^{part 3: words and images by Natty Moher}

One man’s attempt to win back his ex-girlfriend … and learn art.

            For as long as art has existed (which has been like forever -- did you know there are actual paintings of Jesus?), there’s been an ongoing debate as to whether or not artistic ability is the result of Nature or Nurture. Now that I’ve become one of the chosen few, I’m finding it really hard to decide where I stand on the whole issue.  I can’t say whether my artistic talent (which continues to amaze me) is the result of a natural talent that I’ve stifled for years, or simply due to the fact that roughly one month ago I decided to become an artist.

            However, as I’m willing to do anything that may boost my status in the art world (I’m not quite at the legendary artist level that I believe I should be), I’ve decided that it would be in my best interests to adopt some of the same habits as other world famous artists.

            As previously stated, I am a huge fan of Toulouse-Lautrec; not only because he was an enthusiastic drinker, but also because he loved drinking so much he literally hollowed out a cane to conceal booze in it (like a drunken James Bond or ninja or something).  After doing a little research I found that quite a few artists were in fact alcohol enthusiasts  (which now has me leaning towards Nature and not Nurture, as my artistic abilities mostly stem from my natural enthusiasm for drinking excessively.)  Vincent Van Gogh, for instance, loved absinthe so much that he cut his ear off for it.  As this was a habit I already practiced, I decided to just up my intake.  Like most people I thought it was inappropriate to start drinking before noon; now that I’m an artist, though, and it’s part of my artistic process,  I can start drinking the instant I wake up. 

             Now I don’t know about you, but when I spend the majority of my day drinking, all I want to do is take a nap.  At first I was afraid that this would be detrimental to my whole art making process, until I realized that a lot of artists actually advocated napping as part of their daily routine.  It seems that, in some sort of counterintuitive way, napping actually increases your productivity.  Do I want to increase my productivity?  Uh, yes, of course I do.  As a working artist I need to be churning out paintings at a breakneck speed. (An enthusiasm for Absinthe is not a cheap enthusiasm to have.) So I’ve begun taking naps.  I started out with one in the afternoon, but I’ve now switched over to the 20-minute-nap-every-hour philosophy.

            After waking up from my latest nap, I started to look into the life of Paul Gauguin, and at first it was looking like I had to go out and become a stockbroker. That, however, would have been counterproductive, as my ex hated it when I yelled.  Turns out, however, he moved around a lot: Paris, Peru, Copenhagen, Tahiti.  Oh yeah, I could get into that.  Living in gay ol paree, drinking wine, smoking cigarettes, napping under the Eiffel Tower.  How is it that there are people in the world who aren’t artists? 

So there I was enthusiastically intoxicated, napping in a park in Abbotsford (airlines, apparently, don’t accept paintings in lieu of cold hard cash), seemingly well on my way to creating some of the best art of my career thus far (and thus even closer to proving my worth to my ex-girlfriend).  Life could not get any better than this.  Truthfully, I haven’t produced any art since I’ve started this new regimen, but I figure it takes a bit to adjust to new art-making processes and once everything’s settled in, and I’ve fine tuned it all, I’ll be making more art than I know what to do with.

            Now if you’ll excuse me, I think it’s time for my nap.

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