Opus Wall, Page 2

  Chapter 2 - Unicorns and Rainbows Are Expensive

  “That’ll be sixty-seven dollars and thirty-eight cents.”

  The father with the broad shoulders and sagging gut snapped closed his wallet at the enunciation of such a price, and his fingers pulled his plastic credit card away from the register.

  “That’s nearly seventy bucks,” the father growled.

  Max stole a quick breath to help himself calm. “I’m afraid the templates of unicorns and rainbows are bit more expensive due to the large number of colors involved.”

  “For seventy dollars, these templates better include every color in the rainbow,” the father snarled.

  “I promise the kits include every color the templates require.”

  A round woman dressed in a tight, purple top and tight, purple sweatpants jiggled out from aisles stacked with template kits, and she pulled a young teenage girl with thick glasses and frazzled, blonde hair to the counter with her.

  “You promised you weren’t going to behave like this, Earl.” The woman glared at her husband while their daughter’s lips trembled. “You promised Emma that she could choose any template she wanted.”

  “But seventy dollars, Coleen? Couldn’t she pick out a template with fewer colors?”

  Coleen’s eyes burned. “Press it any further and I’m going to buy her that entire row of templates. We both agree that Trisha needs to improve her creative thinking skills in order to score higher on her test scores. And we both agree that these templates were just what she needs. Don’t be cheap when it comes to your girl’s potential.”

  Max retrieved the customer’s change from his register before Earl changed his mind. Many people thought that the templates made it all so much easier, but running an art gallery remained a difficult endeavor. The business of the art gallery was nothing like it had been those long decades ago when Max Sievers first accepted his post as curator. His hair had been long and dark then, instead of the gray to which it had faded over the last few years. In the old days, patrons and donors had supplied the bulk of the gallery’s revenue; it had been a time when many judged donations to the arts as a noble charity. But Max had over the decades watched that sentiment turn sour, had watched as charity of any kind became considered something perverse. In the old days, the canvases Max mounted on his gallery walls had been wild and unpredictable; there were always some sentiment expressed in the watercolors and oils. Art could offend. Art could make one sweat from discomfort. Art could sicken. And Art could force introspection. Over the years, however, the gallery’s donors and patrons tired of all the controversy. They wanted to buy esteem with their donations, and they refused to fund works of art that returned their charity with dissension.

  So patrons found other channels for giving. Soon, Max’s gallery, like all the others across the land, struggled to keep its doors open. An artist might wish to dream otherwise, but paints and brushes, canvases and easels, were never freely provided. Max was forced to learn that the paying customer was not the same creature as the art aficionado. Paying customers wished to be pleased with soft palettes. Paying customers did not care to debate existential influences upon a brushed skyline. Paying customers little enjoyed abstraction. In order to earn the coin required to keep their galleries in operation, curators were forced to demand that any artist who aspired to see his or her canvas mounted upon the wall cater to the simpler, more conservative, tastes the paying customer desired.

  Max sighed as he watched the consequences manifest upon the canvases appearing in his gallery. The decades passed, and all the paintings and sculptures faded into simpler things. Max would have a difficult time explaining why his instinct told him the change was not for the better. Perhaps there were more mediums and styles when Max first came to the gallery. It may have been true, that in the old days, no artist was ever the same as the artist who presented before. Perhaps, the gallery had long ago presented a much more diverse array of subjects. There had been a place for nudes, a place still for abstraction, a stage upon which to challenge the notions held in the hearts of those who came to gaze upon the walls. Only, no one cared to pay to see such exhibits.

  Max regretted that he no longer played a part in selecting what his gallery presented upon its walls. A science developed through the years that replaced Max’s subjective judgment. Tidy checklists over-ruled the curator’s preference. The subject matter narrowed until curators, who had devoted so many years in the study of art and style, struggled to distinguish one exhibit apart from the exhibit the gallery housed the prior month. The content was no longer wild. The content was no longer cathartic. But more importantly, no one who ever visited the galleries was offended. It did not matter if a canvas failed to move anyone’s soul.

  The first templates appeared only a few years ago, when Max’s dark hair first started to turn gray. The first template offered outlines of waving flags and screaming eagles, of women in string bikinis straddling heavy motorcycles, of teddy bears, porpoises and kittens. Galleries crowded their gift shops with the latest paint-by-number kits. For a fee, the templates promised anyone who carefully followed directions would become an artist whose work deserved a place upon any gallery’s wall.

  Since the arrivals of the kits, Max’s gallery had not displayed any canvas whose colors were not painted over the black and white outlines of a template. His gallery generated more revenue than ever before, but Max Sievers more and more hated each piece mounted on his building’s walls.

  “There’s your kit, Emma. Just like I promised.” Max heard the frustration in the father’s voice. “You have to promise me to finish each of these templates. I’ve just paid for a place on these walls, Emma, and I want you to promise me you’ll finish these templates so that man behind the register throws us all the party we’ve just paid for.”

  The wife, dressed like the purple grape, beamed a smile at Max. “Do you have any special parties for girls who are Emma’s age?”

  Max’s shoulders slumped. “We hold lots of pizza parties. We had a costume party once. The gallery’s very flexible. We even had a pony one time.”

  Emma danced in glee. “A pony? Oh, I promise I’ll finish each template. I’ll be a great artist!”

  “That’s what I paid for.”

  Max’s heart shriveled as he watched that family stomp out of the gallery. Max wished he had saved enough to retire. He wished a stone, instead of a heart, pumped his blood.

  He hurried out of the gift shop to close the gallery by locking the double, glass doors. It was the last week of the current exhibit. He wished he could feel excited, but Max knew that next week’s exhibit would little differ from what currently hung on the walls.

  The doorbell buzzed and distracted Max from his soulless work.

  “Who would ring now? No one rings after hours.”

  The doorbell buzzed a second time, and Max could not disregard the noise as an echo of his imagination. A deliveryman in a brown uniform waved at Max from the other side of the glass. He usually only came on Tuesdays, and Max wondered what business would bring him to the gallery on a Thursday.

  “Got a real big package for you, Max.”

  “On a Thursday? Nothing’s supposed to arrive on Thursday.”

  The deliveryman shoved a clipboard at Max. “Still need you to sign for it before I can roll it into the gallery.”

  Max scribed his name. His curiosity spiked as he watched the deliveryman grunt and curse as he wrestled to maneuver a tall, thin and wooden crate onto a dolly. Sweat beaded on the deliveryman’s forehead by the time he rolled the package beyond the double doors. The package teetered as the delivery man pulled the dolly out from its weight.

  Max stammered. “What is it?”

  The deliveryman shrugged as he caught his breath.

  “It can’t be one of the templates,” Max spoke. “It’s too large for a template.”

  “I agree, Max. It’s too heavy.”

  “How do I open it?

  “With a crowbar,” the
deliveryman winked. “I’ll just pick it up the next time I’m around.”

  Max pried at the crate the moment the deliveryman’s van roared down the street. He was not handy with any kind of tool. The crowbar slipped, and Max moaned as his knuckles scraped across the crate. Max pried at the nails he found hammered into the crate’s edges. He cursed as he cut himself on a broken, protruding staple. It took more effort and time than anything in that gallery for years had, but, finally, the crate’s facing lid fell forward with a crash upon the floor.

  Max peeked curiously inside. Joy made his eyes water.

  “It’s marvelous.”

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