Bad Art
This is an short piece from the infamous third draft of my little book. The narrator, Tuesday has been invited to an art exhibit of the central character, Alan. The exhibit is called War and Pieces, based on a painting being exhibited of the same name. The novel is tentatively called Bad Art, because that’s simple and I have nothing else to call it.
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“So tell me what this one means,” she said, ruffling up the feathers on her neck like those birds trying to get a date on Saturday. “I would like an artist’s perspective.”
Alan stared blankly at the painting. The canvas was almost yellow – completely, a thin band of red separated a blue stripe from the yellow mass. I was there when Alan painted it. We were watching Seinfeld. He lathered the canvas in yellow, then tossed the two bars on top before lying down on the couch. He hadn’t given it a though then. I could see his wheels turning now. The ‘artist’s perspective,’ was being developed as the old crone waited in dripping anticipation.
“You see the yellow, yes?” Alan began slowly, giving her a sort of look that seemed to genuinely wonder if she could see the yellow on the canvas. She was given time to nod. “Well, I’ve always seen yellow as a sort of bright light. If blue – the dark blue shown here, is a night time colour, a darkness colour, then the yellow is the day, the light. The red band, we see, is an offensive barrier, preserving the darkness, preserving the night in the face of glowing light. I believe that this thin band was once thick and strong. That’s why the thickness of the red line varies as it moves across the canvas. I want to ask those who see this painting: Will the red hold on forever, or will the light finally break through.”
Interesting. I tried very hard to look at the painting the way Alan had described it. I tried to feel the colour. I reached out and saw it. I really saw it. And as I stared into it, it began to move. The yellow began to sink. It pushed into the red, stretching the band out lower and lower until it snapped, and the sea of yellow spilled out all over my eyeline. But it wasn’t bright to me. I couldn’t see the illuminating light Alan had been describing. It was putrid and vile. It looked like vomit. My beautiful world was being covered in vomit and that thin red line which had been trying to protect the blue stripe had ultimately failed to stem the tide of yellow – horrid, putrid yellow. The red barrier was a fallen hero. The blue was innocent. The yellow destroyed everything.
“No, no, no. That’s not right at all.” I said this to myself, of course, and maybe to the yellow. But Alan was still going on about his bright lights, and this interjection interrupted his monologue.”
“What’s that, Tuesday,” Alan said with some urgency. His voiced slipped in such a way as to say – not now. I do believe I picked up on that bit of tone at the time, but I was too appalled and too lost in myself.
“The yellow. There’s no light in there. I’m sorry.”
I wanted to leave. I turned away from the yellow canvas, and only heard a muffled response from Alan. I turned toward the gallery, and saw the other paintings, and though I couldn’t help it, I began to reach out to them, and they began to reach back. A sea of green, crowned by a large blue spot began to shake, and the spot began to quiver and grow and try and swallow me whole. A twisted sort of orange quadrangle began to shift and shake and cause a heavy wind. And in the corner, the villainous War and Pieces began to cry – the colours themselves cried out – in pain. I heard them crying. They had no soul. They so desperately wanted one, but the artist had forgotten to paint one in. They had no life. For all of their movement they had no life, and they so desperately wanted to live – to be art. The crying and the wind finally enveloped my mind. I screamed, and hid myself away from it, and that was the last time I was ever invited to one of Alan’s exhibits.
