Alexander Nesbitt, photographer, and a Photoblock called MONEY…
My husband Barry and I love art, and we love that each art piece of ours comes with a story.
We don’t often go looking for art, but we do love antique/vintage stores and fairs, flea markets, an auction here and there, galleries and yard/garage sales, too… where we have found personal treasures that mean something to us and that enhance our home and our lives and now the lives of our children and our grandchildren. We’ve been doing this since we met decades ago, when we were a couple of “kids”, a couple of teachers with tons of student loans hanging over our heads. In other words, little MONEY.
It just felt good to have fun, good, interesting, pretty, intriguing, humorous, meaningful things placed or hanging in our home.
We often find or come upon a treasure by surprise in a moment of discovery. This is how we have always lived — in moments.
This is how we found the photoblock called MONEY: A Sign with a philosophy for life and money — by photographer Alexander Nesbitt.
Barry and I had made plans to spend New Year’s Eve in Newport, RI, at a party and overnight at the Hyatt Regency. Newport is only 30-or-so minutes from our home, but it is one of our favorite cities. We spent our Honeymoon camping at Second Beach just a hop-skip-and-a-jump from downtown and spent lots of time in the cafes and little shops and waterfront seafood restaurants during that happy week.
We still do this.
We arrived in Newport at late afternoon and decided to grab some lunch at Mudville Pub, stroll around and enjoy the lovely last day of 2015. We passed a little window on I-wasn’t-sure-which- street, where Barry noticed an interesting display of photoblocks. He was particularly struck by one of them in that moment. He loved the simplicity of the back whitewashed fence with the depth of the philosophy. The store was closed, so Barry took a photo of the display and noted the photography gallery where it could be purchased — Blink Gallery on Thames Street…
This is how we live. In moments. With art.
The sun was setting on this last day of 2015 as we hopped into our car to head to 478 Thames Street. Maybe, just maybe, this philosophical photoblock would be available there at the gallery.
Newport was busy, nice busy. People were strolling. It was getting darker and later. Barry turned on the radio to tune into the Providence College/Butler basketball game. It was a nail-biter. When we arrived at Blink, I hopped out of our car as Barry coached PC from the radio. LOL. The gallery was closed. The clock had just struck 5:00 and it was New Year’s Eve. A very nice man in the jewelry story next door told me that it had just closed before I got there.
Back to the car, where Barry was in basketball heaven. We sat in the car listening to the radio, partying like it was 1959 as PC beat Butler. Good night for Providence College basketball fans.
There were still lots of people strolling around, even though many of the stores had closed. Barry noticed that one of our favorite spots, Armory Antique Marketplace, was still open, sooooooo…
Hey, it was New Year’s Eve and we had some time before the party and we were together in our favorite city and all that…
So what do we discover?
Indeed.
And there was one MONEY photoblock…
Of course, we purchased it, and discovered the impetus of the photo and the origin of its philosophy…
“Some Tips About Money”… from as far away as Africa, painted above a stall in the Maasi craft market, Arusha, Tanzania 2010.
Coming to live in our home, hanging on our wall, as a reminder to all whom enter that life is a beautiful, wonderful thing of Sleep, Brains, Beauty, Home, Appetite, Salvation, Culture and Heaven — where education and working hard and raising a happy family and taking risks and laughter and charity and savoring and appreciating the Moments we are given, gifted actually are the keys of a good life.
Money plays a roll, but it does not rule.
This is how Barry and I come to find treasures such as this, and I love each and every moment of this grand journey.
