I RECENTLY HEARD about a wedding where a keen and enthusiastic (if utterly useless) amateur painter gave one of their own canvases to the bride and groom as a present.
I find that kind of interesting because I saw the picture, and although I don’t know a huge amount about painting, I do know what the surface of a chicken and sweetcorn pizza looks like and I wouldn’t want one hanging on my wall. I wouldn’t even eat it.
I don’t think you have to spend money to give a good wedding present, not at all. It’s the thought that counts etc. But the fact that you love something doesn’t amount to a whole lot if the happy couple really wanted number 47 on their wedding list – the salad tongs.
Gifting for weddings is an unromantic affair and even though a painting is a unique, non-monetary offering, it could be appraised by colder eyes. The wedding list concept is slightly more discreet but not hugely different to the scene in Goodfellasin which the wedding guests line up before the happy couple to drop their cash into the bulging velvet sack of envelopes – and necessarily so. Often people don't really know the people whose wedding they're attending but want to give a little something, and they don't want it to be cash.
A problem arises if you know somebody better than that and you want the choice of gift to mean something more to you and to them. That’s when you run the risk of implying that you paint as well as Habitat makes bowls (unless you’re Guggi, in which case rest assured that you paint bowls as well as anyone). You’ll also expect to see their picture on the wall of their house when you drop over to look at honeymoon photos.
If you’re not a professional artist with a market value, giving a picture you’ve painted yourself represents a bold assertion of one’s own worth. Like it or not, when you’re gone, before returning it to its under-stairs purgatory, they will stare into the abstract blobby shapes on your canvas and clearly discern the Euro sign, a “where’s Wally?” for money.
That’s a terrible thing to say! There’s nothing like the personal touch. You can’t put a price on that. Yadda yadda. And yet there’s the picture, already squirreled away and gathering dust under the stairs of the newlyweds. Clearly you can put a price on it. It has the same value as the rest of the junk stored away under the stairs. Leaving aside the empirically bad painting, if the average wedding present costs between €60 and €100, is that the value of your broken tennis racquet collection? No it’s not – it’s the price of the six ornate napkin rings you really wanted, and you have been conned.
This is not anti-art – au contraire. And nor is it pro-money. Not every gift has to be bought and paid for in order to be valuable. I know of another wedding during which a dance was performed as a gift to the bride and groom, loosely based on the concept of matrimony. After dinner but before the band could set up and play, guests were invited to form a crescent shape on the parquet floor, then two of their number emerged from the crescent, took to the centre and began to move in commemoration of the union of bride and groom.
I’m going to allow that sentence to sink in for a moment and assume that you wishfully conjure up the same image I did – not of reedy, elegant sylphs in paper leotards making tree shapes to the sound of Philip Glass, but of Will Ferrell and Jack Black writhing in black tie to the accompaniment of Guatemalan pan pipes. I haven’t found out if the two performers were professionals, but in a way it doesn’t matter. It certainly doesn’t add value if they were, because you shouldn’t have to be paid for it to make art. I think if I were bride or groom I’d appreciate the gesture far more from a civilian. Technically, it may lack a certain grace and flow, but it would be unforgettable.
I am militantly in favour of interpretive dance anyway. I hit the floor to commemorate the union of bride and groom at every wedding, but I have also added my initials beside toasters and picture frames – nearly but not always. I should stop doing that, because dancing is gift enough.
It doesn’t matter that I’m horribly bad, that’s the thing that gives it value. I do the worm, a break-dance move where I launch myself skyward then land and wriggle across the floor in a way that I hope invokes memories of the shell-suited homeboys at the opening ceremony for the 1984 LA Olympics. Dancing at a wedding is a brave move, you know, let alone offering one as a gift. In dance, there are no receipts and you can’t return one to the shop for something of equal value.
And put away the camcorders, people, please. Did you ever see a play on tape? No good. A live performance is more valuable than 1,000 Newbridge silver picture frames, because the ephemeral, fleeting nature of such a gift is what adds the value.