art rant continued

Some of the people in the co-op were proud of the fact that they started the co-op a hundred years ago. They no longer painted, they just exhibited work they had done in the 60's. You know the trend then was to sign your name larger than the work itself and to add the date in characters two inches high - you coyly left off the century you had created the work in, instead, substituting
an apostrophe and then the year. That way people could really speculate if you were as old as you looked.

These women - and I am ashamed to say that they were all women - had learned their craft at various universities - not known for art programs. There was no passion in the work they produced - just a dogged determination not to be a secretary or a receptionist or a bank teller or any of the other mundane professions yawning before them. They held themselves aloof - they were better - they were talented.

Only of course they weren't. I could not divine what ego led them to think that their paintings of three pears, or a storm tossed landscape, or a series of still life's of shells collected on a one and only brush with La Mere, were remarkable in any way.