Brush Strokes
By
Jerry Kalman
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Jerry Kalman
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
“How do you know the artist used Kolinsky sable brushes?”
The museum’s neo-modern arts curator looked down the bridge of his long, pock-marked nose at the assemblage of art students and stared at the fresh young face of the woman who asked the question. Starting with a sniff meant to show disdain for her impertinence, he responded in a low and menacing tone, liking the sound as each word distinctly spoken caromed around the room: “He told me.”
An icy blanket of silence hung over the gallery as Winston Funstermann Cooper barely scanned the audience over the tops of their heads, a gesture he always used to thwart further questions. Interruptions, I hate interruptions, especially about tools. Why don’t they ever ask about artists’ intent or the gestalt of the times that affected how the paint went on the canvas or any of a million other items that get into the minds of the great contributors we work so hard to assemble for them. Hmmf. Students these days. Perpetual sophomores, or worse. Ill-prepared by their instructors for the rigors of the profession.
“Other questions?” The roll of his eyes and tilt of his head toward the right shoulder sent a “Don’t ask” signal to the students.
No one spoke.
“There being nothing else,” he slowly lowered his gaze and looked down into the prettier faces, opened his mouth in a provocative way and added after giving them a four-beat chance to speak, “this completes our discussion for today. Thank you for attending the preview for my showing of the last works lovingly painted by Robinson Meloan, a leading light in the art world’s newest movement, Neo Modernism.” He pulled his right hand from the suit coat pocket and pointed elegantly toward the entrance to the gallery, an imperious gesture designed to wave the 20 students out into the museum’s rotunda. To make sure no one misinterpreted that he finished with them, Winston F. Cooper turned his back on the students and leaned over to study an intricate detail in one of Meloan’s oil paintings.
When he heard the last feet shuffle through the arch that separated the recently named Neo Modern Wing from the main portion of the Museum of Contemporary Artists, he tapped the toe of his right foot behind his left heel and pivoted military style to leave. The presence of one person, seated on the hard marble bench in the middle of the room, stopped him. Without making eye-contact, Winston, known to his colleagues as WiFuC, tilted his head back to raise a dimpled chin as he strode toward the outer area of the museum, somewhat embarrassed at someone seeing him do that smart about-face.
“You’re an asshole, Winston, and you know it.” The sepulchral voice sounded vaguely familiar. It, more than words, stopped him. “Where do you get off talking down to those impressionable young artists, some of whom might be talented enough to lead the next great movement in contemporary art?”
Winston’s jaw slackened and his lips quivered as he recognized first the hollow voice and then the presence of the recently deceased Robinson Meloan.
“And for the record, you supercilious toad, you never asked me about what brushes I used.” The semi-opaque man rose and Winston guessed Meloan had on the same clothes he wore when the heart attack felled him. With no one in his studio to help at the time, Robinson Meloan died quietly at the age of 48; and most of the art community mourned his passing.
“Is this some kind of a trick? Robinson, you’re dead; not real; not here.”
“Winston, it’s no trick. I am here, in a way.”
“Why? How?”
“Unfinished business.”
“What kind, Robinson?” Some composure returned to Winston, but not enough for him to display the arrogance he showed others throughout the art professions.
“I’ll get into that later, but for now I need your help. Are you up to that?” Meloan’s voice lost its deep intonations as he looked about the gallery and leaned closer to Winston in an intimate way.
Winston recoiled, a surge of fear ran through him. “Well, Robinson, I guess so; but how do I know you’re really here and this is not …”
“Allergic reaction to the drugs you take every day, Winston?”
“Well, no; that’s not what I meant.”
“Winnie, suspend disbelief in anything not of your creation or manifestation for a moment and go with me.” Meloan waited for a reply.
The long pause made Winston nervous as the idea that he talked to a deadman registered in his consciousness. “I still don’t believe …”
“Winston F. Cooper, that’s always been one of your problems, not believing in something outside your normal frame of reference. I don’t know how you made it so long and so far in the art world with such narrow, self-serving blinders on.”
“Is that how you saw me, Robinson?”
“Ah, we get to the crux of Winston Funkerstein Cooper.”
“That’s Funstermann, Winston Funstermann Cooper.”
“Right, Winnie, old boy. I think until the day you do as I have …”
“Die. Pass on.”
“Yeah, kick off. Until the day you pull off the big sleep you’ll be more concerned with the way you enter than how you exit. Or should I say exist?”
