I was there for a little celebration of sorts (dropping off the piece for framing = any excuse will do) and managed to arrive at the bar just in time to art direct a photo shoot they were doing for a local publication (completely unplanned on my part). The photographer was a young kid and, after the shoot, we sat around for a few minutes talking art.
He does graffiti (and showed me some pieces, a few of which reminded me of Mike Giant) and I mentioned Shepard.
He asked if I knew The Public Trust-- you might know them by their old name, "Art Prostitute"-- and I said of course. Well, he said, they have a Shepard Fairey piece.
Now, I drop in to the gallery once or twice a month and, knowing their inventory, I didn't put much weight in what he said. Enough to plan to drop by sooner or later, but not before I finished my beer (if you know what I mean).
Well today I popped in to see for myself. It was around 2:30 or so and I hadn't had lunch. I thought about eating at one of my favorite haunts first; maybe have another beer. Or two.
But I didn't put much stock in what the kid said, anyway, so taking five minutes to hear "no, nothing like that" wouldn't put me too far off my beer and tequila schedule. Besides, this was 24 hours after he'd broken the news to me the day before. I might as well just get the academic exercise over with, right?
So I open the door to hear the familiar "beeeeeep" of the 'I'm in a questionable neighborhood' door chime, and the little gallery girl comes out to see if I'm a wino bum or someone with money (a little of both, as it happens).
Almost apologetically, because I already know the answer, I go into my story about the bar, and the kid, and the art, and the story... about them possibly, maybe, it couldn't be, right? Fairey piece.
"Oh, sure! We have one! Want to see it?"
Do pigs fly out of the Pope's a^s when he's dreaming at night? Of course I do.
She leads me back into the storeroom, a place I've been more than two dozen times, never once seeing anything by Fairey, and over to this: an Angela Davis HPM, 15/20.
I forgot I was hungry. I forgot I was thirsty. I even forgot my hands had a tremble in them from a lack of essential organic hydroxyl group compounds (look it up).
"So, uh, how much do you want for it?" I gamely asked, sounding a little like a pre-pubescent clarinet player.
"Let me go check," came her well-informed response.
An eternity later, she returned.
"It was sold an hour ago."
I flashed back to the previous day, Friday afternoon, at The Amsterdam Bar. A bar that's only a handful of blocks away from the gallery. An easy trip. Some might even call it a skip and a hop. A jaunt.
Beer, a good friend of mine for two decades or more, has never let me down until this weekend. And beer googles will never make Angela look better than she did today.
beautiful piece. thanks for sharing the pics am.
