Peep Poetry I: The Art Jury

snippet of painting by me some years ago     The Art Jury Dear Diary   The sixth art show that I entered Has just rejected me What meaning in my shapes and colors Did the art jury not happen to see? Who needs art by committee anyway or a long winding list of rules? Guess my brand of art isn’t weird enough Nor sufficiently free and easy to fool the upturned noses Of this particular art school! But there’s art projects that I do That I’ve held in a box And kept to myself There’s safety and privacy in leaving them on the shelf Back in 1991 Another art jury did a number on me Rejecting my Victorian teak painting For a modern art freak Armed with jar after jar Of brown and yellow pee All my years of painting Tossed and thrown to the side Favoring an artist Who only wanted to take everyone for a ride I remember the run-ins with art juries back in school And had good teachers Exceptions to the rule But everyone else Wanted it priced high enough To sit above a couch Hanging as high as the viewpoints Voiced by those jet-setting snobs Even if prices you paid for their friend’s creations Left you feeling cheated and robbed Some of the art seems tailor-made To fool if not disgust Maybe I’d have gotten further in life If I’d painted Rivers of pus Or standard issue skulls Or melted baby dolls Or a can gone to rust Maybe I am too much of a hick Too homegrown in my tastes Lacking the sophistication The sizzle, the flash and the gimmicks That guide the art jury’s taste If I could go back in time Would I give the away the paint If I knew the trouble that would follow me from art, it’s enough to make me faint Well I’ve had my own art shows in the past Selling 7 paintings at once to a handful of Friends and onlookers Whose appreciation was built to last The verdict is in I don’t even care I probably will still do art Even if I do not want to share.   ***********************************   I wrote this poem out of frustration of trying to enter the normal "art world". Each fee at the cheapest was $45.00 and I remember cringing thinking in a couple of them I was going to be left out for not having an excellent enough frame. This was one reason I came to call myself an "outsider artist". Isn't that a title someone can put on themselves? Even my comic will exist in that realm. I'm not drawing fancy super heroes with 300 dollar graphics programs to jazz them up but doing it old school.   The art world sadly is snob city. Low socio-economics do not apply! Yesterday I got a stack of magazines called Sculpture. This is a high art magazine. Someone had wrapped bits of yarn around a piece of burlap and shoved some newspapers in the gaps, and they called it art. Some of the sculptures looked like someone threw pile of mud on the floor and dried it, I kid you not. I am tempted to take pictures of some of this stuff to remark on it, maybe later.