“Get on with it, Robinson. What do you want of me?” I don’t have to put up with nonsense from a ghost, even if we’ve done a retrospective with his work, some of which we took from a private collection … well, better minds than his have lost at this game.
“I can’t think of anyone I know, rather, knew, who’d act as indifferent as you in the face of a supernatural being, Winnie. I’ve really got to give you an award, which I know you cherish, for reverting to type in a moment like this.”
“Are you, the Jacob Marley of has-been artists?” He sneered.
“Winnie, Winnie, Winnie.”
“Don’t call me that, Robbie.”
“OK, I’ll get to the point. When I checked out …”
A guard making his rounds distracted Winston, interrupting Robinson. When Winston nodded to the guard and waved him on with the back of his hand, he looked back to where Robinson sat, discovering no one there. “Robbie, where are you?”
“Here. Where are you, Winnie?”
“Same place, I think. In the gallery, where your work hangs.” He looked furtively around and saw no sign of Robinson in the room. “I don’t see you, Robinson.”
“Look into my work, Winnie.” The voice echoed in the room.
“Which one?” Panic laced his voice as he scanned the gallery where a dozen large canvases spanned three unbroken walls. Above and on the main back wall, the staff neatly stenciled a quote from Robinson Meloan, personally selected by Winston Cooper: “Artists leave bits and pieces of their soul in every work they produce. Some pieces absorb more of this exhaustible resource and others take less. In the end, we look to our patrons and paladins to provide the keys that allow those portions of our being to re-emerge.”
“All of them, you turkey, just like the legend over these pieces says.” His laughter roared through the gallery.
Winston looked nervously toward the entry, expecting the guard to return.
“Only you can hear me, Winnie, so don’t get nervous.”
An oppressive silence followed and Winston felt sweat soak his starched white shirt beneath the dark brown suit jacket and vest. As the collar dampened, it started to itch. He ran a finger around the margin for relief.
“Maybe that was a gratuitous suggestion, Winnie.” The voice started at the painting on Winston’s far left and travelled across the exhibit, trailing off with his name, echoing on the far right.
“Hmm, first time I’ve done that, Winnie. Let me try it again. I like it. Only this time I’ll go slower, quoting me as you so kindly daubed on the wall above.” The voice started on the right and moved to the left, slower, each isolated thought within the three sentences coming from the next painting. “Adds a new dimension to a display of an artist’s body …” he paused and chuckled before continuing …”of work. Maybe you should figure out a way to do that for other artists.”
“Robbie, I have things to do today. My calendar is …”
“Empty. I checked, Winnie, so don’t try to fill me with your pomposity. Now, if you’ll step a little closer so I don’t have to shout to get your attention, I’ll tell you what I want of you.” Robinson’s voice came from the painting closest to Winston.
“What do you want of me?” Winston enunciated each word, his voice raised half an octave by the end of the sentence, as he closed the gap between the bench where Robinson launched his dialog and the four-foot by five-foot painting directly under the words “some pieces absorb”. For more than a minute, which seemed like hours, Winston waited, a fear of what might be asked gnawed at the bottom of his solar plexus. The soggy collar tightened. He wanted to unbutton his shirt beneath the full Windsor knot he took so long to tie before leaving for work. When a foot from the painting, he stopped and looked around the gallery, making sure no one entered, and then peered into Meloan’s work, a complex piece composed of intricate intersecting lines and shapes, all in muted earth tones.
Robinson remained silent for another minute. Winston turned and saw a gallery staffer hurry by, apparently en route from the main entrance to the executive offices.
“Robbie, I’m waiting.”
“Then wait.” He sounded impatient. “The moment is not right. Cool it, there, Winnie.” More silence, followed by carefully chosen words, barely audible to Winston. “OK, Winnie, lean closer please so I don’t have to shout and wake up the dead."
“Drop the ironic clichés, Robbie, and get on with this. Even though my calendar is clear, I’ve got work to do.” Winston turned sideways, his ear close to the surface of the art. He remained upright, not bending an inch.
“Closer, Winnie, please come closer.” He whispered in the soft way lovers do when increasing intimacy.
Winston rolled his eyes as he edged toward the wall and the painting.
“Thank you, Winnie.”
Winston rotated his wrist to get Robinson to hurry.
“Winnie, I know this should come as a shock to you; what I’m about to will positively affect the very reputation of the Museum of Contemporary Artists, and even yours too.”
