continued…

I arrived in Sleepytown on a colorful downtown street. The walls and windows of the businesses and residences were clean and brightly lit with sharp clear lights and extravagant color schemes. Large, cartoon-like poster advertisements filled in the various spaces between the buildings. All of the businesses are almost always open. Even during an unusual closing the lights will be left on because it’s always nighttime in Sleepytown. There are times and situations when it seems to be daytime or it looks like there is clearly daylight shinning; but, don’t be misled. That is merely an illusion. I approached a little coffee shop, obtained a hot drink from the vendor and continued on my way.

I was walking down this colorful street drinking my most excellent cappuccino when a man walking the other way handed me a flyer.

“You seem like a man that can appreciate fine art, yes?” he asked.

“Sure. Most definitely.”

“It’s a free pass to the opening of Sleepytown’s newest art gallery. And there’s to be a contest of the best piece displayed. Starts soon. Directions are printed at the bottom.”

With that he turned away from me to hand another flyer to the nearest passerby.

I found my way to the gallery easily. On a corner lot several blocks down the street was a large building with fifty foot three dimensional letters on the roof spelling ART. Upon entering I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff in the place. It looked like every possible spot contained some type of painting, sculpture, display, mosaic, mobile, pottery, photograph and on and on. My senses gradually calmed down to the point that I could assimilate individual objects and I started walking around the gallery with the other people present. The place was surely filled with ‘objects of art’. But I didn’t see anything at all that I thought was amazing or wonderful. As I wandered, I thought about that. I love the idea of art inspiring me but it happens so rarely that sometimes it seems…

My wandering feet and thoughts stopped abruptly as I turned a corner of the gallery and saw a painting on a wall ten feet in front of me.

It was about three feet wide by two feet tall. Its subject was a woman in motion. I could tell she was in an outdoor setting and it was full daylight. That surprised me at first because this painting, like the gallery that housed it, was in Sleepytown. How did the artist know about sunlight?
There was a man standing unobtrusively next to the painting. He had on simple blue slacks a yellow polo-type shirt and was carefully sketching on a large pad of paper. I approached the painting and the man standing next to it.

“Is this yours?” I asked him, pointing at the painting on the wall.

He stopped sketching briefly in order to reply, “Yes, I created it.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Thanks. Glad you appreciate it.” His manner seemed to be one of slightly disinterested curiosity.
“But…” I stopped at a momentary loss.

The man stopped sketching altogether and looked at me. He tilted his head slightly and one eyebrow ebbed up away from his eye. He was discovering I was not just one more passerby nodding indiscriminately at everything in the gallery. He patiently waited for me to finish whatever I was attempting to say. Mostly I was just contemplating the painting trying to figure something out about it that was barely escaping my understanding.

The woman in the painting was stunningly beautiful. She was wearing some kind of flowing garment that wasn’t a dress or a gown. It was more like a toga of sorts, though that didn’t quite describe it either. She had no hat or shoes and her head and feet seemed very fragile and defenseless, though she seemed completely at ease and unconcerned. The bodily curves visible and those suggested made a much more intimate vision of her physicality than if she had been painted totally nude. The sunlight on her skin, her golden hair and on her general surroundings faintly glowed with a hum that seemed audible. My mind started grasping what was initially confusing or disorientating about her. I couldn’t figure out exactly what she was actually doing. It seemed right on the tip of my tongue. But I couldn’t isolate it.

Was she running or jumping? No, it wasn’t that simple. Was she running a track and field event and caught in the moment before she leaped into the air to clear some obstacle? No, no, I couldn’t see anything in the setting that would imply a sports event. Where did I get that notion? Hmmm…somehow, it fit. But was still not quite right. Was she dancing? I don’t know much about dancing but that didn’t look like any type of dance or dance related move. Maybe it was some kind of free form ballet that I had never seen?

I had been determined to figure it out for myself. Finally, though, I turned to the artist and said, “But what is she doing?”

He gave me a small but gracious smile and replied, “She’s enjoying being alive.”

I snapped my fingers and said, “That’s it!”

“Sometimes it’s the easiest thing to overlook,” the artist said.

“It really is wonderful.”

“Well, thanks again.”

“No! I should thank you!” I reached out to shake his hand and he looked a little surprised but took my hand anyway and returned a firm, brief shake.

I wandered around looking at some of the other exhibits but they all seemed a shade too dull or ridiculous after having seen the painting of the woman. I also noticed that none of the other works contained any scenes with or even any reference to sunlight.

A man with an extremely small hat approached me. He was wearing a pair of pants with three legs. The extra, unused pant leg flapped about on his right side. He carried a large electric fan that he held behind himself pointed down at the extra pant leg apparently to cause it to flap about.
In his left hand he carried a gargantuan object of some sort. As he came up to me he thrust the object in my face and said, “Now, look here! This is great art!”

The object in question was as I said absolutely huge. It was amazing that he could hold the damn thing in one hand much less hold it up.

“It must not weigh very much”, I said trying to take it all in.

It was round in some places and squarely block shaped in others. Some parts of it came looping out of hidden recesses, intersected other sections at strange angles, looping back into other hidden spots. Some of the loops simply stopped in mid air as if cut off. Colors seemed to be splashed on at random without regard for even where the strange bulges and loops kind of stopped and started. When the man turned it around for my further inspection I saw that he had a hold of it by some sort of door handle. Once I saw this he turned the handle and with a flick of his wrist the whole gigantic thing swiveled aside on a tiny hinge knocking over ten bystanders.

“Suffer for art my, admirers!” He yelled, “Feel its impact on your pathetic lives!”

All of those that had been struck were sprawled on the floor. Some were unconscious; the rest of them sat up looking dazed. They were bruised, cut and bleeding but that didn’t stop them from applauding.

There was a compartment in the object that was revealed when the door swung open on its hinge. A noxious odor came rolling out of the dark compartment. The sense of smell is particularly strong in certain situations and this was a qualifying one. I had the automatic reaction of squinting my eyes, covering my nose and starting to dry heave.

The man with the extremely small hat and three legged pants handed his fan to a woman standing at his side and said, “Hold this and point it here”, indicating the extra pant leg. Satisfied that she would keep it flapping, he reached into the dark compartment and flipped on a light switch. I could immediately see the source of that rancid smell.

He looked at me very seriously and said in a reverent tone.

“It’s the garbage pail of society overflowing with the decadent and spiritually bankrupt refuse that is science, reason, logic and teeth whitening toothpaste. And I have shed light upon it.”

The curator of the gallery came gliding over with a smirk on his face saying lightly, “I think we have a winner!”

I looked around for the man with the painting I had admired but he was gone. As the applause gradually grew louder and the crowd continued to gather around the winner I left.