Art Beast.... and miles to go before I sleep

On Thursday afternoon the girls and I were walking down MainzerStrasse on our way to an alcohol induced something or other. Passing by the Milkabilly Rock n Roll Milk/Soda/Waffle Bar and a tattoo parlour, we spy a small art gallery. Zozoville Gallery. A Mecca of galleries. No snotty assistants, no severe haircuts, no stark white walls, no abstract anything. Instead, it’s a small room that looks warm and inviting, a bench outside to cater to passing smokers in need of a sit down. The gallery appears to be run by/feature the work of two artists: Johan Potma and Mateo Dineen. We go and have a look around and we are all enthralled. The work is beautiful and a little comical and sometimes sad and whimsical and often, the tiniest bit heartbreaking. The girls love Johan Potma's stuff, who seems to specialise in fanciful furry creatures and somewhat endearing monsters while I fall utterly in love with Mateo’s work. It’s acrylic (I am almost certain, thought not enough of a connoisseur to be of a definite stand point) on various surfaces. Some are on standard canvases, but they also have paintings done on the back of geometry set tins (remember your first day of high school and your shiny new maths set?) the tops of old wooden chests, armoire doors and the rogue covers of DDR era fridges.
On the wall, on the back of a box top, is a small painting of a small man under a night sky in a forest, his chin in his hands, looking into a campfire and birds nesting in his white bear hunting style hat. (I pause to notice how I own a similar hat., sans birds.... sometimes....) I love the picture. I LOVE IT. and then, as I am swimming in its delight, I notice how at the bottom, a phrase is inscribed:
“...and miles to go before I sleep...”
This piece of work that I am so instantly and utterly drawn to is not only one of the most beautiful pieces of art I have seen, it is also INSPIRED BY A FUCKING FROST POEM?!I am undone.
I must have it.
I need it.
it makes me want to have a permanent address so that I might have somewhere to hang it. This Mateo, he of the beautiful beautiful art, knows Frost?
Tanya sees a piece that she loves and inquires of the price. It is 2500EUR. Holy God. That’s half a years rent in Berlin. I am afraid to even ask the price of my painting. I know I will not be able to afford it and I know that the disappointment of the concrete fact will crush me. So instead I go over the boxes of prints and sift carefully through. Woe is me, the print is not there. The girls find other prints they love and purchase them. They pay their money to a tall blond man who is, typically for the city, far too good looking for his own good.. Sullenly, art printless, I start to leave the shop and then ask, in a fit of optimism to the blond, “You don’t happen to have a print of the Frost painting some where?”
He says, “Actually, I made some of those today. I haven’t put them out yet. Do you want one?”
Firstly: Holy hell, YES.
Secondly: Is this hot blond Mateo? He of the penchant for whimsical heartbreak and Frost?
As he goes into the studio or back room or whatever magical Alladins cave it is that holds these treasures, I lean over the girls and whisper, “Art. Beast.”
He returns with my print. I attempt to pay him and find myself quite suddenly with too many thumbs and an alarming lack of dexterity. Put me in fumbling distance of a talented beast and chances are I will indeed fumble. I berate my hands. I momentarily loathe myself. As we leave, he says, “We are having a gallery party here on Saturday night. There will be music and food and a silent auction. You girls should come.” I make some noises that seem to be a garbled vocal agreement to the flippant invitation and stumble out into the freezing Berlin night, my Frost print close to my chest. Mateo, the boy genius with the love for frost is a 6ft tall Californian Art Beast? If I didn’t love Berlin before, I am pledging allegiance now.
Anyway, Saturday night rolls around and we head over the gallery to find it RAMMED. there was literally not even space to step inside. So Tanya, Sarah and I decide to go get a drink and a bite to eat and head back later and see if anything is still going on. I can’t even see my Frost Painting on the wall and I feel myself jonesing. I want to see it again. Just like the way Shell can’t go near the Tate Modern without spending some time with “her” Monet. We agree to return post sustenance. Dinner is fantastic and delicious and in a restaurant with a black and white checked floor so beautiful I want to press my face to it, but for the sake public decency, don’t. More about that another time. After we eat ourselves into an Italian coma, we trudge back up Mainzer Strasse (this time slightly heavier with wine and pasta) and find, joy of joys, the gallery still open and with somewhat more room to manoeuvre. We go in. The painting is there. I spend a ridiculous amount of time looking at it. A man who works there asks Tanya (who is armed with her camera) not to take close ups. I spy Art Beast. Inexplicably, I am smitten. Or, completely understandably. Depending on how you look at it. The Frost quote on the painting has been up on my (kill me now) book mood wall since I got here. I feel a cosmic alignment I want to hold onto with both hand followed swiftly by a brief wave of sobriety and I know that the cosmos has fuck all hand in this. Lots of people like Frost. Not as many as should, but a lot, none the less. He is wearing a polka dot shirt and being the artist of the hour. I want to go up to him and get aggressively in his face about the painting and ask if he has a Birches inspired painting in the works and if so, how much will it be, so I can start saving now. [side note: an old friend of mine from NYC, SS, is an INCREDIBLE artist. Unbelievable. I went through a good few months of being, quite plainly, obsessed with Birches and as a result of my obsession, she painted the most beautiful piece, over the prints of emails I had sent her quoting the poem. Even my typos were included. It was extraordinary. It’s been two years since I’ve spoken to SS (heartbreaking in itself, I am sure with good reason but sadly ones I know not of) and I cannot even hear Frost without thinking of her and what was to me, a simply awe inspiring work of hers. Anyway]
I don’t go up to Art beast. I salivate over the Frost Painting. I tentatively ask the dude who works there of the price. He tells me it is 2450EUR. FUCK ME. Worth every penny, I am certain, and if I had it, I would buy it. But I am dealing with discount supermarkets here. I really should not even be allowed in galleries at this point.

Tanya and I get a drink and check out more of the work and she buys a bunch more prints (from the other dude Johan Potma) and a t-shirt (been there, done that, yadda yadda) and we go and smoke a cigarette on the thoughtfully laid out afore mentioned benches. It takes us a good fifteen minutes to eventually drag our asses out of the vicinity of the gallery and head (the whole three and a half minutes) home. Every time we go to leave I need to see my painting (“my painting?!”) one more time. We look at the painting, we take six steps out the door, we turn, we look at the painting again, almost leave, go back to look at the painting, repeat ad nauseam.

We went home. Print safely in my possession. Art Beast and original art work still at large.