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{chairs in air} ann tinkham Chairs in Air In a fit of fury, she pulled off her tattered, paint-splotched overalls and unbraided her hair. Charlie stood completely naked in her closet, wishing she could go missing for the next few hours. She forced her blonde wavy hair into an up-do that would embarrass Jacoby, her self-appointed style consultant and agent, and threw on a short black dress and ballerina shoes to match. People expected or at least weren’t shocked when artists were nonplussed, anarchic and chaotic. As she walked over to her vanity, pulling spirally wisps out of her up-do, she thought about how much she despised gala openings. The posers, critics, artist wannabes and minor celebs came out in droves to see and be seen with her work as a backdrop to the drama of their lives. Mostly, people were looking for cultured people to sleep with. Why, she didn’t know. In her experience, cultured people made the worst lovers. Give her a truck driver, carpenter, fire fighter, or cop any day. The glasses gave it away. The more self-conscious the frames, the worse the sexual experience. Too many colors and the guy was a premature ejaculator. Retro classic and the man couldn’t get it up. Rimless and the owner was pasty, doughy and a lazy lover. Preppy and only one position worked for him—doggy style. The only glasses that indicated sexual promise were the whatever-I’ll-take-those frames. This guy was too engrossed in life to care what framed his eyes. He was looking out on the world, not in on himself. It was a convenient screening system that Charlie had never revealed to anyone. And in Manhattan, it eliminated almost everyone, which was why she was still single. In her version of a glasses frame universe, the entire island of Manhattan was either climaxing too quickly, malfunctioning, lazily getting off, or stuck in a sexual rut. The thing Charlie dreaded the most about openings was having to explain and dissect her art, searching for psycho-socio-cultural-anthropological underpinnings and themes that didn’t exist. She could never say, “I have no fucking idea why I created a five-story chair out of discarded chairs.” But that was the truth. She had no fucking idea why. Before these events, she always fantasized about running through the crowd with their precious Merlots and mini-crudités, screaming, “This piece is artistic purging. It’s nothing more than psychic vomit!” But instead she said things like, “The refrigerators used in Refrigerator Art symbolize our inability to truly feed ourselves. This probably makes you feel empty, hungry for something more—right? Refrigerators store our food; they’re central to our lives, yet, we abandon them when they no longer serve us. Just like our souls.” Sipping Merlot and staining her carefully bleached teeth, the everywoman art connoisseur nodded and said, “Mmm-mm, yes, yes, I see. Brilliant.” Charlie knew they never really saw. Charlie had waited until the last minute to come up with her artistic interpretation of Chairs in Air. As she rode the subway to Central Park, she would conjure up some deconstructionist drivel. The subway was an urban Petrie dish for imploding intellectual masturbatory diatribes. # As Charlie hung onto the train’s safety railing and stared blankly at the concrete tunnel rushing past, she rehearsed, “I developed a deconstructivist form of historical narrative through which we might engage critically with questions of ethico-cultural value. The chair, you see, is the gateway to civilization. By elevating the chairs and stacking them one upon another, I articulate the building blocks of civilization.” The only problem with initiating this conversation was if someone continued the dialogue, she would have nothing more to add. “Off to mingle,” she’d say as she offered a pairing of I’m-the-busy-and-important-artist smile and shrug. The other thing that helped her get through these bug-in-a-jar experiences was to drink just a little too much. If she became visibly drunk, her funding sources would malign her and refuse to fund future installations. So, tipsy was her goal. Her phone rang. It was her agent—a nervous twit of a man with frameless glasses—worrying that she had forgotten about the opening. “Of course I didn’t forget, Jacoby. What do you take me for—a twit?” It was too late. She had twit on her mind so what she thought of him slipped out. “I know I may have done twitty things in the past, but I’m past twit now.” He told her that twitty wasn’t a word, and missing her last show, Blender Bender, was inexcusable. “Oh for God’s sake, Jacoby, haven’t we gotten past Blender Bender? I’ll be there in…” She looked at her watch. The opening had already started. It would take her fifteen more minutes to get to the 96th Street stop at Central Park. “In five minutes.” It