Logs:Art Deciders

Art Deciders
Dramatis Personae Joshua, Sammy
In Absentia Jax	2025-02-07 "Anyone can be an artisssst, but not everyone can make ssssomething that holdsss meaning, right?"
Location <NYC> Museum of the City of New York- Upper East Side
Tucked just beside Central Park, this museum is hardly the biggest or the most well known in the city. Dedicated to the life and culture of New York itself, its frequently-changing exhibits span a wide range of media. Tucked between a history exhibit on activism in New York through the decades and several rooms on the Art Deco scene, there is currently a large section of the space dedicated to the city's rich history of graffiti art. There are many actual removed chunks of wall preserved and dotted between photographs and paintings of some of the more iconic pieces that have decorated the city over the years. Joshua is currently standing with his hands shoved into the pockets of his grey FDNY hoodie (unzipped over a black tee shirt reading 'מיר וועלן זיי איבערלעבן' in gold). There's a kippah on his head (red with an embroidered black flag on it), his jeans old and faded, one of his sneakers untied. He's standing in front of a segment of cinderblock wall that's been removed from whatever it was originally part of and brought here, roped off out of Touching Distance. There's a painted mural on it, vibrant bold colors in a whimsical style -- a young man with curly dark hair and tan skin sitting on the edge of a rooftop's edge wall, extinguishing a braided candle in an elegant wine goblet; the stars glittering in the painted night sky above are far more plentiful than New York's skies generally really see. Sammy is drawn in by the mural, intrigued by the visuals painted onto the cinderblock. He slithers right next to the guy in a cool hoodie, eyes examining the illustration of the young man on the edge. The stars are beautiful, and the illustration of the man with the extinguished candle calls to mind a certain thought process. Sammy glances at the guy next to him, and then back to the illustration of that young man. Hesitantly, he speaks. "Thissss mural...do you think it wasssss it made to commemmorate ssssomeone? The extinguissssshed candle ssseemssss like it impliessss lossssss." Joshua glances sideways when Sammy appears, and then glances sideways again juuust a little bit longer. He blinks, pulls his eyes back forward. When his brow furrows it makes his droopy-jowly face, already kind of resembling a basset hound watching its humans eat dinner while he gets none, look still more glum. "S'a havdalah candle," he finally replies -- his low and slightly flat voice sounds just a little mournful to be delivering this information to Sammy. "It's --" He hesitates. Looks back at Sammy, then back at the large broken segment of wall. "A Jew thing." Sammy looks at the guy's expression, and gets a vague sense that this is like, one of those minefield topics you never wanna pry too hard into. He looks at the candle, and his expression becomes a bit more somber. Sammy might be picking up on the implication. "...I'm not well versssed on Jewssss, regrettably. But...It'ssss a very beautiful piecccce." He puts a hand to his chin as he opens his mouth, shuts it, then opens it again. "Do you...think he'd have liked it? The mural, I mean." "Good," Joshua replies -- still low and flat. "We like our mystery." He takes a hand out of his pocket to gesture -- not to the image itself as a whole but a small brilliant blue dragonfly flitting down in an edge of the mural. "Artist's got a bunch more around. Kind of a fun scavenger hunt to look for 'em." Sammy's whole neck lowers a bit as his body adjusts to better look down at it. "A dragonfly...great choicccce for a ssssignature. Very dddistinctive and original." He wants to look up what dragonflies are used for symbollically, but fears he'd look like he needs everything spoonfed to him if he does that. "It'ssss kinda cool to ssssee sssstreet art like thissss in a musssseum. Really validatessss the medium." When Joshua's hand drops again it does not go back in his pocket; instead he's tugging absently near the hem of his shirt until he finds a dangling tassel of knotted white rope that's gotten stuck in his pocket (there are three other tassels properly hanging loose at various points below his shirt.) He's toying with it absently, flicking one of the knots between his finger and thumb. "Huh." Once more his brow is pinching. He looks at the dragonfly, and then, taking a small step back, at a photograph beside it of an intricate painting of a subway train done up on a subway station wall. "Does the medium need validation?" Sammy opens his mouth again, and shuts it. He ponders the comparisons between graffiti and street art, and when thinking about it, street art does seem to be pretty well recieved. "I sssuppossse not. It'ssss not exactly illegal, and art can exisssst anywhere. Like, people ussssed to paint on the wallsssss of cavesss. Sssso...the desire to make art on wallsssss issss hardly a new or unworthy art form or anything." He carefully lifts his tail a bit, and attempts to scoot himself sideways. His sidewinder impression is somewhat lacking, so this movement looks very awkward as he moves from one side of the mural to another. "I mean, anyone can be an artisssst, but not everyone can make