One of my realities as part-time instructor and full-time graduate student is that I can’t afford a car. I have a running pro and con list to the predicament. On the pro side: no insurance payment, no gas payment, no sitting in traffic (while driving), no parking, and no random costs from accidents. On the con side: buses, subway, sitting in traffic (on a bus), T fairs, walking everywhere, never going anywhere directly, waiting in the cold, and having to carry everything I need for the day.
This last con had an interesting twist yesterday. I’m used to carrying at least one full backpack and half the time another bag full of art supplies for whatever class I’m teaching next. I’ve taken my guitar, my sound system, and many many bags of groceries through public transportation or walking. Yesterday saw me getting on the bus at 4:45 with two knitted canvasses rolled up in my backpack and another stretched canvas under each arm. I was on my way to my second art show.
Community Colors at the Harriet Tubman gallery in USES will be the second show I’ve participated in outside of school, opening a week after the first show, Small Works. I’ll have four paintings hung in the Community Colors show, all of which traveled from the 101 bus to the Orange Line with me during rush hour on a Friday. Suffice to say, it was an interesting experience.
It actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The crowd didn’t start to behave like sardines until about halfway through my ride on the Orange Line, when I ran into the after work rush going out of the city towards Jamaica Plains. Once they got on I put my two stretched canvasses in my lap. The taller of the two was 34″ tall and when it sat on my knees effectively acted like a barrier between me and the rest of the sardines.
Thankfully, USES is right off of the Orange Line so the late night, freezing walk was short. I dropped of my paintings, taking just a moment for separation anxiety, and then headed back home. As I did, I thought about the paintings we get at the MFA that are delivered by high security trucks and laughed, wondering if Van Gogh or Monet or even Rembrandt ever had to cart their paintings around in some sort of public transportation.