IMBALANCE. Part Two.
S01E12. Stories teach through emotion. Part 2 of 2.
PREVIOUSLY — The morning after her ART! performance, BBH has breakfast with Witch and Vampire, the friends she’s been staying with. Convinced that BBH’s parody of her was a revelation, Witch declares her a “real Artist” and insists on representing her in the Gallery — on one condition: no more acting. Between psychobabble and strategy, the Neo-Gallerist wants to transform BBH’s panels — once stage props and sticker collages — into artworks for sale. Vampire fuels the game. Better Than Luck, the manual that was meant to save her through writing, looks on silently as she slides into an aesthetic conversion. In the trio’s lucid delirium, BBH swings between irony and surrender, tempted by the idea of being reborn not as the writer of HAPPY DREAM, but as a decorative artist. And while the story seems to close on the moral that whatever stirs emotion — be it figurative or literary — is, after all, a story, time runs out: to tell us “how it really ended,” BBH sets the next appointment: today.
As I was saying. For Witch’s birthday, I gifted her a performance in which I imitated her. My character was her, announcing me as her next artist. What do you think, should I unpack that with my therapist?
Anyway, for the show I’d made two collage canvases using stickers from Better Than Luck. And what did Witch conclude from that?
She became convinced that my props were actual artworks born of genuine “necessity.”
Late the next morning, she and her husband Vampire cornered me with their plan: to turn me into the next artist represented by the Gallery. My task: forget acting (closed chapter, bye-bye) and produce about a hundred artefacts. According to Witch, this would mark my rebirth, labelling me as something new: Artist.
Are you laughing?
Go ahead.
I’ll admit I was intrigued by the idea: shelving my stage ambitions, making some money with collage and meanwhile, writing HAPPY DREAM.
The thesis on the paintings’ legitimacy goes as follows: they stirred her emotion, they stirred Vampire’s, they’ve stirred all our friends’ — therefore, these canvases are a real story. And speaking of emotion, here’s how the rest of the day went.
In the time it took me to shower, Witch had summoned the building handyman and replaced the Jonas Woods hanging in the dining room with the Yes and Smile panels she’d had delivered by the gallery courier.
“Isn’t real art all about illusion?” asked Vampire, catching — perhaps — a flicker of amusement on my face.
“And since when are truth and falsehood interchangeable?” I asked, smiling.
“You two are unbearable,” Witch echoed. “As you can easily see, these canvases are full-fledged paintings. We’re neither illusionists nor frauds.”
At that point, the intercom buzzed: Great Mother and Werewolf had arrived (they’d left Baby with the grandmothers, who’d come to town for the ART! weekend). Great Mother entered slowly, dressed in her usual total black: knitted Courrèges sheath down to her bare ankles, black fur-trimmed Gucci slippers, black Céline Classic crossbody, and a black boiled-wool A.P.C. jacket tied around her waist. Arms crossed tightly over her chest, black Ray-Ban Wayfarers worn as a headband revealed a furrowed brow.
“Excellent idea,” Great Mother began, “replacing two museum-grade paintings with two wide blotches of sticker bits.”
But she wasn’t in a bad mood — not yet. The bad mood, arrived moments later, with the entrance of Monster and Nymph. Nymph’s beauty puts Great Mother on edge. Nymph’s youth puts Great Mother on edge. Nymph’s wardrobe, her bored expression, her slender, non–postpartum body — all put Great Mother on edge.
Like the night before, Monster avoided my gaze in an unfamiliar way. Had I offended him with my performance? I did call him a “cisgender Caucasian male.” Is that offensive now?
“Them again?” asked Nymph, pointing to the canvases. “This BBQ person’s getting famous.”
“BBH,” Monster corrected her, then turned his back to everyone to redirect attention towards the bookshelf — which he knows well. Yes, definitely offended.
Anyway, between us (me and Monster) tension had turned to embarrassment — and to make things worse, an unexpected guest arrived, though not for Vampire, who’d invited him: Manticore.
Small reminder: Manticore’s mere presence has the ability to turn me into kind of an idiot, a theory confirmed by my overblown welcome, my over-sharp jokes, my uncontrollable hair-touching, and the blazing regret of being in leggings and a Planet Hollywood T-shirt.
Manticore arrived bearing gifts (a bottle of wine, a book, a row of chocolates) and brimming with enthusiasm: another memorable Witch party, another brilliant performance from me, such stunning costumes, only Great Mother could have orchestrated such an ensemble. But Manticore’s beauty puts Great Mother on edge too, so she barked at Werewolf instead: “And why didn’t you compliment me?”
FORGIVE HER — BBH would love to capture the mood without overexplaining, but here comes the recap: Manticore isn’t part of the household (he shows up socially, never among the Camaleonda sofas). Nymph is disliked (Witch flatters her, Great Mother loathes her, and BBH avoids her boyfriend’s attention). Werewolf keeps quiet to avoid rows with Great Mother. Monster is tense to the point of rudeness, especially with Manticore, whose newcomer glow only Vampire seems able to handle gracefully — because even Witch, elated by her new plan, is vibrating. On top of that, the party’s afterglow was beginning to fade.
