the paintings and the waitress

jukebox Sunday night – foto by Smith

You never know when or where you’ll have a random unexpected art conversation with a stranger.

My in-laws took us out to dinner to celebrate my father-in-law’s and brother-in-law’s birthdays. As we sat down in the Great Lakes Grille and Flying Burrito Cantina I noticed back in the Cantina part there was a fiberglass or ceramic four-foot tall Hispanic male statue facing the juke box, like it was looking for something to play. I excused myself with “I think I see a foto” and went back, took a couple shots.

Didn’t know it, but I made the staff curious why I was shooting their juke box and statue, but they didn’t ask me, probably because I was a guest of one of their regular customers.

Across from me on two walls were ten paintings of musicians–from left to right were Lyle Lovett, Simon & Garfunkle, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Green Day, Jimi Hendryx, an unknown (I guessed it might be a badly done Bob Seeger or a bearded Bruce Springsteen or Santana since it had an electric guitar painted into it – another of our group guessed Bob Marley), then Crosby Still Nash & Young, The Who, and Neil Young. I asked the waitress if she knew who it was supposed to be and she said “Yes. You know I didn’t get it at first either but it’s a young Eric Clapton.” And I could see it. That explained the guitar, because back then London graffiti would declare “Clapton is God” of the guitar.

The waitress started to walk away, then stopped and said, “We were curious why you were taking a picture in the back of the Cantina.” I explained I was an artist and used them to illustrate blogs. She smiled and said she was an artist too, she’d done the zebra table. When we’d come in, I’d noticed a table top painted with a playful running zebra which I thought was pretty cool. Told her I’d seen it and liked it. She went on saying when the restaurant was the place before this place, she’d painted a Garden of Eden as well, but didn’t know why.

It was a pleasant exchange, and if I hadn’t done something odd and if I hadn’t inquired about the paintings on the wall, we wouldn’t have discovered her artistic side. We gave her our blog url and she said she was going to check it out and hopefully will see a small portion of her restaurant through my eye.

What an intricate woof and warp we weave in this weirdly wide wobbly whorl.

beside oneself – foto by Smith