Once in the door, he took my hand and spun me. "Let me get a good look at you," he said, making me feel a little giggly and little girlish. My gown was a deep blue velvet spaghetti straps with a modest neckline but I more daring low draped back. On my feet I wore silver sling backs with a medium-high heal.
There's something about the attention of a gay man that's surprisingly reassuring. After all- he's not trying to get in your pants, so there's no ulterior motive- but he's still a man so his opinion means something different than if your girls tell you the same thing. I basked in his compliments for a moment. Who doesn't love to be told they are FAB-ou-lous?
I offered Glen a Pepsi, but he was eager to leave, "Besides, I'm bubbly enough inside right now, just looking at you!" he enthused. Did I mention exuberance? There's nothing like it when it comes along with a compliment.
We were taking Glen's car, so we went out to his black sedan and he courteously opened the door for me and even held my hand as I got in. I felt like Cinderella going to the ball.
It was about 7:30 when we got there, and it was just starting to get dusky outside. Inside, people milled around with plenty of room to navigate. It certainly wasn't a crowd, but it wasn't deserted either. As we entered, I saw the first collection, painted in flowing watercolors. There were about five pictures featuring garden fairies flitting around over various flowers and plants. They had a very soft and misty quality, similar to the Mona-Lisa.
Another grouping showed dragons in bold colors and scantily clad women in metal armor who were riding them, taming them or standing beside them. Another artist we passed featured ancient mythological motifs, mainly women in there everyday activities being approached by gods disguised as some animal or other. I noticed that the grouping was sub-titled "Rape and Ravishment" and seemed to have caused a small amount of buzz.
As we made our way through the gallery, I saw Guy walking toward us. He was dressed in black pants with a belt, a lime green t-shirt and a draped black sweater that looked like it must have come from a runway in Milan or Paris.
"Ah! Miss London!" he called out as he approached. Your work is an absolute smash!" He was bold an exuberant in his speech, but then he lowered about an octave to a more conspiratorial tone. "Who's your fiend?" With that he tipped his head toward Glen and lifted one eyebrow, a combination of question and interest on his face.
"Guy," I introduced him, "This is one of my dear friends, Glen. Glen this is Guy, he owns this gallery."
The two of them shook hands, and I noticed that Guy gave Glen's hand an extra little squeeze. "Won-derful to meet you," Glen told him airily. "Likewise." the gallery owner replied. For a few moments I felt invisible and then Guy turned to me. "I hope you are enjoying yourself. If there's AN-y thing you need, you just holler." Just then a well dressed man walked by with a tray of campaign and Glen took two and handed one to each of us. When the caterer departed he said, "Well, I must be off, but-" and then he looked at Glen with bedroom eyes, "I'll be seeing you around."
When he was out of earshot, I grabbed Glen around the arm and pulled him toward my exhibit. "Wow! He's got the hots for you, what do you think?"
"He's QUITE a number. But I'm not going to get my panties in a bunch just yet. He was just flirting. He's probably like that with all the boys."
"We'll see," I said hopefully, leading him around in search for my paintings. At last we reached the spot.
"Here it is," I announced. The tall rectangular dryad picture had a sign above it announcing "Sold" and I felt both pride and pang. I wouldn't be getting it back, it was going out into the world on it's own. I felt like a mother sending her son off to college, and I guess I realized how my own mother must have felt. No wonder she calls me all the time. There would be no phone calls for my painting however. After I left the gallery, I would probably never see it again.
"What's this?" Glen asked, breaking my reverie. "Getting sentimental already?"
"I think I'm experiencing separation anxiety."
"But don't you give your paintings away all the time?" he asked gently.
All the time? No not all the time. Sometimes. I can't afford to be giving paintings away left and right but I know what he meant. "Yes, but I always know where they are going to end up! That sounds silly, I know."
"No. It's not silly. But cheer up honey. You're a working artist. You're a success! You're fabulous!!!"
That made me laugh. "Thanks Glen. Let's go look at some of the rest of the exhibits." It's good to have a friend who can make you laugh when you come close to having an emotional breakdown in a public place.
We looked through the other displays. Many of them where quite impressive and humbling. I felt awed to be in the same group with artists like the one who's Ferry mural depicted fairies rowing what looked like human souls across a stream in various watercraft formed from flowers and leaves. The only hint that it wasn't a photograph was the nature of the subject.
Then there was the scandalous grouping of Flower Women who stood in a garden with flowers between their spread legs. The flowers were obviously a part of them, attached to their anatomy and planted into the ground. Was this meant as a statement that we are being held down by our anatomy? Or just an example of how nature repeats the same beautiful patterns throughout? The women were labeled by names such as Lilly, Rose, Violet, and Jonquille. It was beautiful with amazing effect, but slightly disquieting. Every exhibit or course must feature some erotic art, something controversial to get people talking, and of course to prompt at least one critic to claim that "all art is erotic." This was certainly all of the above. It was beautiful, shocking and provocative. Looking at it, I felt dwarfed, and completely untalented. My pictures were so provincial, so devoid of metaphor or hidden deeper meaning. What was I doing in this gallery among all of these great talents? I was a fraud.
