The Wages, An Illustrated Story | 23. Songs and Parables | Unearthly Skies
I felt like I was falling into the blank paintings, or floating up into unearthly skies that were lit by mysterious gasses, and releasing my existence to some unknowable fate. I stared into the art for a bit. Some of the paintings had a single blob of the same colour somewhere in them, like a squeeze of toothpaste, an irregularity in the emptiness. I stared at one little blob, and I felt strangely sympathetic or affectionate to it. It looked so alone in the emptiness. The paintings without a blob started to bother me more in the context of the ones that had them.
“It’s fascinating,” I said to the artist. “So many colours, but only one colour in each painting. I like to look at a few of the paintings at a time. Each is challenging, but all together they’re intense. It’s hypnotic.” I hoped I wasn’t saying something wrong.
“Thank you,” the artist replied, “I don’t know if I made a mistake bringing them here, but I made this idea part of a grant application, and I got the grant. But not too many people are looking at the paintings or talking to me. I didn’t really expect to sell any, but I wanted to bring my art to the people. It’s a little frustrating.”
“It can be daunting, showing yourself,” I said.
“Hey, that music you were just playing in the festival. That was lively. And here I thought country music was just for the types who live in trailer parks.” I paused for a second.
“I lived in a trailer park for a while, with my sister and my parents,” I said.
“Oh! I’m sorry!” she replied, “I don’t have the greatest apartment myself. I apologize; I don’t mean it to reflect on how you lived.”
“Uh huh,” I said flatly, “Don’t worry about it.”
“Your family should have been given proper housing, then you wouldn’t have had to live in undignified ways.”
“Yeah. Thanks. I get it,” I said. I wished she would stop, but it seemed like she was just getting started. Maybe I should have let the trailer comment go. I found myself trying to review what I had said about her paintings, to see if any of it was something insulting or stupid, that might have made her want to keep getting digs in at me.
But the next thing she said was, “All of us artists and musicians should come together, and we could take over and build a better world.”