

One evening last spring, I was talking with the bartender while he mixed up a cocktail and I asked him what he was making. He told me he was making a Manhattan. I asked who ordered it, and he pointed to the dark booth closest to the door, where a man was bent over scattered canvases and paint brushes and working on a small 5x7 painting. The bartender explained to me that this man always ordered Manhattans, and always painted the same picture, and as it turned out, it was true.

If this guy was in the bar when I was there, he was always in the same booth, always with a Manhattan drink placed precariously close to the edge of the table and always bent over what looked like replicas of the exact same painting. If this sounds familiar, it may be because you've seen the French film Amelie and remember the old man character who worked tirelessly to try to recreate Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party.

I always thought that it was so endearing, that I had found my own Monsieur Dufayel, and used to love to tell that anecdote to people. Well it happened to come up with said friend with the Manhattan, who thought it was the best thing ever (probably just to know there was another man in the world ordering Manhattans) and asked me to buy a painting for him. I kept it in the back of my mind.

Last Friday was a going away party for a coworker at the bar, which meant I was a few rounds of beers and darts in when I saw the artist working on his pieces in his dim booth. I figured there was no time like the present and I approached him, introduced myself, told him I admired him and his work, and asked if I could buy one off of him. He was really taken aback. I was surprised he didn't just hand one over to me for $20 on the spot. We talked for awhile about his project and what he was doing, he was very polite and nice but he did seem attached to all the pieces and I realized I probably wasn't going to get one out of him. I apologized for interrupting, since I understood how frustrating it could be to be interrupted when you are inspired. He asked if I was also an artist. I said "um... I write?" He said he would think about selling me one, because he had never imagined someone would ask, and gave me his information to find him online, so I told him I was a regular and would see him around and left him with my card.

On Tuesday morning I came in to work an email from the artist. He said that he was flattered by my admiration and had a proposition for me. He directed me to his art space and studio that he was working with, as well as his personal website for his artistry, and since I was a writer, asked if I would want to write a journalistic piece on this project, because he wasn't good with words and needed an article to submit for publication to garner interest in the eventual showcasing of the work. He would even start a new piece specially for me that I could follow the evolution of to be able to write about and that I could keep when it was over.

I am stoked at the opportunity to be a part of something I feel connected with already (I've watched him work on this for a loooong time) and the motivation to produce a good piece for publication that would help him, and that I get a piece of in the end as well. I don't know, but I thought it was the neatest little artistic opportunity.

If my friend hadn't had a Manhattan that July night, it might not have been in that picture, and I might not have noticed it later, made fun of him for it, learned what it was, noticed when I saw them, or cared who at my bar had ordered it, and finally not have received this unique opportunity to collaborate...!