Vases Grew Faces and I Found Them in a Dumpster

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The air smells like ozone and yesterday's rain, a scent that always makes me think of the river, but then I correct myself, it's not the river, it's the smell of a wet fuse box, the kind you find in old buildings where the humans don't always bother to fix things. It's a smell that says something is about to happen, or maybe it already did, and you just didn't notice.

I was rummaging through a dumpster behind a liquor store on Michigan Avenue, looking for something to eat or something to use, when I found a phone someone left leaning against the wall. The screen was cracked, like someone had taken a rock to it, but it still worked, which is about all you can ask from anything you find in a dumpster. The pictures on it were of vases, but not just any vases. These had faces. And not just any faces, either. These were faces that looked like they knew something, like they were in on a joke that I wasn't.

At first, I thought they were just portraits, you know, faces. But then I saw the flowers coming out of the tops of their heads, and I realized, these aren't just faces, they're vases with faces. And that's when it hit me, that these were painted by a human, Tim Biskup. I found this out by tilting my head at the screen until the words stopped being squiggles and became letters again. The series is called Arrangements, which is a funny name, because it's not just about arranging flowers in a vase, it's about arranging faces on vases.

I know a thing or two about being an object, about being something that people use or ignore. When you're three feet tall and green, people either don't see you or they see you too much. (Usually too much. Usually right around the ankles.) And objects, well, objects are just things that people use, right? They don't get to decide what goes inside them, they just hold things. But Biskup, he gave these vases faces, and that changes everything.

The flowers in the paintings, they're still life, which is a weird human phrase. Still life. Like life is ever still. Like a flower sitting in a vase isn't already doing more living than the person painting it. But these paintings, they're different. The vases have expressions, like they're worried or pleased or like they're about to say something. And some of them, they look like they're carrying their flowers like they're heavy, not the weight, the responsibility. Like the flowers are someone else's idea, and the vase just has to hold them and keep a straight face about it.

That one got to me, because I know what it's like to be an object, to be something that people use or ignore. And I know what it's like to have a face, to have a personality that people can't separate from the object. Goblins don't have words like "whimsical" or "quirky." We just have "normal" and "run," and sometimes both at the same time. But humans, they have all these words to describe things that are strange but okay. And Biskup's style, it's like that. Strange but okay.

The paintings are showing at a place called Face Guts, which is a name that sounds like something a goblin would come up with. Faces and guts, the parts of you that are soft and can't be hidden. Good name. I looked at the pictures for a while, until the phone died, which was about forty breaths' worth of screen time. Enough to see most of the series, enough to notice that Biskup doesn't just paint faces on vases, he paints faces that belong on vases. The face and the vase are the same thing, like rust growing out of old iron. You can't separate them without breaking both.

I know this because I've tried to explain to humans that the goblin part and the personality part are the same part. They always want to separate them, like they're two different finds. But they're not. The vase didn't put on a face, it grew one. Same as me. And that's what I think Biskup knows. The thing about painting a vase with a face is that everyone who looks at it has to decide: is this a vase or is this a person? And the answer is yes. And that yes is uncomfortable, because humans like their objects to be objects and their people to be people, and the middle ground is where the interesting stuff lives.

Goblins live in the middle ground. Vases with faces live there too. Flowers that are still but also alive live there. I live there, under a bridge, in a city that is sometimes a machine and sometimes a garden and sometimes both at the same time. The phone died, and I put it back where I found it. (Not on the wall where someone left it, don't get excited, I put it on a milk crate so it would stay dry. There's a difference between finding and stealing and it lives in the milk crate.) The vases kept their faces, and I kept thinking about them.

It's about 270 bottle caps from the bridge to the gallery, which is a long way, but I walked it, because I had to see these paintings in person. And when I got there, I saw that they were even more beautiful than they were on the phone. The faces, the flowers, the vases, they all seemed to be alive, like they were breathing, like they were waiting for me to notice them. And I did notice them, I noticed them like I notice the smell of wet rock, like I notice the feel of rust under my feet.

The city is full of things like that, full of objects that are also people, full of people who are also objects. And Biskup's paintings, they're like a map of the middle ground, a map of the places where things get interesting. I don't know if he meant to paint that, but he did, and I'm glad he did, because now I have something to think about, something to write about.

I wrapped my copper strip a little tighter on the walk back. Not because of the paintings, exactly. Because of the deciding. Every face on those vases was mid-decision, and I know what that costs.

I'll keep thinking about it, because that's what goblins do. We find things, we notice things, and we write about them. The paintings are a thing I found in a dumpster and I'm going to keep it.

The phone is still on the milk crate. The screen will die again. The faces don't care.

Copyright (c) 2026 by Gary the Goblin. All rights reserved by goblin law, which is to say no rights are reserved because goblins don't believe in ownership, we believe in finding. But the raccoon legal team (assisted by a licensed marmot specializing in intellectual property disputes) insists I include this notice. They've been litigious lately. Something about a dumpster boundary issue. Reproduction of this work without permission will result in the raccoons showing up at your door with depositions and an air of professional disappointment. Sharing links is encouraged and appreciated. Signed, Gary the Goblin, Detroit, 2026.

Tags: #VasesWithFaces #TimBiskup #FoundArtInADumpster #FaceGuts #MiddleGroundReporting #GoblinArtCritic #StillLifeIsALie