Item: 1 19.5" x 9.5" picture frame enclosing 3 pictures of a cowboy holding a baby in his jacket
Each one of the three photographs moves in slightly closer to the subject, the third one focusing on the cowboy’s chin against the baby's head.
I acquired this picture in about 1993-4, when I was living in Santa Barbara. At the time, I was going through a particularly country-music phase, and everyone knew I loved cowboys. Everyone also knew I loved babies. This was not a phase; this has always been. My roommate Cassie mentioned to me that she had seen, in a shop on State Street, this picture of a cowboy holding a baby inside his jacket. You would love it, she said.
So next time I was in that shop, I poked around and found this picture of a cowboy wearing a tan jacket and a light Stetson hat, walking along keeping a baby warm inside his jacket, and looking like he liked it, and it was marked with a price of US $10.00. This hardly seemed possible, that anything in Santa Barbara would be for sale for $10, much less a piece of photographic art. For once, I didn't hesitate to buy something.
It was only when I got home and tore off the plastic and saw the instructions for installing my own pictures into the frame that I realized the store hadn’t been selling this as art. They had been selling it as a picture frame, and the tender-loving cowboy was just one of those slick pieces of paper that come in picture frames.
I hung it on the wall, anyway. I still have it, and almost everyone likes it. "What a great picture! Where did you get that?" People go on missing the obvious the same way I did.
I still like babies and I still like cowboys, and I like having something that comes with a story where the joke is on me, but I end up with exactly what I meant to have.
In any case, it was well worth the $10.
I acquired this picture in about 1993-4, when I was living in Santa Barbara. At the time, I was going through a particularly country-music phase, and everyone knew I loved cowboys. Everyone also knew I loved babies. This was not a phase; this has always been. My roommate Cassie mentioned to me that she had seen, in a shop on State Street, this picture of a cowboy holding a baby inside his jacket. You would love it, she said.
So next time I was in that shop, I poked around and found this picture of a cowboy wearing a tan jacket and a light Stetson hat, walking along keeping a baby warm inside his jacket, and looking like he liked it, and it was marked with a price of US $10.00. This hardly seemed possible, that anything in Santa Barbara would be for sale for $10, much less a piece of photographic art. For once, I didn't hesitate to buy something.
It was only when I got home and tore off the plastic and saw the instructions for installing my own pictures into the frame that I realized the store hadn’t been selling this as art. They had been selling it as a picture frame, and the tender-loving cowboy was just one of those slick pieces of paper that come in picture frames.
I hung it on the wall, anyway. I still have it, and almost everyone likes it. "What a great picture! Where did you get that?" People go on missing the obvious the same way I did.
I still like babies and I still like cowboys, and I like having something that comes with a story where the joke is on me, but I end up with exactly what I meant to have.
In any case, it was well worth the $10.
posted by Karen at 6:18 PM
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