ssssomething that holdsss meaning, right? Thisssss...thissss mural clearly meansss sssssomething. I can sssssee why they chosssse to disssssplay it here." "Sometimes illegal." Joshua shrugs a shoulder at this. "Like you say. Hard to stop people arting. Human nature." His tongue pokes at the inside of his cheek, briefly lifting his heavy jowl into a slightly less heavy one before releasing it to its previous droop. "What's it mean?" "Issssn't illegal sssstreet art jusssst graffiti? Like, if the people let you draw there it'ssss sssstreet art, but if you do it without consssent it fallssss into the graffiti category, right?" Sammy has a rather simplistic view on all the legalities of the street art vs graffiti debate, but he's never really taken an art history class so much as those art classes that teach you prespective and shading. "In any cassssse...while I can't claim to know the inner mind of the artisssst, I think they made thissss piece to represent ssssomeone'ssss life. Sssssomeone who issssn't here anymore, I think. The sssstarsss and sssserenity of the sssscene...maybe it'ssss made in hope that they're like thissss. At peacccce." He flicks his tongue a few times, getting a sniff of the mural, trying to see it in more ways then one. "Mmm." Joshua's head has bobbed absently along with this. Not really agreeing, just listening. "Not sure I get the distinction," he finally says. "Don't think what's art is up to the law." Sammy can’t really dispute that, and he doesn’t really want to either. “…Thesssse dayssss, I’m having a harder time trusssting the law’ssss word on sssstuff.” He glances over to Joshua. “I guessss it doesssssn’t need to be validated or legal to be art. Causssse…Art isss whenever sssomeone createssss sssomething with passsssion or intent, right?” "You a big law-respecter before?" Joshua is glancing aside to Sammy in some amount of consideration. He flicks again at the knotted tassel, slowly drifting aside to a series of paintings heavy on Black-is-beautiful '60s themes. He shrugs. "I'm no artist." He's frowning after this, more contemplative, and despite this assertion comes up after a moment with: "Dunno about whenever." “Yeah. I wassss. And…I’m thinking I wasss wrong to be that way.” He follows behind Joshua, trying to mind the boundary and his voice. You never want to let yourself sound too loud at these places. “I ussssed to want to be one. An artisssst. But…I unno. I don’t think I have a creative enough mind for it. Nothing I made really looked good.” He taps his tail on the floor once. “Anyhow…whatsss art to you? Where do you draw the line between art and not art?” "Why am I drawing the line?" Joshua is frowning at the painting in front of him. "Don't think we need an Art Decider." "Well...I mean I guesssss not." Sammy just kinda deflates a bit in response to this, just taking a moment to really examine the painting before him. "...I jussssst assssked becausssse...well, you ssssseem like you know a hell of a lot more then I do about all thissss then I do." Joshua blinks. First at the painting, then turns to blink at Sammy. His tongue pushes up beneath his upper lip, sucking slow at his teeth. He blinks again. He's studying Sammy outright for the first time, lightly thwap-thwaping the knotted tassel against his jeans now with just a whisper of a sound. "Bar's low, maybe," he finally decides. "What d'you want to be now?" He sticks his tongue out for a moment, sniffing the air again. Sammy falls into a prolonged silence, trying to find the words. "...I dunno anymore. Good enough, I guesssss." He says that with a tone of what could either be bitterness or just general sadness. From the small hike of his brows, maybe this was not the answer Joshua was expecting. "For what?" Sammy bites on his lip a bit, like he's trying to find the right combination of words to convey what he's feeling. "Well...I want to be good enough to matter. To...do ssssomething that makes my life worth it. Causssse right now..." He just stops himself, shaking his head. He'd rather not say the other half of that statement. "Well, right now there'sssss nothin worth talkin about regarding me or what I've done with my life. And that needssss to change." Joshua is nodding slow, again -- once more that kind of noncommittal huh of a nod that just signifies listening with no particular sentiment attached. "Matter to who?" Sammy doesn't have a good answer to that, so he just kind of looks at Joshua for a bit, uncertain. "...I guesssss I'd take jussssst about anybody. I mean, probably can't be everybody, but I'd like if a lot of people cared if I like...lived or died, y'know?" He feels utterly pathetic saying this sort of thing out loud. "Can't be everybody," Joshua agrees. He's finally stopping his fidgeting, dropping the tassel and shoving his hand back into his pockets. He's stopped looking at the art altogether for a while, studying Sammy with an uncertain frown, but now he is looking back to the wall, eyes tracing the very large galaxy-swirled afro of a caricature figure in the painting. "People who matter to you will care." "...I hope they do." His gaze moves back to the wall, looking at the figure. The people illustrated look so much larger then life, like they mattered to someone or were born from someone's heart. Sammy...really hopes someone feels the same about him. "I really hope so."