"Hey!" Glen said, pushing me with his hip. "Your just as good as this Flower Woman is! And don't you be thinking any different." I smiled and we walked on as an argument began to break out about the merits (or lack there-of) of sexually shocking art.
"I don't want to see that," I heard one man comment as I departed. "And if I don't want to look at something, it ain't what I'd call art!"
"Ah, everybody's a critic," Glen said with a smile. I was glad to get away from there just in time to avoid the entire discussion. The last thing I needed was to get embroiled in some heated debate about what are was or what it wasn't. To me, art just is. I don't think it really needs to be defined. But it's a hard side to adequately defend on the spur of the moment. Most people don't quite understand what I'm talking about or they start saying stuff like, "Are you saying anything can be art?" and then they start listing weird out of the way things for me to pronounce as art or not. Like feces paintings or twisted mangled metal or a bare light bulb in an empty room or performance art. Hey, I don't get these things either. But just because I'm a painter, doesn't mean I was appointed the last word on what is or isn't really art. From my experience, most of us who actually create art are a lot less willing to define or limit art than those who don't. I really wonder about this sometimes. But it's best not to say things like this- they tend to alienate your audience.
Even though I'm hadn't been a commercial artist up till now, I still have a sense of concern for the audience. I think every artist secretly wants to be loved- for there work and for themselves. When someone doesn't like you, they tend to be harsher toward your work, and when someone doesn't like your work, it can feel like a personal rejection, even when it's not.
Amazingly, I also found some artists whose work was on display that I felt was inferior to mine. Not in a snobbish way, I don't think but in a sort of reassuring way. It feels ok to be in the middle area between the adequate and the awesome. I guess that's pretty much how I feel about myself as well. I'm not completely untalented, but I'm not the best. I'm not rich, but I'm not starving. I'm certainly not ugly, maybe even beautiful, but not perfectly so. I have faults and flaws and I do my best to hide them and to emphasize my strengths, but I know they're there. I know that my breasts look perky because of my under wire, not because they really defy gravity. I know that my belly looks best covered in a one piece than on display in a skimpy bikini. But I also know that with the right outfit, I can make it look like you'd want to see me in that skimpy bikini. I know that with just a touch of plastic surgery and some braces I could have perfectly straight teeth and a cute little nose, but I'm pretty much ok with being imperfect- most of the time. I know that I could die my hair blonde and my sex appeal would sky rocket. But I'm happy with my black tresses even though they could use a trim and even though it's not what the TV and magazines tell me is "in." I'm not perfect, but I'm good enough. And I'm thankful for what I've got.
My friends- they're flawed too. How can an imperfect person have perfect friends? They aren't the hippest, or the smartest or the richest people in the world either. But they are open minded, fun, generous and forgiving. Those are the things that really matter, in my book.
I had a chance to meet with some of the other artists while I was there, and that helped to ground me to. It always come as a slight shock to me (even though it shouldn't) that they are people too. Some are young, some are old, some are jerks and some are nice. Some are attractive and some are not. Artists are not all the beautiful people like they always seem to portray them in the media. They have about the same proportion as the rest of the population. For some reason it often comes as a shock to see the painter of really delicate lovely images and they turn out to be a bony, angled gnarled old man with a crooked nose and yellow teeth. But it happens- it happens a lot.
Kristin Slate, the painter who created Flower Women was a young college student with an neo-hippie activist sort of feeling about her. She was full of ideas about how the world should be, about patriarchy, about oppression, about women in all corners of the world sold into slavery or doomed to lives in corporate bondage. I found her fascinating. She had been involved with a lot of service work with various organizations and had lots of stories to share about the places she'd been and the changes she was trying to bring about. While I was engrossed in listening to her, Glen excused himself to go do a little bit of man-hunting. There's never a shortage of gay men at an art gallery, and I couldn't expect to keep him to myself the whole night.
Kristin knew a number of the other artists and introduced me to a few. Becket Winter had a beautiful pen and ink display with some very intricate drawings of lesser known mythologies. I was amazed at what he could do with the use of only black and white. "I do use colored inks as well, but the black and white always get the best response. Plus, in an exhibit like this, they really stand out. That's always a plus."
Massimo was a foreign sounding artist with no last name apparently necessary. But I got the feeling that his accent was fake, and Kristen agreed with me later that he was totally pretentious. His paintings used darker colors, thick outlining and obscure subjects. His style was somewhere between realistic and abstract and almost gave the impression of stained glass, if stained glass were completely opaque.
Cassidy Keen was the painter of some lovely watercolors in a series called Magick. They featured swirls and other patterns that were quite lovely to look at. Cassidy was a short heavyset woman with thinning gray hair. She wore a blue button up shirt un-tucked over a pair of jeans. She has a face that reminded me of Cinderella's fairy godmother in the Disney movie, and a sweet personality to match.
I was having a wonderful time meeting with some of the artists who were there that night. And Glen was apparently having a great time to. Occasionally he'd flit over to me with some little tid-bit of gossip or just his high hopes for the direction things were taking with Guy. It seemed they were really hitting it off.
By the time we left, Glen had Guy's phone number and I had made several valuable contacts. It had been a good day. Gen seemed to agree. We were both in high spirits as he drove me back home.
