Portraits of Andy Torch and Greg Edmondson as a German flounder

Yesterday I "installed" my part of the group art show I am in tonight (7-10 p.m.) in a loft at 2101 Locust, right across from the Tap Room (not cattycorner, as I had been saying). "Installing" my "work" for this public show was not much different from decorating my dashboard, which is my more typical curatorial efforts. I just taped shit up.

Then I strolled across Locust for a beer and a plate of fries. There sat Andy Torch, the hardest working man in St. Louis Surrealism. In fact, he had been working - tearing down walls on the far South Side to build up a storefront for his antique toy business.

I have never sketched, Andy, and he has a fresh, mischievous, boyish look that I did my best to capture. In trying to fake a little detail on his T-shirt, I did a microstudy of the old Busch Stadium, which led him to make the hilarious observation about the Tampa Rays' stadium that I scrawled on the portrait.

Helping Andy in his labors was fellow local artist Greg Edmondson, who presently appeared at the bar. I have sketched Greg several times and enjoy doing it, because he has a long, thin face with several distinctive shapes - his upper lip is particularly fun to try to get.

As I was sketching Greg, he and Andy were musing on the St. Louis art scene's disproportionate focus on German art, and Greg was imagining the transformations necessary to make himself over as a faux kraut. He even signed the sketch using a Germanic nom de plume.

Though this here is "new work," too new for the "recent work" that is "hanging" (by the thread of blue electrician's tape) in my first public "show," the actual two real artists behind these sketches will themselves join me tonight at the loft on Locust, or so they tell me. Given that free Schlafly will be on offer, my instincts tell me I will, indeed, be seeing them soon.