Living with Art

Grant received this wonderful drawing for his birthday from his father Sandy. It is a piece of art by Aristides Ruiz, an American artist whose works in pen and ink and pencil are painstakingly produced and so realistic they are often mistaken for photographs. We have been admiring this drawing since he acquired it in 1996 and now it hangs prominently in our dining room. My parents were casual collectors of art and I remember much of the art that hung in our house in Mt. Kisco, NY. There was the dark Colombian piece that hung in two different places during the 27 years my parents owned that house. It was an oil painting with so many dark hues you could barely discern a woman holding a child. I didn't approve when they moved it from our dining room to my father's office. It was part of the fixed landscape of the dining room and transplanting to another location struck me at the time like moving an old tree. Inconsiderate. I wonder what our kids will remember from these pieces of art that surround them. Will they ask for them one day? Will they have attachments that run deep? I imagine that one of my boys is going to want the drawing of the cool young man with the earrings and goatee. But I could be wrong.