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Admit it: you've been duped by a Groupon.
Who hasn't fallen victim to that enticing deal that seems to speak directly to you, promising an incredible time at a low, low price? Only when you arrive at the advertised location, it's not even close to what you believe you were promised.
Then you remind yourself that this place is advertising on Groupon for a reason--it's a struggling business. I mean, you'll never see a Peter Luger's Groupon.
Well, dear reader, I officially joined the ranks of Dupon'd last night when I took my friend Lauren to Drink & Draw at The Living Gallery in Bushwick, conveniently located a few blocks away from her house and a great little Venezuelan place called Guacuco, which proved to be even more convenient later on in the evening.
The first misrepresentation on the Groupon was that it listed the gallery's location as Williamsburg. (On what planet do Flushing Avenue and Knickerbocker Street intersect in Williamsburg? But I digress). Here is what the Groupon stated about Drink & Draw, "in a nutshell":
The Groupon cost $15 (claiming to be a $40 value), which included admission, art materials, and an "inexhaustible supply" of beer and wine for two. I had been looking for an excuse to get back into art for awhile now, and an unlimited supply of beer and wine seemed like the perfect one. The fact that it was located in Lauren's neighborhood made her my requisite partner in crime, despite her protests of, "But Liz! You know I don't draw!""Sketchers indulge in provided beer, wine & snacks while drawing live models & grooving to DJ music or ever-changing line-up of bands"
I met her in front of the gallery, part of a large space that no was no doubt an abandoned factory six months ago. Other businesses were connected via a long hallway, including a coffee shop, a yarn store, and vegetable stand that promised fresh produce from Bushwick (go figure). It was like a weird little underground Brooklyn world where everyone knew each other and looked at outsiders (ahem, us) with caution, if not disdain.
"Okay," I said to Lauren, scoping out the space with trepidation. "I'm not really sure what to expect, so I'm just warning you....this is probably going to be weird."
"Liz," she acknowledged. "It's you. I was totally expecting weird."
Maybe she was, but there was no way she or I could have predicted just how weird things were about to get. We entered the gallery, which was already populated by three or four hipsters talking animatedly with each other, most likely about veggie burgers, bicycles, and geometrically-shaped glasses. I felt like it was the National Geographic channel and I was infringing on their mating space.
"Hello!" called a spaced-out voice. A pasty-white, lace-and-leather clad woman with hair the color of cotton candy approached us. "Are you joining us for Drink & Draw?"
Before I could back out, she spotted my Groupon and grabbed it. "Cool. We're going to start in about ten minutes. Have a seat anywhere. Materials are on the table, and wine is over there. We're going to have some live music, too." My gaze instinctively followed her gesture toward the wine table. Lauren and I gave each other a knowing look and made a beeline for the wine. We were definitely going to need it.
The wine table was comprised of about six dixie cups, the kind you use to rinse your mouth out after brushing your teeth. Each cup was about a third full of red wine. A handmade sign behind the cups read, "TWO DRINKS PER PERSON."
This was what they considered an "inexhaustible supply" of drinks? Two-thirds of a dixie cup of boxed Merlot? And there wasn't even any beer to speak of. The first verb in the title of the event was
"drink," wasn't it?
Never ones to look a gift horse in the mouth, we took our pittance of wine back to our seats and sipped it. Verrrry slowly.
A few minutes later, Lace and Leather stood up. "Welcome everyone, to the Living Gallery. We're going to start off today with some music from our first model. You can draw him while he plays." A pale, skinny, bearded guy with a greasy ponytail who looked liked the farthest thing from a model sat down in the middle of the floor. In his right hand he held a guitar. In his left hand he held a bone.
Yes, a bone. As in, what you find in a chicken wing. Only much, much bigger.
Greasy Ponytail began "playing" the guitar by rubbing the bone against the guitar strings, emitting a twanging that sounded like a cross between a sitar and a cat being mangled by a Magic Bullet. Everyone else picked up their materials and began to work meticulously. The room fell silent except for the "music."
I couldn't even look at Lauren, because if I did there was no way I'd be able to suppress my laughter. I briefly wondered how militant Lace and Leather would be about the two-drink maximum, since my ration was already long gone. I picked up a pad and a piece of charcoal and began a rudimentary sketch of Greasy Ponytail. Hey, when in Rome.
I hated my first sketch, and not at all because Lauren pointed out that it looked like this old man who used to yell Chinese profanities at us when we worked at the library together, where we first met. (That actually made me laugh. Hard.) I pretty much hadn't drawn anything since high school, and was totally out of the swing of things.
I tried another one, and this time I focused on the guitar. I figured if Lace and Leather looked over my shoulder and wanted to know why I wasn't sketching the model, I could just say the shape of the guitar reminded me of a voluptuous Boticelli figure.
My guitar looked considerably better than my sketch of Greasy Ponytail; I was always better at sketching things rather than people. Then I moved on to Greasy Ponytail's hands, and then his arms. Rather than sketch freehand, I hearkened back to my high-school art class days, where I was taught to see the basic shapes in objects first, then sketch around them. My guitar was way disproportionate to Ponytail's hands, but it was a start.
Eventually I gave up on Ponytail and sketched the plant on the table next to me. It came out okay. But more important than the finished product was the fact that I was thrilled to have dipped my toe back into the art world, chicken bones and pink hair notwithstanding.
After I finished my plant I stepped out to wash the charcoal off my hands. When I returned another pink-haired chick (not Lace and Leather) was posing topless. Greasy Ponytail's concert was presumably over. This seemed like a good time to leave. I said I wanted to dip my toe back into the art world, not dive in headfirst. We headed around the corner to Guacuco, where we promptly filled up on the libations we were denied at Drink & Draw.
I don't think I'll be returning to The Living Gallery anytime soon, but my $15 Groupon, despite its blatant false advertising, was worth it because it helped me regain my passion for art. A trip to A.C. Moore to pick up a sketch pad seems more likely in the near future.
Art is in my blood. No bones about it.
