Sometimes the story works against you...

Tonight we went to an ArtLoveMagic event at Saxby's Coffee on Midway just south of Addison. Sunny Raschke was one of the featured artists and there was live music, poetry and painting with coffee (so fun).

I spent the majority of my allowance on a bracelet which I loved. It was interwoven rings of silver-colored and orange metal. When I passed Magical-Kylie and Kimberly-who-doesn't-have-a-tag-line-yet, they told me that the artist who made the bracelets wanted some pictures of his work and since I had a camera, I took some.

When he handed me his card with the address of where to send them, it indicated he was from the Texas Renaissance Festival in Conroe. A chain mail artist.

As it turns out, John and I actually went to the Texas Renaissance Festival one year for an anniversary. And I have to say, I have never seen so many naked people in my whole life. In October.

And the thing is, these were not buff airbrushed people. These were normal every day people who give up their weekends to dress like Hercules and Xena-Warrior-Princess. And I learned that when naked isn't about silk sheets and dim lights, it is no longer sexy. It is very, very funny. And I wondered why no one else seemed to notice that simply wearing chain mail and leather does not make you look like Kevin Sorbo or Lucy Lawless. (The formula is actually a combo of genetics, being under 30 and hours and hours in the gym.) It was a very "Emporer's New Clothes" experience.

Anyway, during our day at the festival, we went to see a show in an amphitheatre and were sitting on these incredibly cold concrete slab seats. And right in front of us, a woman in--I kid you not--a chain mail thong and bikini top sat down on the freezing cold seat in front of us and it was not pretty. I have to add that this image is burned into my brain for all time.

And so tonight at Saxby's as I talk with the artist who made the bracelet, I learn that he is the maker of the chain mail bikini. (He showed us his portfolio.) And as I walk silently back to the car, all I can think about is it looks EXACTLY like the thong part of the chain mail bikini. And that is how it happened that the bracelet that originally delighted me, is A BUTT BRACELET.

Most of the time, the story of a piece of art is what makes it. But sometimes, like this time, it works against you.

So now, I'm going to see if Bethany likes it. She doesn't often read this blog, and you can bet, I will never tell her the story.