Acrylic on canvas

2023

I was at an art market over the summer and I took a break to eat lunch while sitting on the sidewalk. I got lunch from a food vendor on the street but there were no tables or benches in the area. I didn’t feel like walking several blocks to find the nearest bench so I sat on the sidewalk. A lot of other people were doing the same thing. While I was eating, this woman in a big dress wearing a lot of turquoise jewelry walked up and stood so close to me that her leg was bumping up against my shoulder and her hand was almost touching the side of my face. I looked up in irritation and asked her if she could not stand in my personal space but she ignored me and was looking at someone standing a few feet away from her. I looked over and saw that another woman was trying to take a picture of this woman. The woman with the camera “asked” me to move over because I was in their frame and I moved over a couple of inches, begrudgingly. Not because she “asked” me to, but because the other woman was practically standing on me. After the photos were taken the two women walked off without saying anything to me. I guess rudeness is a foreign concept to some people.

Since the woman in the dress didn’t appear to see me, I didn’t paint her with any eyes. I represented myself as just a pair of eyes in the corner; out of the way and barely in view. The background is somewhat abstract as I couldn’t remember what the building I was sitting by looked like when I painted this piece. I had reused this canvas and painted over what was already on it which is why it looks somewhat “lumpy” in places.

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