Why am I not like Lisa?

My friend Lisa, a beautiful, talented girl, is stark raving mad about art and culture. She can't get enough of it. What's more, she's been clever enough to turn it into her career (I'm still working on that bit).

Lisa gets art. She KNOWS it. She can even TALK about it and hold 3+ minute conversations about it.

Now, I view myself as a pretty cluey kinda girl. Oh yeah, I'm switched on.

So why, WHY do I just NOT GET ART?

I don't mean like movies, music, theatre etc, oh I am WELL VERSED in those. I mean your actual pictures and whirls and dots and splashes and 'installations' (surely there's an easier to remember term for that!?).

An artist friend once attempted to take me to an art gallery in St Kilda. We wandered down Acland Street on a sultry early Autumn day, and in retrospect the only way I can desribe my then self is a naughty puppy. I was not focused, a little bit stubborn, didn't take it at all seriously, and more importantly, I was mostly fascinated by something that wasn't what I was meant to be fascinated by.

We approached the heavy green door, its paint flaking a little in shabby St Kilda chic style. On the frosted glass panel beside the door was a no-smoking sticker. Someone had written above the little cigarette in it's angry red circle with the bar through it "It's like..."

Hilarious. What wit!

I went inside, and can barely remember the art I saw. In fact, I can't remember it at all.

Words. That's pretty much what I do. My boyf said to me once, 'I think in pictures, and you think in words' and I have to agree.

But it would be so swell to know art so I could impress Lisa in a 3+ minute conversation.