Gothic Waxwings

A few months ago Amanda mentioned finding an interesting painting at one of the local thrift stores. The painting showed birds against a dark background. The birds are incomplete, or hidden in the darkness, peering around a strange dark corner that cuts the painting vertically about a third of the way down the right hand side. It was painted in oil and seems like a study. It's unsigned.

A week later we found the opportunity to return to the thrift store and the painting was still there. It was intriguing. There are hints of feathers floating in the darkness and drops of water like they're at a bath, though no water is visible. The dark background and the reflective varnish made it hard to see all the details. We debated buying it. Free space in our one-room apartment is at a premium. I was also unsure if it was an original painting or something you could buy at the local chain store but the subject matter seemed too strange for the mass market and though the painting has no impasto it seemed to be hand painted.

The price ($70) was higher than I wanted to pay for something that might be a popular print found in every hot topic and I struck up a conversation with the guy working at counter, asking if he thought it was an actual painting or a print, hoping to get him to admit it was priced too high but he just rubbed his hand over the surface (an action which made me irrationally angry) and told me he thought it was a painting. This effectively shut down my feeble attempts to barter, not with guile but with a complete disinterest in questioning the marked price.

Amanda liked it but was unwilling to spend so much money on a painting we may not have the room to hang. I liked that it was perplexing so I bought it.

It found a nail to hang it on after cramming several other pictures to the side but I didn't like that it was just bare canvas stretched over a frame. We're too poor to have it framed properly so I did what we normally do, I wrote down the measurements of the canvas on a piece of paper and every time we visited another thrift store we looked for cheap artwork or frames we could recycle. The canvas was 90x30 centimeters (35.5x11.75 inches); an unusual aspect ratio. We found one painting at our local shop that was too tall and not wide enough and I got to thinking I could cut the corners and glue them on the other side but it was too radical an idea to gamble on a $40 frame.

Last week I walked by our local thrift shop and noticed a mirror selling for $20 that seemed about the right size. I didn't have a tape measure so I went home and tied some knots into a length of string so I could have something with me that was the right size.

Yesterday we stopped by the thrift store to drop off an old printer and the mirror was still there. I pulled out my string and was astonished to discover it was the perfect size. I bought the mirror and after removing the glass we discovered the canvas fit into the frame so well it didn't even need nails. Furthermore, the nice bevelled glass mirror will fit perfectly in the bathroom next to our other mirror, we just need some brackets to hang it.

So that's my story. I bought a strange painting at a thrift store with a weird canvas size and then miraculously discovered a framed mirror of the same exact size at a different store. But I've teased you long enough, here's some pictures of the painting.

I don't know if I want to know if we went to all this trouble for a mass market item. It's so much better as a mystery.

posted by na on October 22, 2021 18:27