Mr. B, The owner of the company I work for, is an avid collector of art, most of it bad. Mr. B is an engineer in his 80s who still comes into the office a couple of times a week. (He's also really into aliens and UFOs, but that's the subject of another entry.) I appreciate the fact that an engineer, traditionally a left-brained creature, is in touch with the right side of his brain enough to appreciate art, even if it's Bad. In fact, some of the Bad Art is of his own creation. His works tend to be abstract pencil sketches built around rubbings of coins. His collection of Bad Art lines the walls here. There's all kinds of styles, especially southwestern and Asian. Let me give you the highlights of some of the works-

Several prints of these black-and-white striped figures. One of the figures is wearing a mask with round eyes and mouth, which gives me the creeps, for some reason. Another figure is tackling a chicken, while another looks on in amusement.

A deer and several cute woodland creatures.

A weathered old cowboy smoking a joint. This is in Mr. B's office.

Several Bad oil paintings of indeterminate landscapes.

Four black and white prints of what appear to be South American cowboys and Vikings together.

A really disturbing print by a Russian artist. I can't even begin to describe it. It's just scary. The HR person and I agree that this one has been the subject of at least one bad dream. Maybe I can take a picture of it and post it here someday.

A print of clown Emmett Kelly. This is in a conference room that the engineers use, so it's extra strange to see this unhappy clown next to complex equations scribbled on the board. Apparently there was an even bigger Emmett Kelly picture that was destroyed when a tornado hit the building several years ago. There was much rejoicing over the demise of the picture, I'm told.

A little boy in lederhosen smoking a pipe.

It's not like I've never created Bad Art myself. In fact, I made a couple of Bad self-portraits during my Depressed Art Student phase that would be quite at home on the walls here. But since I'm told Mr. B has even more Bad Art in storage, it's unlikely mine will ever be displayed in this particular venue.