JERT: March 2012

Friday, March 23, 2012

Greg Mike

Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to create this drawing of Atlanta based Surrealist Pop artist Greg Mike during the Drink and Doodle live event at ABV Gallery (see previous posts). As I was drawing it, a random dude walked up behind me and offered to buy it from right out of my sketchbook. I had never had a person offer to buy a drawing out of my sketchbook before it was finished. I kind of just said "uhhh, OK", stunned that someone would want to buy an unfinished drawing of another artist from me on the spot. So with that I agreed to sell this drawing of Greg Mike before he ever got a chance to see it, or even know he was being drawn. (I was drawing him secretly as he worked). I kind of felt a little bit bad because I wanted to give the drawing to Greg as a gift, but instead I had let my capitalistic tendencies usurp my sense of altruism. I came to grips with this pretty quick though because after all, it is still a recession. The patron then told me he'd catch up to me later after I finished the piece .

I showed the Drawing to Greg and got the picture of him with it. It was like "here dude look at this thing I made for you, but you can't have it because I'm selling it, and by the way thanks for having me out to your gallery". He was real cool about it though, after all not only are drawings BY him selling, so are drawings OF him.

Later that evening, when the event was over I ran into the potential buyer. After chatting for a bit, he informed me that he had been ripped to the tits for many hours on some medical brownies that he had brought up with him from Florida. He and his buddy where sharing adventures together on some sort of magical spontaneous roadtrip. They had found the ABV Gallery event on facebook while driving to Atlanta on the interstate. Although he was mostly coherent, communication was a bit labored.

When it came time to make the transaction he told me that buying the drawing from me "just didn't feel right anymore"....then he offered me half price. Then he spent about 45 minutes talking about Instagram and dog breeds.

He was a nice guy though, he offered me a medicinal brownie on the condition that I go back and hang out in his hotel room with him and his friend.....I felt it prudent to decline.

In the end I was kind of glad that the sale fell through, because now the drawing can exist as it was intended, as a gift to another artist

I would like to thank EVERYONE at ABV for inviting me out to the drink and doodle, I met some great artists that I had been hearing about for years, drank some organic vodka cocktails, and I sold both of my other pieces. All in all a good night.