Memoirs of a Fat Girl

Art dealer. Has a nice ring. Art dealer art dealer art dealer. Hello, I am your art dealer. I sell art. I am an art dealer.

Or, I could be. I have the option of a second career, and as most second careers go, it starts on the side.

During my time in Jordan, or more specifically, that wonderful day in Jerash, I didn't just see ruins and buy art. I made an acquaintance of the artist, Sinbad, and we struck a deal for me to represent him when I returned home, and pimp his work out to the many galleries available here.

It started something like this: I was absolutely amazed that I'd just picked up an amazing, huge piece of astoundingly good art, and was dumbfounded that it set me back all of 80 dinars. I was dumbfounded because it doesn't work like that in a cosmopolitan place. When you live in a large city and you buy art, good art, be prepared to pay through the nose.

Eighty dinars translated into something like, oh, $120 of my dollars, and I told Sinbad that at home, people buy chalk drawings for over a grand. A lightbulb appeared over my head, the word "Eureka!" appeared over his, and we've kept the relationship going since.

I love art. I especially love bargain art. You'll be tempted to tell me that there is no such thing, but I will seriously disagree. I own two more paintings besides this one; a cubist Romeo & Juliet that Oli bought for me from an Israeli art student walking around with a large portfolio, selling his work from door to door; the other is an abstract chandelier painted on a wooden canvas in purples, browns and whites that I picked up from an elfin blonde girl at an art exhibition. She liked me so much I got the piece for almost nothing, and even though Oli won't tell me how much the Romeo & Juliet cost, she refers to it as "cheap cheap" for such a stunning piece.

Besides, our shiniest icons in history started out as bargains. Have you seen the movie Seabiscuit? It tells you that Charles Howard bought the horse for a "rock bottom" price. Read the book, and it will tell you that was one of the cheapest transactions ever made for a champion. Before the little black dress and Chanel No. 5, Coco started out selling hats. Picasso's first contract was for 150 francs per month. A joke.

We've established that I can sniff out a bargain, but we also know that I haven't gone to art school, and I'm far, far from being an expert in this. Then again, you know I'm always willing to try something new. This should be evident from my ridiculous sojourn into the doggie biscuit world, if nothing else, and so I've been making dozens of phone calls to galleries here and there, making appointments to show off Sinbad's pieces.

Gallery directors are snobs. I always knew this, but I have a whole new respect for it now. Most of them go by the, "don't call us we'll call you" philosophy, and I was just about ready to throw the phone out the window when two galleries showed an interest. I made appointments, packed up all four paintings (mine and the three that Raj & James bought), packed out the pile of printouts Sinbad also sent me, and off I went in the rain.

Note to self and all prospective future art dealers: if you dont have a car or expensive art manuevering equipment, DO NOT take your paintings out in the rain. I'm not so dense to take bare canvases out into the elements and watch the colours distort before my eyes, I mean, I do own one of those plastic, expanding tubes, but I had no idea the piece of shit would leak. Leak! Onto my beautiful art. I'd had half a brain to wrap everything up in tissue and plastic first, so nothing was ruined. But seeing those wet spots gave me 50 coronaries right there.

I sold no art that day, but I got promises of future exhibitions. I think that's something exciting.

I never saw myself as an art dealer, and it certainly wasn't a career option I'd ever considered. Life is full of surprises though, and who knows, this just might turn into something, someday. It's all about the thrill of the treasure hunt, pursuing the ends of the earth to dig in the one special spot that *might* bring up gold. Maybe I found a treasure chest in Jerash that day; maybe I didn't. But one thing that will never change is that I got hanging on my wall is a stunning, jaw-dropping, one-of-a-kind painting that I got for 80 dinars. I'm such a smart girl.

As for Sinbad, he is so excited his work is going overseas, he has taken to calling me "Princess" in his e-mails, and gushing forth about how he knew from the minute we met, that I was a beautiful and special person that would make a paramount difference in his life.

Ten years ago, I would've wilted at the thought of a sexy, foreign artist lavishing me with such compliments, but the beauty of 30+ is, that shit just doesn't work anymore. Less talk, junior, and more painting.