Art
The Crypt Keeper
Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder
Tabby smiled at the group of patrons waiting by the locked door and pointed at her watch. It was only 3 PM and they wouldn't open the gallery for First Thursday until 4, but they wanted to be the first ones to get a good look at the new offerings. She already opened an hour ahead of everyone else, but give them an hour and they will hope for two.
She dropped a curtain over the window and could hear the small crowd outside groan. But she wanted to hang the last few pieces without an audience. If you could see all the new work from the street why come inside? Though that wasn't exactly accurate, she knew that group would come inside even if they watched the artist paint the pieces she was going to hang. This was her core group. The ones that kept The Crypt open.
For First Thursday she had more pieces set up than was typical. She didn't spill out onto the sidewalk like some other galleries but she did set up a few easels for smaller works. They weren't lit as dramatically but at least they got to be seen. Those pieces were usually reserved for artists she knew were hoping for commissions. She wanted her patrons to see how easily they could be displayed anywhere. She would make sure her crew knew all of the contact information for those artists and knew what they looked like just in case any stopped by to visit with crowds. She didn't have a featured artist this month, but all of her regular artists knew they were welcome anytime.
"Tabby? We just got a delivery, were you expecting anything for tonight or should we store it for later?"
"I wasn't expecting anything. Just put it in the vault and I'll look at it tomorrow."
She had a lot to do to finish setting up for the evening and knew she'd be busy from the moment they unlocked the doors until they gently pushed the last of the revelers out at 9 when they closed. She knew this, knew she didn't have time to look, knew that storing the new pieces in the vault was the right call. She knew all of this but still found herself walking to the storage area.
"Are they Ian's?"
"I didn't look so I can't say for sure, but they did just show up without any notes, so I would say yes? Do you want to take a quick peek and see if they should go out?"
"You know what? No. Let's just get through tonight and maybe I'll look before I head home. Everything is already laid out for the evening, it's too close to open to rearrange. For sure, let's put them away."
She forced herself back out on the gallery floor. And that's how she spent the evening. Forcing herself to go through the motions. Showing pieces, discussing lighting and composition. Giving out information on artists who took commissions. Fielding questions about Ian U and how she really didn't know who he was. But part of her mind stayed in the vault. With the first piece she had received with the yellow car in the corner. And the second piece which was a dark ocean scape with just the barest swirl of yellow in a vortex in the center. Her staff thought it might be the reflection from the moon on the water, but she knew it was the car sinking after crashing off of the bridge you could only just see in the corner of the painting. And the third piece that showed the train crossing. The train a dark blur and swirl of paint. You could feel how fast it was moving. How powerful it was. And there flying to the side of it what might be a bird, or a piece of trash but what she knew was the bumper of the yellow car. Smashed on the crossing by the freight train that didn't even slow down when it hit.
She stopped to visit with one of her regulars. "How does he do it?" he asked her.
"Do what?"
"How does he capture what is inside my head?"
"That's art, isn't it? Finding the way we are all connected and being able to put it on canvas. It's a gift."
"Is this universal though?" He pointed at the Ian U canvas he was studying. It was one of Tabby's favorites. One of the first ones he had ever sent her. The one that let her know he would always have space in her gallery. She had rotated it back out for this evening after over a year in the vault.
It was that Ian style that she could now recognize. The reality but not really. The swirls and colors suggesting things more than being accurate representations. This was a house and a yard, children playing out front. In someone else's hands it would be a suburban idyll. But with the waves of colors, with the swirls of paint, with just the way he depicted it the scene was unsettling. There wasn't anything you could point at to say, this is wrong, but it was. It was wrong in some way.
"I think we all know scenes like this one, even if you grew up in a city you've been to the suburbs, or at least seen them on sitcoms."
He turned and looked at her, slightly horrified. "This is normal to you?"
"Well, not normal, but..."
He then pointed at a spot on the canvas she hadn't paid much attention to before. Near the children was what was that? A swirl of silver? Then he pointed to one of the children's hands, holding a red blossom.
"He was playing. Just playing, tea party or cards or marbles, and then suddenly the toy became a knife and he cut his fingers off. Every time that's what happens. He cuts his own fingers off. The psychiatrist says it's the pressure of perfectionism. That my stress manifests itself in these dreams of childhood because that's where I started thinking I had to be perfect. And if I'm not perfect what am I? And as a surgeon the worst thing that could happen is losing my hands."
She looked closer at the canvas, at the swirl of silver and the red blossom. Now clearly a knife and the bloody remains of a terrible accident.
"How does he do it? Who is he?"
"I wish I knew. I really do."
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