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| Presidents and Friends at Coagula |
Mat met them at the entrance and guided them past security guards and baby strollers to his gallery's booth. Eleanor noticed familiar artworks, including, 2 assemblage chairs by Matjames Metson and paintings by Mark Dutcher. Tim Youd was there at his typewriter copying, The Big Sleep, the latest novel in his series of diptychs. Chauncey asked Tim if copying great novels made him want to write and Tim admitted, hesitantly, like all authors, that he did write, as though it were an embarrassing habit to keep secret. Eleanor understood completely. As they turned the corner, they saw three fanciful, alluring, provocative women's panties, sculpted drawings by Leigh Salgado, Mat's wife and Eleanor's longtime friend. Paradise was Eleanor's favorite while Chauncey favored Man Eater.
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| Paradise, Leigh Salgado |
Chauncey and Eleanor ventured away from the safety of Coagula's booth to discover other great artists that, perhaps, Mat did not know of yet. It was hard to see the art with the crowds of people carrying plastic cups of white wine wandering slowly along the narrow pathways in and around the white booths. They did notice what they both referred to as arpilleras but what the artist, Chris Roberts-Antieau, called appliques. These were humorous pieces which reminded Eleanor of Roz Chast cartoons. Seeing all the white wine made Eleanor thirsty so they waited in line for a bottle of water behind a young man with glasses and ponytail who methodically ordered 2 white wines, 2 whiskeys and a bottle of water. Eleanor wondered how he was going to navigate his way through the fair with so much liquid.
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| Holy Stains and Apparitions, Chris Roberts-Antieau |
Suddenly, they found themselves in the "Traditional" section and immediately noticed a square of black curtains behind which were four carefully lit Van Goghs. Though Eleanor was tempted to linger, Chauncey reminded her that they were here to see contemporary art and so they moved along. They were quite pleased when they stumbled upon two collages by Louise Nevelson, having been lured into a booth by paintings which looked like they were done by Richard Diebenkorn but, in fact, were not.
They stopped in front of red curtains and took photos of each other promising to replace their facebook profile pictures with these more current ones. Eleanor spent quite a bit of time getting Chauncey to smile. He insisted he wanted a serious photo but he just ended up looking scary.
Mat was busy scoping out potential buyers when Eleanor and Chauncey returned. Inspired themselves to buy art from their favorite gallery owner but without the deep pockets for a Tim Youd or Leigh Salgado, they looked again at the farcical depictions of presidents by Curtis Lemieux and chose the one of Andrew Jackson with a big fro. They thought about Chauncey's novel, influenced by how Indians once lived on this continent, and hoped for change.