At dinner — lavish take-away sushi, re-plated by Mrs Maribel onto red and black enamel trays — Witch couldn’t resist announcing me as the Gallery’s next artist, opening set in X weeks (news to me too!).
Reactions ranged from disbelief to polite approval; perhaps the news was taken as ironic, or perhaps the sheer comfort of the evening made conflict seem impossible.
“You could tell by the pink hair,” said Manticore, throwing me a look that both flattered and tangled my insides into a single, bittersweet knot. “Real art emerges straight from her essence.”
At that, Great Mother let her chopsticks drop with a thud.
“Girls, please. Are we really going to play this farce, that this one”— me — “is now an ‘artist’?”
“This one is an artist.” Witch replied.
“So you mean to tell me you’ll now fool your oh-so-prestigious clientele — the same ones you already off-loaded [Monster]’s 3D doodles on — by selling them canvases covered in stickers printed online?”
“3D doodles?” echoed Nymph, whose collector parents were among the alleged victims of said alleged scam. Monster stroked her arm to hush her — let her talk; it would be fun.
“No,” said Witch, “I want to introduce to the market works that are profoundly felt. Felt — and, as I think we can all agree, beautiful.”
“It’s so…” Great Mother smiled her perfidious smile. “Don’t you see? If you keep giving square metres, spotlights and catalogues to school friends and bffs, no one will take you seriously. No one.”
“No one?” asked Vampire.
“And let’s not forget the crucial snag,” continued Great Mother. “This is nepotism.”
“If I were an established Gallerist, maybe you could call it favouritism,” said Witch. “But I’m still a nobody — just like the artists I represent — and I bet my skin, my reputation, my future on each of them. The art world is fickle, unfair and savage, but it’s not an endless parade of naked kings.”
“Pff,” said Great Mother. “You don’t get it. Professionals and the public will attack you because you’re disgustingly privileged. You might win over a handful of sycophants who want dinner invites, but good luck pleasing the uninvited masses armed with socials and pitchforks. You’ll end up playing alone — alone. And sure, you can afford your little pageants even if you live to be two hundred and six — fine. But with what dignity?”
YES — Anyone could have stopped Great Mother. But who wasn’t curious to see how far she’d go?
“And you?” she turned to me. “Have you even considered the embarrassment of showing yourself under such a label? Artist. Honestly, don’t you cringe? I’m blushing for you. One of your alter egos was tolerable, but your actual name signing collages? That’s an epochal farce. The public doesn’t deserve it, not on that scale.”
“What public?” I asked, breaking my promise to remain silent. I felt sorry for Manticore, the only one Great Mother kept glancing at, as if to ensure his attention.
“Look,” said Great Mother, waving a hand at the panels, “these things are fine, OK? Aesthetically pleasing, sure. They… furnish. But signed by the best friend of the gallerist wife of the son of whoever — they’re just rectangles of what? Gift wrap? They work framed, OK, but big words can’t disguise the fact that you’ve been a gallerist for two minutes and you”— she nodded at me — “you’re a kind of actress. This was never your path. Why not give up and find yourself an agent?”
Great Mother knows that the word agent is for me what a certain famous heel was to a certain famous Greek hero and even more vulnerable than the verb to give up. “Why not give up and teach afternoon classes in high schools, weekend workshops for children? What you’re both plotting isn’t just a loud joke, it’s professional suicide. For both of you.”
UNFORTUNATELY — Unfortunately, the moment to stop Great Mother’s refined public flogging had arrived. It had to be done tactfully. It had to be done by BBH.
Unfortunately, I had to stop Great Mother. Maybe I should have confessed that I don’t want to trick anyone, that I just want to get back to work, that I’m studying slowly because what I really want is to write HAPPY DREAM — a novel that’s engaging, profound, ambitious — and that, in the meantime, every week I’m also— oh God, no. I couldn’t feed her my ideas only to see her dissect them publicly. The promise of taking you to HAPPY DREAM is still too fragile to expose to Great Mother’s merciless scrutiny. She’d ask pointed, pernicious questions that would contaminate the fragile impulse that makes me sit at this keyboard.
“So,” I said, looking around, “would you say [Great Mother] took the idea of replacing acting with abstract art well?”
I stood up to hug her, lowered her sunglasses from her head onto her nose.
“Our very own Anna Wintour,” I said, prompting a relaxed murmur that ended dinner peacefully.
And you? How would you have taken it? Does Witch’s approach strike you as a con? Do you think removing the performance — the “meta” layer — as Witch so strongly suggested, would be a mistake? Would you feel tricked? Do you prefer Great Mother’s tough-love mode? Do you think the project could steal time and focus from writing, or actually help it?
If I went back to my old plan of inspiring generations — would that seem more authentic?
Let me know.
See you next week, HAPPIDREAMERS,
— BBH
