buying, benzo and bodypainting

While it hasn't been a particularly busy or frantic day... it has been something different from the last couple of weeks...

First up, a big fat raspberry goes to Queerty for dropping a spoiler for the winner/runner-up of the current season of So You Think You Can Dance in the middle of a completely unrelated article. Gee, thanks guys... try and remember in future that other countries don't get the show right away and maybe just shut the hell up. Grrrr.

Anyway, there was much discussion of SYTYCD on the way to, as well as at the supermarket... and the fact that we actually went to the supermarket in the same car this week made life easier.

As seems to be the case lately, there wasn't a whole lot of stuff in the trolley at the end of the Supermarket Safari, but unlike the recent trend, it did seem to take slightly longer than usual... not sure what was up with that. Plus I forgot to bring my honey pot along again, so we had to detour back home and then go back in the direction we'd just come. I wouldn't mind, but I'd gotten the container out and put it on the counter specifically so I wouldn't forget it. But then I've forgotten it even when I've done stuff like put my phone or my wallet in it (I took the phone/wallet, but not the container... go figure).

It all sorted itself out in the end though.

Once I was done with the unpacking and whatnot we headed off to do the looking at and purchasing of art.

As further explanation to what I babbled briefly on Thursday, Benzo has an exhibition on at Peter Walker Fine Art Gallery as part of the SALA Festival, and when I saw it advertised (once I'd finished going "squeeeeeeeee") I decided that if there was something I really liked at a reasonable price, I'd buy it. After seeing the small scale images on the website (and noticing that a couple of them already had "Sold" on them), I called up and put my name down for the image I liked the most (Jamie, in blue, on the left). Now having seen all the pieces, I kinda wish I could have gotten the original hand drawn Jamie, but that was one of the ones that was already sold (I'm actually wondering if the gallery owner bought it).

And the thrill I get whenever I discover a new piece of Benzo's street art was pretty amplified by about a factor of 10 being in a gallery surrounded by his work (a bit like when we went to the Toy Soldiers gallery). Because we got there not long after the gallery opened (and were the only people there the whole time) I actually chatted to the aforementioned gallery owner, Mr Walker, for quite a while about Benzo's work in general, and more specifically the exhibition. If I could have afforded it I think I could have bought about half of the works... there was some amazing stuff there.

After a while he went back to his office and left us to peruse the artwork, which I did quite happily while Ma perched on the arm of the big leather sofa in the middle of the gallery. Once I'd done a proper look at everything Ma and I got talking about one of my other (affordable) favourites, Double Dunce (in gold/brown, on the right). While it has some themes in common with other Benzo works (mostly the faces), it's very different from pretty much anything else I've seen of his, and I have to say that the photos I lifted from the website don't particularly do either of the works total justice.

To make a long story every so slightly less long, Ma decided that Double Dunce was really speaking to her, so we got him to put a little red dot on that too. Woohoo, we're art owners. Well, still potential art owners since he was happy to wait and do the money stuff once the exhibition is over (which won't be until the last week in August), but for all intents and purposes, they're ours.

Once we'd left the gallery I did start thinking that on the proviso that employment and therefore money is ongoing and forthcoming (and, in a perfect world, transitions from temping to actual real live permanent employment), I want to start putting some money away specifically to buy art with. The plan in the back of my head is to collect more Benzo work, but you never know, I might want to branch out at some stage.

Next stop was the city, and to be honest we just randomly wandered around killing some time. Poked around the (frankly lacklustre) SALA stuff downstairs in Adelaide Arcade, half-heartedly looked at stuff in JB HiFi (sadly it seemed to be the time for annoying dorky bromance boys to be just generally taking up space in the "specials" aisle and giving each other in-depth movie reviews, so we got over it fast) and then wandered back to the car without having purchased anything.

Part of the reason for the time wastage was that according to the SALA Guide, body painting queen, Emma Hack, was supposed to be giving a tour of the photographs she had on display down at Burnside... which sounded more interesting than just going down there and looking at them ourselves.

So off we went, getting there with some time to spare before the tour was due to start... but then I got paranoid about whether the main escalators in the middle of the shopping centre where actually the ones where we were supposed to meet. And of course I hadn't brought a copy of the SALA Guide, but after several failed attempts I did find a little brochure pointing out which shops Emma's photos were.

Turns out though that the guide got it wrong, and the tours are next week and the week after... this week she was spending four hours doing bodypainting in the window of a jewellery store... which explains the above photo...

She'd finished the female model, but was still working on the male model... in fact, she had to get down on her knees so she could work on the front of his underwear/dance belt/g-string while we were watching. True story. Lucky bitch! I didn't feel the least bit self conscious about taking photos with my phone, because there were about ten or so other people all doing the same thing... even if most of them were women. Actually the female model seems to be giving a strange look at me/in my general direction in the shot... she obviously didn't understand that I really wanted to just get shots of her companion. Nice butt on him, shame I didn't manage to get a decent photo of it... hehe...

We didn't hang around for too long... after a certain length of time staring at mostly naked people getting painted, it just gets weird and pervy, so we went and grabbed a bite to eat instead before coming back for a second look to see if she'd gotten that much further (she hadn't... she'd just finished working on his face)... and then we called it a day. Not sure if we're going to go back and try to catch the tour though... it sounds like it could be a plan, but I think we've seen the vast majority of the works before...

So, like I said, it's definitely been a different sort of day...

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