This is the story Ariane submitted with her trade offer:
I made this giant cigarette painting out of an existing oil painting of buddha on linen, vintage coupons from packs of cigarettes (that I traded for on bARTersauce) and cheap craft paint. It is awesome and disgusting. It makes people feel like they have smoked 40 cigarettes at once when they look at it. A good friend of mine recently saw it for the first time and said, "Gross, I hate it."
It was a lovely holiday season for me. Miss Ariane contacted me with a trade offer for a painting that she created using some cigarette coupons I traded her a few years ago as the background. She has traded with me a few other time in the history of bARTer Sauce.
Q: How long did it take you to figure out what to do with those cigarette coupons after I traded them to you?
A: As soon as I saw them on BARTersauce!
Shoot your TV. Or the person standing in front of the TV. Or just hold this in your hot little hand, and feel all powerful. That's what it does for me. I just made another one, so I will not feel powerless without this.
Every once in awhile I get so busy (read "lazy) that I make my trading victims not only ANSWER some interview questions, but they also have to WRITE the actual questions.
Now that's delegating my little potatoes. That's delegating.
Here's Ariane's questions to herself and her answers:
QUESTION: Isn't it hard to be super-cool and live in Wyoming at the same time?
I teach college ceramics. That's all you need to know about that. During my first semester of teaching one of my students (Let's call him "Justin") made an entire "Hugs For Jesus" series. Nothing in the series had anything to do with hugs, or Jesus, except they all said "Hugs For Jesus" on them somewhere.
Ariane was kind enough to endure some of my "interview" questions since we did this trade through the mail.
Please enjoy getting to know her a little better and also -- live in wonder as to why she will not tell me what kind of sandwiches are her favorite. It makes no sense.
Okay, so I haven't exactly GOTTEN my own private Rosalie yet
(eh.hem.Ariane -- just kidding!) but I did finally manage to muster up the gumption (did I just say gumption? I'm not feeling well) to mail off her vintage cigarette coupons. There's not much I can say about these trades that happen through the mail. I feel somewhat....oh, I don't know...let down?
Here's what I propose.
Ariane: when/if you read this, post a comment that is a piece of information we wouldn't know about you. Something interesting.
I made this Cardboard Rosalie Cutout so that I could trade my Barbie Monster Fish with her for a piece from the Museum of Bad Art which I use to commemorate my grandma's late cat, Tiger. Since I made it, people have danced with it, marveled at it, and looked at me like I was crazy. I am. And so am I.
I also like cigarettes. I don't smoke them very much, but I look really cool when I'm holding one.
I was supposed to mail Ariane's Lawn Cat days ago.
Weeks ago.
But I had that post-office-phobia again. The one where I pretend to be afraid of the post office because I don't feel like going. But once I had Ariane's package, Sean's package and three orders for Shower Art, I knew the time had come. I could no longer put off the inevitable.
Ariane is a facilities and program manager at a small (very small) visual art center in Gillette Wyoming.
She mainly works with clay, but as the art center programs gal, she can't stand the embarrasment artists have to go through when thier classes don't fill-up, so she takes a lot of random classes. Like the Taxidermy Fish Form Alteration Workshop. She knows, She scheduled it. It sounded good at the time?