was a lie, but she didn’t want the wimpy wrath of Jacoby. Give her full-strength wrath any day, but feeble wrath made her cringe. Jacoby squealed and said she’d better make it snappy or the NEA would pull. That’s what he always said to scare her. She was starting to see the NEA as an artistic Third Reich. The attendees were milling about Central Park at the base of Chairs in Air. They looked like inconsequential devotees worshipping the mighty God of Chairs. And if the God came tumbling down—chair by chair--the followers would be smashed in the act of devotion. To ensure the stability of the installation, the NEA required an inspection with a mountain of documents for everyone to sign. Art as bureaucracy. Like a heat-seeking missile, Jacoby spotted her the minute she set foot in the area. He was looking grim and disappointed. “I don’t have words to describe how wrong this is.” He whisked her over to the NEAers in chic suits and long rectangular glasses. “She’s here!” In an instant, he had gone from grim to gay, which he was, and ass kicking to ass licking, which he did. “Ah-ha, our artiste des chaise!” said, Bibi, the female NEAer in an owning class kind of way, daintily offering her hand followed by two air kisses. Charlie availed her cheeks and then dipped in a faux curtsy. “It’s going smashingly, Charlotte! Ah, but you need some bubbly.” Bibi snapped her fingers in the air and magically a caterer appeared with a tray of flutes. Charlie didn’t wait for the caterer to pluck a flute from the tray; she helped herself to not one but two glasses of bubbly. “Ha ha, Charlotte,” said Jacoby. “Silly girl, you needn’t have gotten one for me.” “I didn’t,” said Charlie, throwing her head back, downing the champagne in one gulp, and putting the empty glass on the tray. “It’s for me.” “Silly girl,” Jacoby said again, offering eye contact as apology to all the NEAers who were nursing their own bubbly flutes. “Charlie is so grateful for your support without which…” Jacoby lifted his glass to Chairs in Air. “This wouldn’t have been possible. Right Charlotte? I propose a toast.” Charlotte nodded mid-swig, pretending to see someone important off in the distance. “If you’ll excuse me.” Jacoby trailed, giving her an earful about her childish behavior toward the NEA. She approached a guy with wild auburn locks, a soul patch, and glasses atop his head. Damn! She couldn’t made a quick on-the-spot assessment. She grabbed him by the arm and said, “Pretend we’re having a deep personal conversation.” “Um, okay.” She pulled him closer and although his eyes were saying “crazy,” his body obeyed. “Jacoby, not a good time,” she said as she waved him away behind her back. Jacoby kept moving but admonished her with his eyes. “Sorry, um…” “Noah.” “Sorry, Noah. Charlie. I’m running…” “From the law?” “Oh, no, nothing like that. Running from my agent and the NEA.” “That’s a new one. Most people would kill to have the NEA pursuing them. Why?” “Oh, I’m the artist and they funded this and I was going to have to explain myself, my art, my reason for being, and infuse meaning into their luxuriously dull lives. Frankly, I’m not in the mood. I need more champagne.” Charlie snapped her fingers, but no one came. How was it that even the caterers knew the guest list? Clearly they knew she was one of them. Noah chuckled. “Maybe it would be faster if I went to fetch some for us.” “Okay, but don’t leave me alone for long, pleeease.” Just as Noah left, a flute tray floated by. Charlie took two glasses and downed them both in a few seconds flat. “That bad, huh?” said the flute carrier. “You have no idea,” said Charlie. With that, she realized that her tips-o-meter had tipped past tipsy. Her Chairs in Air had become a living, breathing entity, swaying against the Manhattan skyline. A whimsical, wispy, willowy woman approached Charlie with her finger in the air, looking as if she were testing the wind for sailing. “You must be the artist!” “Yes, that’s me!” Charlie steadied herself and prepared for a long-winded discourse on the evolution of found objects as art. “Well I just had to find you and tell you what an absolute waste of time and money I think this project is. It’s an eyesore to have a mountain, no a heap, of dilapidated chairs littering Central Park. To call this art is abominable, simply an outrage! In all my years as an art collector and connoisseur, I’ve never seen anything so, so offensive to the Manhattan cityscape. Never, ever! If I could, I would supervise the dismantling of this debacle at once.” “And your name is?” “Sari.” “Listen, Sarah…” “Sari.” “As in the Indian dress, sari?” “No, as in how I feel about coming to this event.” “Sari, you’re entitled to your opinion, of course. But don’t you see that these chairs are a de...”Charlie hiccupped. “constructivist form of historical narrative through which we might