Just Like Suicide pt. 13

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[cont.]
One of the clothing boxes was filled with smaller boxes. She didn’t remember packing this one. The contents turned out to be wool sweaters and hand knitted scarves in shades of brown. Teresa found herself hoping for secrets, a bundle of love letters, a diary, keepsakes of a happier time, a memento of her father’s love, a frilly feminine something, and was sad to find nothing. No longing, no dreams, nothing from her father, not even any jewelry beyond a simple gold wedding ring, just utilitarian clothing. Even the floral china was cheap: her mother shopped at a grocery store which gave out a piece from the set free with every purchase over a set amount. Her mother never got a full set before the promotion was discontinued. It was just as well, she had told Teresa, since there were only the three of them.
At the end of the week all that remained were the two boxes containing objects her children wanted and three more for her daughter’s future kitchen. Teresa kept nothing, not even the little pink bowl which brought far more than she had expected on eBay, but her work for the next eighteen months could not escape the strict monochrome grid of neatly stacked boxes.


Twenty Six
Unlike Maggie, Odessa really enjoyed doing studio visits. The few times Maggie tagged along, she invariably got that look she had when she first moved in with them – eyes dancing around avoiding eye contact, hands rammed deep into pockets, slightly hyperventilating. Maggie seemed to think she was supposed to say something meaningful. That’s always nice but most artists just hoped for a gallery director to listen attentively and maybe even smile.
For Odessa, studios provided crucial insight. She positively relished seeing how artists worked, how they organized their paints, what they had on their walls for inspiration. And the surprises – like meticulous paintings did not predict a meticulous studio and vice versa. One of the cleanest studios she had ever visited belonged to a man whose work looked like was created inside a trash can, everything splashed and smushed. All too often the artists with the most expensive and well equipped studios did the least interesting work, like all of their creativity had been funneled into making a professional, impressive space, leaving them with nothing else to accomplish. A fancy space really wasn’t essential at all. One of her favorite artists created tiny little perfect paintings while sitting at her dining room table so it wasn’t the physical size or location of the work space which mattered per se either. It was more about how important art was to the artist. Studios made an artist’s priorities pretty obvious. The studio was the microcosm of the artist’s mind.
Looking at art in person is also critical for understanding it. Seeing art in reproductions is like phone sex. It may be quite pleasurable; however, it’s a very different experience face to face. As Maggie explained it, digital cameras register 256 colors. The human eye, millions. Not even close to being a comparable experience.
While most of the galleries in LA trolled for artists at the local art schools, nabbing the talent before graduation, Odessa preferred working with more mature artists. Someone who had continued to work for at least five years after graduation had a large investment in the profession. Five years of work meant that art making was not about sliding through school on gumption. Five years indicated commitment and perseverance. If Odessa expended energy and resources promoting an artist, she wanted some assurances of commitment. Equally importantly, it generally took time for an artist to find a voice. Still, she was always willing to look.
Today she had two visits scheduled. One, a newcomer to the area, she had contacted after seeing two of his small paintings in a large group show in a novelties store. The other was by way of referral. They, of course, lived on opposite ends of town.
An artist she represented, Paula, effusively recommended Kay who had graduated the spring before. Kay was a bit older, a single mother with a son who appeared to be about seven from the glimpse Odessa got of him as Kay guided her through the house to the studio area. They lived in a nice stucco cottage in San Pedro with a very spacious front room with large north facing windows. The bowed condition of the couch would look familiar to anyone with an active, spoiled child. The pale ocher walls were completely empty except for abundant scuffing along the baseboard and what looked like toy car skid marks higher up. Nothing in the house indicated that an artist lived here. Odessa had to wade through mounds of toy soldiers and brightly colored plastic building blocks, past two large bedrooms to reach the studio, a tiny bedroom in the rear of the house. The room was more like a large closet, barely even eight feet square, a claustrophobic’s nightmare. Its one skimpy excuse for a window was covered with a thick beige blanket, letting in next to no light. Floodlights clamped into the corners of the room provided a deadened luminosity to the painted squares hanging not quite straight on the walls. Crooked installation was one of Odessa’s pet peeves. In three seconds all of these could be level. This absence of professional pride wasn’t a deal killer, but it was a warning sign.
The work itself mirrored the cramped space. Kay did small simplified geometric abstractions reduced to shades of taupe and dull grey. To Odessa’s eye, they were designed for corporate offices. Bland, empty, and inoffensive. Not bad technically, not new. LA had dozens of artists, New York had hundreds who worked similarly in a different palette. These were as uninteresting in person as they had been in reproductions.
Usually artists offered water or even something fancier to ease into a conversation about the work. Kay offered nothing, not even a conversation or a smile. No small talk at all. It was a novel experience being around a silent artist. Odessa walked in, looked at the paintings up close while Kay stood mute by the doorway to the tiny room. No sketches, no announcements from other shows, no inspirational images anywhere, no art books or magazines, just a little easel in one corner and a small table with tubes of paint in a shoe box on top. Odessa broke the silence by asking if any contemporary artists did work which inspired her. Kay replied, “Not really.” So Odessa followed up by inquiring which artists from the past were her favorites, trying to launch a conversation to get an idea of why this work was different from all the others in the same style. Kay said, “No one in particular.”

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