Grace becomes an art collector

Today we went to Local Folk Art Show that was comes to town every year. Some of the biggest names in folk and outsider art display their work. People like Sam “The Dot Man” McMillian, Miz Thang, Clyde Jones and Big Chief were there. I chatted with the artists I bought work from when I attended the show two years ago.

Anyway, there was guy named Mark May, who produces folk art robots out of blocks of wood and recylcled metal objects like keys, nails, bolts and bottlecaps. We looked at his display and Grace was really entranced by these. She spent some time looking at them, and we managed to move on.

When we were across the room, Grace told me that she was not looking at anything else until I got her a robot. I told her we could go back and look at the robots again, but that doesn’t mean we were going to get one.

She started looking at various robots, and I discovered they were more expensive than I had thought. I tried to push her towards the $25 models, but Grace being Grace, she liked a particular robot and was not to be swayed to any other cheaper options. The girl has good taste and knows what she likes. And if she is interested in art, how can I say no. Since I had already thought $25 was okay, what’s the big deal if I went to $35. The above photo is the one she chose.

We got home and Meg asked me, “I don’t mean to be judgemental, but why did you spend $35 on this?” The unstated part of the question was a block of wood with sharp metal objects for a 5-year old. The story above is the answer. And I didn’t buy anything for myself.