Winston mulled over Robinson’s comment, still anxious for him to get the crux of the matter. What on earth could he have done to affect my reputation? Or do now, especially since he’s dead, a condition I’m becoming more and more thankful for. Part of the reason that half-baked twit was scheduled in here was a posthumous gesture to the local art community, anyway.
“Two of the works hanging on this very wall are unfinished.”
“What do you mean, Robbie? Unfinished? How? They all look fine to me.” He nervously scanned the gallery wall, taking several steps back from the painting where he imagined Robinson hid.
“Winnie, this is more than a thing of pride to me."
“Robbie, I don’t get it. Some of these pieces you did a few years back. How can they be unfinished? What else would you have had to do, anyway? Which ones are …” he looked furtively up and down the wall again, pointing to each one in turn as he studied it from the center of the hall … “I can’t see any canvas showing through, no exposed gesso; all are framed for museum presentation. I don’t get it, Robbie. What are you saying?”
“Let me get to my demise and then work back, Winnie. When I checked out a few weeks back, my assistant neglected to go through all my files, in particular those on my computer. There’s a document in there that has each work documented and flags that indicate status. Once those files are opened …”
“What makes you think someone will open those files?” He walked back toward the wall, failing to discern any incomplete portions of any piece.
“My estate is going through probate.”
“You didn’t have a will.”
“No, but that’s neither here nor there, Winnie. When the court requests documents and other artifacts of my life because I am, er, rather, was prominent, someone has to assign a value to my notes, sketches, you know, that kind of thing. And, as in almost every family, there are some who think they’re more entitled to things than others. You know how it goes in family squabbles, especially in the art world.” He paused. “You do know about these things, don’t you, Winnie?”
“Of course I do, Robbie. I deal with estates all the time, trying for living artists to leave part of their oeuvre to us here at the museum.” He thought about what he said, and followed with: “By the way, Robbie, why didn’t you specify us to receive your collection, or part of it?”
“Wondered when you’d get to that, Winnie. Let’s leave that aside for a moment.” He lowered his voice, Winnie moving closer to hear. “In my notes, I make it very clear and specific that the two paintings with missing elements are …”
At that moment, noisy children rushed in the rotunda and then spilled over into the gallery where Winnie stood hunched against the wall.
Winston wanted to shoo the class of students and their teacher out, but knew he couldn’t; and in disgust he retreated from the wall and sat on the bench in the middle of the room, shaking his head. Damn the luck, but maybe this is a good thing. I can use the time to analyze what he was saying and perhaps negotiate a deal for the museum. That would set me up with the executive director and the board for life if I can get some of Meloan’s work here permanently. Of course, how you do that with a ghost could be tricky, but if he can talk to me this way, there must be something else he can do to effect us as beneficiaries.
The thought trailed off as the class swarmed throughout the gallery, the material so obtuse that they flowed out almost as quickly as they came in, the teacher and his aide at the rear as they sped into the next hall.
“Well, Robbie, see how you impact young minds?” He approached the painting.
Robinson did not answer, the gallery remained silent. Winston tried to speak to several different paintings but nothing came back, and when a guard drifted by on his rounds, Winston gave up and returned to his office, confused.
Winston made several trips over the following week into the gallery, but, with no sign of Robinson’s presence there or elsewhere in the museum, he decided to visit the dead artist’s studio and talk to the assistant managing Meloan’s body of work. Having attended receptions at Meloan’s studio when he unveiled new work, Winston drove to the address on file for the artist.
A tall, attractive young woman Winston guessed in her mid-30s answered the door. He presented his business card and asked to spend a few minutes with her “about the condition of Mr. Meloan’s final pieces hanging at the Museum of Contemporary Artists.”
“I’ve heard of you, Mr. Cooper. Many times you were mentioned by Robbie in conversation, so please do come in and let’s get started. My name is Pearl, Pearl Ring. I am, was, an intern and then major domo for Robbie over the past five years.” Her formal manner made it difficult for Winston to detect any feelings she might have for Meloan. She stepped aside to let him enter the cavernous entry room Meloan used for the main portion of his studio. Winston estimated the second floor housed the private part of the residence, the first floor the studio, reception room and kitchen and the basement for art storage.
They walked through the studio to a spacious office adjacent to the kitchen.
“Robbie rarely came in here, so what you see is my contribution to his body of work and the many programs he had going for showings, you know, the business side of an accomplished artist’s life.” Pearl directed Winston to a well-used easy chair near her desk. When he sat down, springs gave and he sank further than anticipated.