To the Hinge Date who took me to the Portland Art Museum

Medium: Art Museum

Artist: Two young adults- strangers- on a first date

Ca: Early September 2023

Title: The first question you had asked was what is your favorite type of art? I stuttered, said I didn’t know. (Give him nothing, girl!) I wasn’t expecting that question.

You still liked me, though. What did you see in me? (That I can’t see in myself?) 

I don’t think I have a favorite type of art. I’m not sure.

The guy(s) I previously had(n’t) gone out with had never asked. 

(I had only gone out with them in my head).

I was wearing my white Nike sneakers. You wore the same.

Medium: Family from out of town

Artist: Siblings

Ca: November 2023

Title: When I went back to that museum with my brother, I noticed an oil painting I had previously thought was a photograph.

And in the space where you had joked with me about your big life aspirations, a new (oil) painting had been hung. About a black man’s experience. Painted on black canvas.

You had joked about joining the military, driving a pick-up truck (when I asked your long-term goals).

The guy(s) I previously had(n’t) gone out with actually did drive a pick up truck (and I missed him it)

(The dating him in my head, not him).

But when my brother and I stood in that space we joked about no such things.

I was wearing my black classic Chelsea Blundstones boots then, that night I was there with my brother.

I showed my brother a painting you and I had both fancied (or maybe I had fancied it, and projected).

It was just a black cat on an orange background. Title: Cat. Artist: Alex Katz (ha!).

My brother pointed out that the space downstairs (the space where you had joked and that now had the black canvas) was the Alex Katz gallery.

Huh, I thought to myself. I guess this guy is a serious artist? (I didn’t get that from the black cat painting on the 4th floor.)

But Katz’s other paintings, floors below, were serious. They were detailed and coherent and paired well with the other two paintings in his namesake gallery: a black canvas and an oil painting so detailed I had thought it a photograph.

I wanted to text you, “I have thought about it. I have changed my mind. Oil paintings are my favorite type of art, because they are so versatile. And they remind me of my grandfather’s studio.”

No, not his studio. The sunroom, where his canvases lain.

Untouched. 

Medium: Real estate listing on Zillow

Artist: Grandpa (uncredited: Grandma)

Ca: August 2022

Title: I had told my mom I found a painting of his I wanted.

Blue foreground, white background, a single butterfly tacked on the center.

I made her go up to the attic to get it. She protested (fairly). It was the painting I wanted, not she. But my brand new black classic Chelsea Blundstones were heavy on my feet. I didn’t want to go upstairs.

She gave in.

“This one?” she asked, skeptical.

“Yeah, thanks. Why, what’s wrong?”

“There’s a dead bug on it.”

“I think it would look nice in the blue guest bathroom.”

She wrinkled her nose. 

Okay, never mind. The oil painting is sold with the house.

I crease my Blundstones driving back to school that night.

I consider how a friend begged to let them drive.

“Funerals are exhausting. You don’t want to drive back after it.”

I am fine.

The real weariness will hit almost exactly one year later, when I realize how worn my Blundstones are, and how long the house has been gone, and how I never chose an oil painting to keep. 

Medium: I moved to a new state alone

Artist: Mom

Ca: Late September 2023

Title: After I got my first real teaching job, my parents visited me. 

(This is after you had asked about my favorite art, after I had ended it with you, and before my brother had visited. It was one year after we sold my grandparents’ house.)

“What can we get you while we’re here?”

“A comforter. Clothes. I’m out of my Cerave moisturizer.”

We went to Goodwill for the clothes. 

I had just been wearing white Nike sneakers to teach and live in (the ones I was wearing when you joked about wanting a pickup truck while my heart caved in on itself for how I hated myself for missing the previous guy(‘s truck).

Goodwill had unworn black Chelsea boots. Fifteen dollars.

“You have your Blundstones,” Mom said.

“Those are too nice for work. What if a kid pukes on them?”

The new [used] boots are very comfy. 

They are lighter than my Blundstones.

They don’t carry the grief of going to a funeral three weeks after my 21st birthday, three years prematurely.

Medium: Downtown

Artist: My new roommate

Ca: December 2023

Title: After all this, my roommate and I were downtown, both wearing our black Chelsea boots.

“One day, when I am rich,” I say to her, “I am going to fill my house with oil paintings.”

In the next breath, I point out a woman across the street corner. “She has the same shoes as you.”

“Hers are nicer,” my roommate says with a brief glance.

Maybe I should call the guy from the art museum, I think to myself. Puddle water seeps up my black classic Chelsea Blundstones.

My roommate and I go to an art gallery.

Well, we don’t intentionally go. We were wandering, and a vivid oil painting in the window caught my eye, so I asked if we could go see it, and we wandered around inside the gallery and agreed Ed Wintner was our new favorite painter and in the back, where the non-Ed Wintner collection was, there were oil paintings I didn’t care for. 

Striking, sure. But not my favorite. They seemed more random, haphazard, than Ed Wintner’s collection.

In the middle of these random haphazard paintings was a photograph of a couple in front of brick.

Okay, I thought to myself.

My Blundstones creaked on the wood floor.

My roommate called me back.

“Did you see the title of this one?”

No.

Medium: photograph

Title: Will you marry me?

I could have fallen to my knees, right there on the floor with my black classic Chelsea Blundstones.

Instead I smiled. “Aww, how sweet and thoughtful!” And moved on.

And thought about it for the rest of the week. 

You probably would’ve proposed like that.

Thoughtfully. Artfully.

But it would’ve been through an oil painting, not a photograph.

Because by then I would have told you my favorite type of art is an oil painting. 

Medium: Grief. Or maybe just loneliness. 

Artist: Me

Ca: present

Title: To the Hinge date who took me to the Portland Art Museum: If you had asked for another date, I would’ve said no. We are not right for each other.

But I would’ve spent a thousand nights cuddled on your couch listening to your Bon Iver records to show you how comfortable you made me feel.

To the guy I previously did(n’t) date: If you had asked me on a real, a serious, date, I would’ve said no. We are not right for each other. 

But I would’ve dug through the earth with just my fingernails to plant wild blackberries for you. We could make your favorite childhood pie and I would show you how flattered you made me feel.

To my mother who bought me Blundstones for my birthday: If you had asked to get me a cheaper pair of boots for my birthday, I would’ve said no. Those Blundstones and I are right for each other. But I would’ve worn any boots so often that the weight of the memories in them would cause me to stumble, and I would fall into your arms as if a child again.

To my grandfather, who painted with oils: When you asked if I wanted your paintings 

Title: People slain at the Holocaust’s door and industrial landscapes of Detroit,

I said no.

But I wish I would have seen you make one.

Then I would’ve seen how our hands are the same.

And when you tired and your feet grew weary of standing at your easel in the sunroom, I could’ve brought you to your chair.

And we could’ve talked about why oil paintings are

Our favorite. 

To the Hinge date who took me to the Portland Art Museum: Oil paintings are my favorite type of art. Thank you for asking.