August 16, 2005

Artsy Twins

Filed under: Art and About the Everyday — admin @ 9:45 pm

When I was a child, I was fascinated by twins. Not having a twin myself, I romanticized the relationship between two people who once shared the same womb. I wondered about everything from what it was like to share a birthday to whether extra-sensory perception was a legitimate means of communication.

As I got older, I learned about the concept of twins in time — people who were born at the exact same moment you were. I wondered if my twins in time around the globe have anything in common with me other than the fact that we age at the same second every April 20.

Now, thanks to the Google search engine, I have discovered that I have an artsy twin with whom I share a name. Christina Engelbrecht came to my attention when I Googled myself one day and she popped up. I was surprised. Christina Engelbrecht is not the most common name and egocentrically, I thought Google would send me up first, since I’ve been published in a newspaper for seven years straight.

But Christina came up before me because she was a guest cartoonist for Rocktoons.com in 2004. My artsy twin is a visual artist! I should have known, since I can’t draw worth anything. She got the visual and I got the verbal in the family. We’re two sides of the same coin, a complete whole when put together. We complement one another, as twins should. Cool!

I started to go through my family and found that when my Google search consisted of a loved one’s name with the word “artist,” the world is full of artsy twins. My husband, for instance, has an artsy twin who is referred to as a “top New York interior designer” in a 2003 article from Art Business News. (By the way, my husband claims that in this exercise, he himself is indeed the artsy twin.) I’m thinking I should ask the New York artsy twin if he would come and do my house pro bono, being that we’re family and all.

My brother, a physician by trade, is part of artsy triplets. Both his “brothers” play in rock bands. One triplet plays guitar in Morgan Street, and the other plays guitar and vocals in a band called Murgatroid, which is called the “pioneers of Bacchanalian Rock” on the MySpace Music Web site. My brother has fantasized about being in a rock band for years. It’s nice to see two of three triplets out there living the dream.

My mother-in-law is also an artsy triplet. One of the set does graphic design and photography in Newcastle. The other is an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska who spoke on an October panel for the Arts Education Partnership to discuss “Effective Professional Development in Arts Education.” Think of the lively intellectual discussions at holiday gatherings between these three “sisters.”

One of my sisters-in-law is a singer so I could argue that she is the artsy twin in her pairing. But her namesake is the Director of National Media Relations for Sony BMG Music in Canada. If she and my singing sister-in-law got together, there could be a mutually beneficial record deal in the future.

My mother, who claims she is not an artist but only “follows patterns” while creating stunning quilts, dresses and other textile creations, is artsy twins with a painter in France whose paintings sell for thousands of dollars. My stepfather’s artsy twin makes jewelry, which is amusing because my stepfather loves to buy jewelry.

My lawyerly brother-in-law has an artsy twin whom does a radio show in Southern California about “The Ageless Wisdom,” a non-religious approach to spirituality, the nature of the Soul, and the development of consciousness. He could have some intense conversations with my engineering sister-in-law’s artsy twin, whose statement on Mytho-Poetic Expressionism reads, “Through my paintings I seek audience with intelligent people, people able to enjoy paradox, complications, ambiguities, the divine messiness of Life. Challenging, creative people, I invite them into reverie, an embrace of Soul.” These two sets of twins could have one interesting dinner party.

My father-in-law, who actually is a fraternal twin, has an artsy twin who writes arts criticism for “Source,” a magazine for contemporary photography in Britain and Ireland. Based on his art exhibit reviews, he seems to believe in making quality art accessible to all people, rather than being elitist about it. That’s someone I can relate to as an artsy uncle-in-law.

Of the friends and family I have Googled, so far only my brother’s wife has an elusive artsy twin. But she must be out there, or else my sister-in-law embodies all the arts in one persona. It’s been a flight of imagination for me, daydreaming about what familiar names are doing in an alternate reality. A little creative outlet on a hot August afternoon.

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