Coloured Mud

We had prepared for the open studio for about three weeks. Canceled was the official event in the wake of artist / organizer tensions that led to the callous cancellation. So, with a desire to thwart at least a little of the ill feelings of this economic turmoil a bunch of the artists in our building decided to make a go with a gorilla approach to an open studios with reliance on our own mailing lists and word of mouth to attract friends, visitors, and maybe clients. The weekend long event was planned, balloons were bought and our doors opened Friday night for a hopeful grand turnout.

Cold weather and colder financial news kept the crowds thin and unlike a diet it wasn’t the thin we had hoped for the three day event. By Sunday morning most of the twenty of us who opened our various studio doors were hoping for a better something; weather or sales, something to make the effort of the weekend at least worthwhile. What I found that Sunday was shocking, incredible and in a strange way made a dullish weekend at least twinkle in the most off centered of ways.

The day was slow, this Sunday, slower than either of the previous two and our studio routine of greeting guests gave way to boredom and chit chat with studio mates. Our studio space is aligned with a large interior garage door at one end and each of our four “cubicles” running parallel with each other and the door. My space is first and opens directly to the door and the other spaces have a degree of privacy from each other. At a point later in the day I found myself sitting in our third stall watching a movie on my studio-mates computer and counting the hours and minutes until the refuge of 4:00 (the end of our obligation.) A crinkling noise drifted over the walls and signaled that someone was visiting my space and looking through a small bin of unframed and mylar wrapped paintings. I debated even wandering to greet this straggling visitor.

“I gotta go be charming Dan,” I said in better spirits than I felt as I left Dan’s comfortable couch to engage what I assumed to be one more overly casual visitor.

As I turned the corner to my studio, I saw only a last glimpse of a somewhat stout leg as it glided around and away from me into the long hallway of our old woolen mill turned artist haven.

“Guess I missed her,” I muttered but felt a strange unease as only you can feel when your senses align in a perfect balance of awareness and relaxation. In a stress filled, fast paced life I am rarely afforded such feelings of certainty as I now felt and I knew almost immediately what had happened.

Whatever torso and head was attached to that stout leg had just taken something out of my studio.

I quickly counted the paintings in the rack I had set up. “27, 28…” And again “27, 28…” I was sure enough that I had 32 pieces in the rack when the weekend started and I know I sold two. With a sureness that paintings were missing but a disbelief that this woman had stolen from me (I had glimpsed enough of a body to know it was a short, stout woman who had just entered and rapidly exited my studio) I felt compelled to at least see what this woman had in her hand. As I peeked into the hall, my head reeling with confused thoughts, a clarity sparked as I saw the speck of this woman’s humanity nearly 100 yards down the hall and about to turn the corner for the staircase to the parking lot and freedom. She was practically running down the hall.

Alternating thoughts of “did that woman just steal from me?” and “that bitch just stole from me!” rushed through my head as I tore down the hall in confused anger, uncertain what had just happened but also certain about what had just happened.

Our two flights, hers’ desperate and mine shocked ended at the front entrance to our building (stout, old woman legs really have no business stealing things when freedom is too far for them to easily attain.) and I saw under her arms a familiar framed print of a fellow artist in the building and hiding in not too plain site was the small label I had affixed to the back of each of my mylar wrapped paintings. She had attempted to hide her shame tucked in the back of a legally gotten artwork but the visual evidence of my own label was too overwhelming.

Amazingly, I heard the words “excuse me, I need to see what you have there,” emanate from my own mouth as the combination of shock, adrenaline and anger gave the event at the front door a dreamlike (or maybe nightmare) quality my written words are unable to describe. The words that I spoke, however had an immediate effect as the woman froze mid stride and the tension in her body that screamed “I’m caught,” was evident.

She was caught. Red handed (or at least pink handed.)

I took the paintings quickly from her grasp and muttered a surprised “what were you thinking” as she muttered back “I’m so sorry,” a few more times than sincerity would allow.

“Sorry you got caught,” I thought later.

Would that I could replay that moment again, I don’t know what I would have done or said differently. I often wonder who was more agitated; me for catching her or she for being caught.

Having only discovered past robberies of my house or my car long after the fact (my car three times and a house once,) I was truly stunned and speechless to have caught a grandmotherly looking woman stealing art from an artist at their open studios! Who does that? I have mulled and debated what might be her reasoning for such a cowardly act and nothing but her own twisted words could satisfy my curiosity at her motivation. I will probably never know.

My thief shuffled over the icy parking lot less briskly than her previous flight but with an obvious eagerness to leave on her own terms before her would be victim had time to think of a next move.

I did manage an angry, “did you at least buy that piece from David?” in reference to the camouflaging piece of art from a fellow artist she had used to conceal her ill-gotten pieces.

Somehow I believed her reply of “yes,” and it was a haughty reply as well as if I had gall to suggest that she stole ALL her art. All I could think to do next was to amble back up to my studio and calm the rapidly pulsing adrenaline that was threatening to leave me reeling in bemused horror at the entire situation.

“I just caught a thief” I told David as I dove into my story and fumbled to explain what I could barely believe had just happened. “Please tell me you just sold a piece to an older woman,” I implored as I recounted the end of my story and the involvement of David’s allegedly legitimately gotten purchase.

“Oh sure, she paid with a check, in fact she comes to the open studio every year and buys lots of stuff. I have the check right here,” David recounted.

“You’re sure this woman who paid with a check was her?” I stammered in disbelief at my would be thief’s stupidity.

“Yea, she just barreled past us and took little notice as I said goodbye,” David relayed in his third person’s viewpoint of my thief’s flight. “It was weird.”

Not only was my thief caught, I also knew her name, address and with a little internet sleuthing I was able to find a picture and realized that she was a well off business woman who lived on the wealthier side of town. Stranger than fiction is real life and stranger still is human behavior.

My story concludes as I found a cop patrolling our parking lot a few minutes later and he basically said there was little to be done after the fact but if I sent the woman a letter warning her not to come back he would write a report in follow up (I have no confidence the cop ever wrote up the report.) I did however send the woman a certified letter (see below) and that’s as far as I’ll take it. What’s disarming is how many coincidences of people knowing my art thief have cropped up in the weeks since. I’m half waiting to hear my story told back to me second hand as the news has spread through our artist’s community.

Lesson to be learned is not to fuck with an artist and if you’re going to steal from one, don’t get caught and certainly don’t leave all your contact info at the scene of the crime!

Dear Art Thief,

I feel compelled to write you concerning the events that happened this weekend at our art sale. I am the artist who you attempted to steal from this past weekend. I again will ask, rhetorically, “What were you thinking?” I can’t imagine what compelled you to steal from someone who, in all honesty, struggles to make a living selling art and cannot afford the setback that a thief like yourself would cause. You are a thief, plain and simple.

To steal original art (what you took were not prints) seems beyond the pale and whatever sickness you are struggling with, I strongly urge you to get help before you find yourself in a position of more dire circumstances.

Unfortunately for you, I have been notified of your personal information and I have contacted the police and will be circulating this information throughout my building and to artists who hold similar events. If you return to our building, we will call the police and you will be arrested for trespassing. You are no longer welcome at our open studios.

I implore you to get help and I will take the matter no further.

Sincerely,

The artist who you attempted to rob.