Ok, I’m gonna rant here for just one hot minute. Mostly just to remind myself of this moment in time.
This morning I got up to a dude on Instagram posting on one of my pics: “Craftsmanship at work here.” It was on a word post I had made to advertise the end of my 100 Day Project sale last week. (I deleted the post because I didn’t want to keep advertising the sale. I meant to take it down yesterday but it had slipped my mind. Oh, how I wish I’d nabbed a screen shot before I deleted!!)
I clicked on his work and he is an actual, in real life Dutch oil painter: portraits and still life work. He and I don’t even exist in the same universe, right? Our work is very far apart and are for completely different tastes.
So why did he take the time today be a jerk? What could he possibly have hoped to accomplish today except to shame me? Did he think he could get me to stop posting with that one sentence? Was he hoping to make me up my game somehow? Was that meant as some sort of backhanded encouragement? Is he just so small-hearted that being ugly is just how he rolls? Is he just another misogynistic artist doing what misogynistic artists do?
You don’t like my work? No big deal! There are thousands upon thousands of other artist’s work to look at. Go find them! Enjoy! Buy them and celebrate! Life should be about beauty and truth and joy and laughter and spending your time looking at art and being with people that bring you a sense of those delights. You see something that isn’t to your taste or that you don’t like for some reason? Keep walking, scroll past, do LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE besides spending your time putting nasty energy into the world. Life’s too short to be an asshole.
Hear, hear Misty. How appropriate that the painting you chose for your blog today is the one Pop bought for his office in the library. Well said to a deserving asshole.
That’s EXACTLY why I picked that piece to go with the story. I have a feeling it might get lots of use over the years.
You can’t see me but I’m standing up and applauding, Misty. I don’t get how people (“people”) don’t get that they can just MOVE ON. Like, it’s better all round.
I need to make art out of “Life’s too short to be an asshole.” There’s wall space directly behind my desk at work crying out for it and then I can just point at it, repeatedly. On second thoughts, it might have to be in code…
Now I want you to make it just so we can all enjoy it, Charlotte!! But then you might be tempted to hang it up if you made it…Yep, still sounds like an excellent idea to me!!