Greatness is at last within my grasp

This could be it! I think the art world finally is ready for me. After long years searching for a medium which might adequately express the artistic wonderfulness bottled up within my angst-ridden soul, I believe I have at last found it.

See, years ago, I really believed I was going to be an artist. I tried watercolors, oils, acrylics. At my best, I was lousy, but I tried. Then I took a stab at sculpting. No one ever mistook my work for, say, Michelangelo’s. Even wood carving left me with nothing but slices put in and chunks taken out of my hands.

Despite my best efforts, all my paintings looked like they started life as a series of numbers on a dollar store canvas.

Honestly, I no longer remember what so attracted me to the art world. I probably thought it would help me find a girl. This is likely, since, for many years the hope of finding a girl was the only reason I got out of bed each morning. 

Whatever the reason, I worked hard at developing any nascent talent I might possess. Over time I managed to work my way up from lousy to mediocre. Considering where I’d started, mediocre seemed acceptable.

Eventually, I even managed to land a real “art” job creating book covers and album jackets for a religious book publisher. (If you’ve ever wondered why the cover art on so many religious books is terrible, now you know.)

I gave up the artistic life the day the religious book house fired me. A few years later they went out of business, but I refuse to accept responsibility for that.

So it has been decades since I tried creating any art beyond mowing my lawn in a criss-cross pattern. However, it now looks like my hour may be coming ‘round at last. 

There’s a new art movement afoot, one dedicated to a medium with which I am imminently familiar, one that could at last allow me to tap into the deep, meaningful emotions churning within me. Both of them.

I’m speaking, of course, of back hair.

I promise I’m not making this up. There are as we speak artists carving portraits and landscapes into the backs of furry guys. They even have a calendar for sale.

Now, it’s true I’ve never actually crafted in back fur. That said, I walk around each day with a canvas to die for! Within the furry forest sprouting on my back (shoulders, chest — pretty much any area unfamiliar with a razor’s touch) lies an untapped Mona Lisa, Starry Night, Whistler’s Mother.

All I need to get started is an electric clipper, a stick to duct tape it to, and a mirror in which to monitor my progress. It’ll take practice, sure, but at the rate my body hair grows I’ll have an entirely new canvas every couple weeks.

Also, there are five cats living here, or as I now think of them, sketch pads.

It’s only a matter of time before my name stands alongside Picasso and Van Gogh in the annals of art! Mike “Fuzzy” Taylor. Innovator. Artist. Barber.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 548-8273