Artifice

Chapter 1 - Art Gallery

I was going out of my mind, trying to get everything ready for the Eastborough Artist Guild Exhibit. We were expecting about one hundred guests over the course of the night, which wasn't too bad for a frame shop that's located inside a strip mall in the middle of Massachusetts. Jerry and I had been working together for the past three years, making and selling frames to the same artists who would be there that night. He's in his early thirties, kind of over-weight and has perpetually messy hair. I was just happy that he wore a collared golf shirt to this event and not his typical heavy metal t-shirt. My job was to assign three winning ribbons to the artwork I'd already vetted, and hopefully get some new customers onboard. I pointed with a hammer to a row of art work that I had just hung on the wall and said too, "We need the rest of the title cards printed out and stuck next to the piece. I'm gonna hang these last two paintings."

"Right," Jerry said. "When's the newspaper photographer supposed to be here?"

"Around seven."

It sucked that I couldn't have my own artwork in the show. But, I could place my own stuff front and center by the door. The show was kind of a big deal for most of these artists, as this will be the only public place their artwork will be seen. There was this desperate hope that permeated over this event that one of their pieces would sell.

It rarely happened.

Most of the stuff came straight out of the Bob Ross school of painting - forest landscapes and waterfalls, complete with a token deer in the foreground. If it didn't match someone's couch, there was no way it would come off that wall unless I took it down and sent it back. I was always amused at the price tag they attached to their precious creations. $200 for a ten by twelve-inch fuzzy painting of a cabin in the woods? You could get a Thomas Kinkade abortion printed out on glossy stock for that kind of money. I wished we had a giant refrigerator door which we could hang everything on with some big magnets. Everyone's mom would then come down and dole out positive affirmation for their offspring's precious creations, just like we did in elementary school. It would certainly make my job that much easier.

Jerry said, "So I've got twelve paintings all called "untitled". What goes with what?"

I focused on the nail I just tapped in. "I told those guys that they should at least call it something. Anything."

"OK, I've got an idea," he said. "You come up with an adjective, I'll do a verb. That will be the name of this first piece. Go."

"Aaaahhh...insurmountably..?"

"...woven," he finished.

"Insurmountably Woven?"

"Yeah, that works. I'll print it up." He ran off towards the office.

A bunch of guests arrived just as I hung the last painting. At a side table, Nina from The Prodigal Coffee shop was setting up the wine and cheese. Next to her, Carol was trying to make room for her bread bowl. Terrible artist. She did lousy knock-offs of Margaret Keane paintings—all those sad bug-eyed children—but as long as she brought her bread bowl, she was in.

Brent, all dressed in black with the prerequisite dark sunglasses, made his appearance. Hanging around his neck was what looked like a bright red stick of dynamite on a piece of string. It looked like he'd painted a road flare and added a piece of grey rope as a fuse. Brent was an artist with a capital 'A'. His stuff certainly wasn't boring. In fact, we never knew what the hell he was thinking most of the time. For a while he was doing performance art. One time he pretended to nail himself up on a cross out by Route 9, but only managed to hang there like a wounded kitten for three minutes before his wrists starting throbbing and he had to get down. He'd only suffer for his art for so long, apparently.