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OrangesSardines is an online gallery

of contemporary art and culture

presented by artists Ted Waltz and Carol Colin.

Visit virtual exhibits of individual artists' work available
for sale on this site. See individual artworks currently on
consignment for sale through OrangesSardines.

Shop our store for unique gift items and collectibles.
Find out about the latest exhibit on view at
OrangesSardines Window gallery, maintained at our
Los Angeles studio. Plan an actual visit using the
Northeast Los Angeles Art Map. Learn about our
gallery activities going back to 1974. Share the
experience that we've posted as a 9/11 tribute.

The name, OrangesSardines, represents our

eclectic taste. Where did it come from? Keep reading.

WHY I AM NOT A PAINTER

I am not a painter, I am a poet.

Why? I think I would rather be

a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg

is starting a painting. I drop in.

"Sit down and have a drink" he

says. I drink; we drink. I look

up. "You have SARDINES in it."

"Yes, it needed something there."

"Oh." I go and the days go by

and I drop in again. The painting

is going on, and I go, and the days

go by. I drop in. The painting is

finished. "Where's SARDINES?"

All that's left is just

letters. "It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of

a color: orange. Pretty soon it is a

whole page of words, not lines.

Then another page. There should be

so much more, not of orange, of

words, of how terrible orange is

and life. Days go by. It is even in

prose, I am a real poet. My poem

is finished and I haven't mentioned

orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call

it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery

I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.

Frank O'Hara

The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara,

edited by Donald Allen.

Used with permission.