engage critically with questions of ethico-cultural value?” Hiccup. “The chair, you see, is the g-g-g...” Hiccup. “Gateway to civilization. By elevating the chairs and stacking them one upon another, I art...” Hiccup. “iculate the building blocks of civilization.” The hiccups were coming fast and furiously now. Noah showed up balancing three glasses of champagne with two hands after she delivered her rehearsed art-o-babble. If she had been sober, she would have recognized that the hiccups detracted from or even rendered her speech ineffectual. A bony pointed finger came at Charlie. Trying to focus on it made her cross-eyed and a tad dizzy. “You have no idea what this is or why you created it. Further, you have no reason to believe anyone will care or understand why it’s taking up space. It’s not art. Art is a thing of beauty or intrigue that prompts one to see the world differently through a new set of eyes. It opens up dimensions not previously accessible. This is a pile of rubbish, pure and simple,” spouted Sari. She retracted her bony finger. Although Charlie put on an act of detached toughness, this acerbic diatribe cut into her like a figurative sculptor’s knife in wet clay, preparing to extract her heart and soul. Before the surgical removal was carried out, she reached over, grabbed a glass of champagne from Noah and threw it into Sari’s face. Sari froze between flight and fight. Then grimly, she added, “I’ll see to it that you never exhibit in New York again...” Glancing at her program, she finished, “Charlotte Bertrand.” And arranging her hair and face, she dramatically peered up at Chairs in Air, glared at Charlie, shook her head in disgust and stormed off in her dainty summer flats. “You wasted a good glass of champagne,” said Noah in an attempt at levity. Charlotte was trembling and tears were streaming down her stoic face. Noah offered her a glass of champagne. She shook her head. “I can’t hold my liquor. I should have never started. It’s just that I hate these things, but attendance is required as part of the legal stipulations of the contract. The undersigned must be in attendance at the opening of the aforementioned exhibit to field questions about the artistic process, media, and significance of the piece as a contribution to modern art. Blah, blah, blah.” “Hey, don’t be hard on yourself. That stuff hurts. Really hurts.” She looked up at him through wet lashes, nodding, and said, “You know?” “God, yes. Hurts to the core.” And placed his fist on his heart. Wow. A man who knew where his heart was. “You an artist, too?” “Nope, eco-warrior. But we get our share of impassioned protesters.” “Oh, a save the Earth super-hero.” “Yep.” “Have you done it yet?” “God, no. Long way to go, if ever.” “Do you live in trees slated for deforestation, preach to people about carbon footprints and shame people into recycling? That kind of stuff?” “Something like that. Listen, I think your Chairs are genius—a genius improvisation, amalgamation, and compilation of the downfall of society.” Charlie laughed, “You got that out of that?” pointing up at the sculpture. “Chairs are the downfall of society?” She erupted in laughter. “You bet! Not only do they promote stagnation and vegetation, they also kill the imagination.” “You’re really into the ‘tions’. Aren’t you?” “Not at all my intention.” Although they both knew it was cheap entertainment, they laughed anyway. “Hey, listen, I want to show you something,” Charlie said, moving away from the milling crowd. “Can Madame Artiste leave the premises?” “The artiste has done enough damage for one opening. Don’t you think?” She grabbed him by the arm and guided him over to a stand of trees that hid the world from view. Then she pulled his head to hers and kissed him deeply, her tongue playing with his lips, tongue and mouth. A surge swept from her heart to her pelvis and she shoved her hand into his pants. “But Charlie...” “Doesn’t matter.” She elevated her leg to open herself up for him. He unzipped and plunged deeply into her, not off-balance by the awkwardness of the standing pose. They bent their knees slightly as they thrust to meet the other. Her moans were muffled and low, but as he grew stiffer and their pace quickened, her moaning crescendoed and danced around the scale. She tilted and rotated her pelvis in such a way that made his climactic moan upstage hers. She dropped her leg as if nothing had happened and kissed him quickly. He looked like he didn’t know what hit him. “Eco-boy, I needed that.” she cried out as she pulled him back toward the opening. He was hastily tucking and buckling and straightening. “Shit. I have no idea what that was. I’m not complaining. But I have no idea what that was.” She leaned over, nibbled his ear, and whispered, “Eco-boy just got laid. Now let me see your glasses.” Charlie pulled them over his eyes. |
