Pat’s Hands by Kreddible Trout
When I was in San Diego preparing for Artwalk, I frequented a thrift store called Pat’s Corner in the North Park area. I struck junk gold there. A lot of the pieces I did for the festival used various objects found at Pat’s.
The place was a maze, part of it was organized and somewhat presentable and other parts looked like modern history upchucked and no one bothered to clean it up. The yard out back had the larger bits of broken antiquity that had been pulled gracelessly off the sides of houses and somehow ended up in Pat’s corral. Overseeing it all, Pat sat in the middle of the store like a glorious queen of tarnished dents. The several times I was there, I never saw her out of her throne.
Her throne. A humble chair slightly raised and surrounded by a world of junk unimaginable. I would not be at all surprised to find Jimmy Hoffa’s dentures under an old Mad Magazine on the floor next to a cookie tin full of forks. From atop this post she’d size up your finds and, with the arbitrary mathematics of thrift store pricing, would arrive at a dollar amount you could never argue with. This price wasn’t made up, it was pronounced with sage-like certainty and was usually rounded off to a fiver.
My last time in there I talked to her for a bit. She seemed to approve of the artistic madmanship I planned for the items I bought. She would only let me take a picture of her hands which I admire.
*****
Help us welcome Kreddible Trout to aamora as a guest artist. He is a photographer and artist living in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Check out more of his work on his website, blog and on JPG Magazine. And help us congratulate him on his very recent marriage!
Interesting story and great shot!
belated thank you! I never even saw this post! A year and a half late, but thank you!
A powerful image with a touching story….marvelous!
thank you! I can’t believe I never saw this post!
This what I like to se a lot of bling…… Nice story and capture.
thank you. really really belated as I never saw this post. thanks.
This is incredible, Kreddible (may I call you Kreddible? Thank you. You may call me Miss Lamont). Her jewelry says a lot as do your words… Queen of Tarnished Dents is an honourable title, one that some of us can identify with.
perhaps you should call me ‘Tardy’. I’m sorry I never thanked you for the comment but, as I’ve been mentioning above, I never saw this post! So… thank you from the future.
A great story and shot. Love the writing, love the hands.
thanks marie. never saw the post here so I didn’t respond to all these wonderful comments. thank you.
Great to hear from you right here at aamora, Kreddible! Great story and magnificent hands! I too am curious about what you did with the junk you bought from Pat.
thank you Jim. I never saw this post so… belated thank you from the future! this is one of the monstrosities I created: http://kreddibletrout.com/artwork/1365518_LA_BEACHES.html
here’s another: http://kreddibletrout.com/artwork/1390684_the_brown_acid_in_old_antique_window.html
the whole shaboodle can be read about on my old blog starting around here:http://kreddibletrout.blogspot.com/2010/03/news-day-one-victoria-bc-to-portland-or.html
hope you enjoy. I did.
Great image! And I’m so glad to see one of my very favorite photographers, whose work I know from JPG, here on Aamora. Welcome and congratulations old Fish!
Rings on her fingers…hmmm…one wonders if there were bells on her toes…I’d love to see photos of those items from your show.