One of the problems with art and the art industry is that for the consumer, art is often very expensive. That all changes for one day only, this Saturday, when The Ceretana Gallery hosts a Cheap Art Salon.

The Ceretana Gallery, located at 801 Sherwood Ave in Missoula, [click for map], will host a Cheap Art Salon Saturday, June 16, from 12 Noon until 8PM. Artwork from numerous artists will be on display and for sale. All artwork will cost $50 or less.

So after you’re finished at The Farmers Market and the People’s Market, swing by the Ceretana and pick yourself up some great art at deep discount prices.

see a full sized version here.

I’ll resume the Big Sky Film Festival Quick Movie Reviews tomorrow or the next day. Just found out a friend of mine died last week. Visit http://prounball.blogspot.com/ to learn about him.

This blog is an art blog and is an evolving idea. Eventually it will be a place to feature interviews with artists, be they well known or underground, famous or infamous. It will be a place for me to share some of my successes as an artist with “how-to’s”. I will feature video interviews and podcast interviews.

It will also be a place for folks to come and learn about my art. To see it, to explore it, to purchase it (yes!)

Right now, though, it is a work in progress. I’m working to get it tweaked to make it presentable, but currently I guess it’s in its 0.01 release. I’m getting there. Everything is a process, not to be rushed. In the meantime, please feel free to leave comments for things that you would like to see discussed here. Do you want to know more about specific Montana artists? I’ll try to interview them. (Hey, start locally, right?) Are you an artist who wants to have a gallery show, but are afraid to take that next step to make it happen? That article is coming, but if you have specific questions — ask in the comments, or drop me a line. marc [dot] moss [dot] art [at] gmail [dot]com.

I’ll be posting three to five times per week. Be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed here.Thanks for dropping by. There’s plenty of content here already. Why not treat yourself and read some short fiction?

I’ve been busy getting marcmoss.net online, selling art, preparing for the next art show, making new art. Haven’t written anything in a while. Today’s post comes from a guest writer.Thank you, Armywife.The photo is a self portrait, taken in Medina, Ohio, winter 2005.

The story is fiction.

Waiting

He felt fuzzy. Cold mornings always did that to him. Staring at his
reflection, he wondered what exactly he was doing here. Meeting her,
obviously, but why? She knew he hated this, meeting in out of the way
places. Screw secrecy, he thought.

It wasn’t even his type of bar. Too bright, too frou-frou, it lacked the
dirty ambiance of a really good dive. The point of getting drunk was to
get as low as you could, down into the pit. Happy drunks were
irritating, spreading a sunshiny warmth over the pallid sickness of
drinking. He drank to wallow, drawing out his misery with the soothing
warmth of whiskey.

His disease, he reflected and amended it to diseases. She was another
one. He hated her, really. She was cold and demanding, asking more than
he could ever give. Oh, not his soul or anything so prosaically
romantic. She wanted him when she wanted him and when she didn’t, it
didn’t matter. If he died, her only emotion would be irritation at his
thoughtlessness. How dare he die without first being dismissed. He
couldn’t even remember why he bothered to show up.

But, he did know. He was honest. It was one of his few virtues. He
showed up because when they were naked, he forgot about how much he
hated her. It wasn’t love, he knew. It was warmth, her skin on his, the
sloppy tangle of limbs, feeling drunk while sober. No, it wasn’t love.
It was humanity, down deep in the belly where it counted.

Jesus, where was she? Late because making him wait for her was part of
it. Part of their twisted thing, whatever their thing was, he didn’t
know what to call it. Drowning was a good name for it. Losing the
ability to breathe because a primal force was stronger than you. Like
the whiskey, it washed over him and tested him. Like the whiskey, it
seduced him, calling his name in husky tones. Like the whiskey, it made
him feel alive.

It wasn’t sex, though. He’d had enough of that to be certain. Fucking
didn’t do this to you, didn’t turn you around like a cheap carnival
ride. Certainly there were easier, less demanding women out there. Women
who would happily take what he wanted to give and leave the rest of him
alone. Women who didn’t call to him like she did, didn’t make him weak
and dangerous.

He was feeling it now, the combined effects of the whiskey and the want.
It made him dark and a little wild, which only made everything more fun.
She used him, and he used her. In the end, he was still in a pretentious
bar on a cold morning, waiting for her. He didn’t care. He’d get what he
wanted, like he always did. Hate, he reflected, made everything easier.

DSC_0099.JPG
Originally uploaded by love not fear.

I finished making the five pieces I hope to show here in Missoula in coming months. For the first time I have documentation of that process. There is a photoset of the afternoon up on Flickr. Click this image to go there.

Hilarious IM exchange today:

Asok: computers are just a fad, like pogs and beenie babies
Asok: they will fade out
Asok: just wait
Asok: internet….internot
Asok: i want to move to oregon and do cocaine all night and drink Beer
Asok: you know
Asok: really make it in this world
Asok: live the dream
Asok: hot girls
Asok: fast cars
Marc: i can’t afford that shit
Asok: either can i
Asok: slow cars
Asok: and fat girls