"We do not do Bluebonnets"

I went to an Art Show this weekend in Arlington. You know, one of those outdoorsy things with tents set up for folks to display their crafts and hopefully make a sale. There is a stage set up for bands, and its all very festive, but no one really daces because the bands are usually cover bands doing bad versions of Fleetwood Mac songs,  and there is always a row of trailers where they are selling funnel cakes and sausages on a stick and turkey legs and other stuff that you wouldn't dare put in your body, but for today you will make an exception.
So you tour through the crafts, and stand there at the stage for a bit, tapping your foot and eating something sinfully greasy, and the sin drips from your chin in the afternoon heat.


My pal Gary Williamson had a booth there. Gary uses a unique process to create sculptures from scrap recycled paper, His company is called "Shatter'd Visages" after a Percy Shelly poem. Check out the link to his site, or to his Facebook page. I have a Melpomene done in Verdi Gris on my wall, and I like it a lot.

Anyway, there was a photographer from Austin. We stopped by their booth, and they had a lot of Texana stuff, and my friend Pam asked "Do you have any pictures of Bluebonnets?"
Bluebonnets are the state flower, and this time of year flourish along the roadways all over Texas. Everywhere you look there are cars pulled over to the side of the road, and folks all dressed up to get their picture taken in a field of these native wildflowers.
But the photographer looked at Pam kind of funny, almost offended.

"We don't do Bluebonnets" she said, matter of factly "We do junk cars and beat up cowboys. We do Lone Star beer and mesquite trees. We do Rusty Weir, Ray Wylie Hubbard and Guy Clark. We will even do the Alamo or the tower at University of Texas, though we prefer the Huntsville prison. But we do not, under any circumstances, do bluebonnets"

I assume they do not want to add to the 7 billion bluebonnet pictures already on the market, the way other photographers might refuse to do cute furry mammals..

I like that.

But maybe a shot of a graveyard, which also has bluebonnets, might be nice.
 

photo coutesy of  westtexasinsomniac