these big piles of crap
don't count as decorative
it's not the MoMA
I think Grown-up-itis comes in several degrees and conditions. When you're 4 and you have it, you think you should be the boss of everyone. When you're 14 and you have it, you think everyone should leave you the eff alone (oh, poor, deluded teen self, becoming a grown-up means exactly the opposite).
But when you're 34, Grown-up-itis strikes often on Saturday mornings and often after you've been to someone else's house the day or week before. For me, today, it's centered around the house. The giant white walls in the house. The giant white naked walls in the house.
It appears that grown-ups have art in their homes. Or at least photographs on the walls. They also have systems of storage so that the ever growing, ever leaning, ever colorful piles of toys don't leave ugly marks on the giant, white, naked walls.
Also, grown-ups seems to have a better ability to hide markers, pencils, crayons and Sharpies than I do. This is evident by the fact that their walls are not covered with scribbles, blobs, streaks and smiley faces.
Now, I do have a leg up on a lot of the grown-ups, as my garage is FULL of artwork. Original oil paintings, still lifes, portraits, abstract works. Stored away under yards of plastic wrap, we have a gallery of work in there. At least a gallery. Maybe two.
This is just one of the many benefits of marrying a fine artist.
Convincing said fine artist to hang the work is another matter. Especially when the work is "college art."
Note: I don't care if it's college art. I loved it in college, and I would love to see it in our house now. Art that has moved from a brownstone in Baltimore to an efficiency in Far West to a rental in Neiderwald to a home with three kids in south Austin… this art has been with us since the beginning and I think it would be lovely to have it on the walls again.
So here's to being a grown-up – and here's to convincing the other grown-up in the house that hanging art created when he was not quite a grown-up – in a house bought with money from his grown-up Workin' For The Man job – is ironic in a very MoMA way.
We can hang the paintings higher than Sharpie weilding hands can reach. And maybe we can drape the yards of plastic over the piles of toys and turn them into their own little art installations. There's nothing more grown-up than living INSIDE art, right?
If I can't convince him to put those paintings up, I might start an iPetition.
Or at least stop going to other people's houses where grown-up-itis is so virulent.