Artist at the Arts Fair

Robert Kirkpatrick's stories are designed to be more or less stand-alone, so you don't need to have read any of the others to enjoy them, but they do form a loose narrative line. Feel free to read this one right off, or try Artist in the Park first.

These stories aren't romances, and they are hardly meant to be realistic. I aim for the plausibly ridiculous. Enjoy.

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Artist at the Arts Fair

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On Wednesday, I packed my van for that week's art show and headed out early. It was a long drive south. With fall settling in up in my part of the country, the remaining outdoor shows of the year were in cities where the weather was still reliably nice... usually. I packed sweaters just in case.

I left my current commission on its easel in my studio, an enormous, full-length nude of the client herself. I took one last look at it before leaving. Even after working on it for a least an hour most days for two weeks, it still daunted me how much detail remained to be fleshed out over 32 square feet of canvas. I shook my head in thought at Sophia.

Somehow, the process of the initial sitting for that portrait had led the two of us to hours upon hours of the hottest, sweatiest sex I could remember experiencing in a long time. Possibly the best I'd ever had. In the moment, I had been sure it was. Some combination of our kinks, some congealing of chemistry had driven us both wonderfully mad.

I shook my head at the memory and hit the road. It was a seven hour drive. I would not see or work on the nude again for about twelve days, as I had two consecutive shows near to each other down in that region, and was not about to drive all the way back home after the first week just to grab a change of underwear and turn right back around. Sophia had told me she was in Europe for a deal for the next month anyway, so I was not hurried.

I most sincerely hoped that she would want to fuck me again when I unveiled the finished work in her place in New York. I kind of expected that she would, honestly. That expectation was not any kind of entitlement on my part, just a simple, sublime projection.

There was no way on Earth that she and I would become a couple, though. Our lives, our worlds were different. I was in no mood to complicate my intentionally bachelor existence. I needed solitude most days, professionally and personally. I like people, but I am by nature a lone wolf. And I was dead-bone certain that Sophia had no interest or intention of letting a relationship or family impede her rise to power and success. Good for her.

I was equally confident, though, that if our sexual chemistry was as good for her as it was for me, we would find ways to be in the same city from time to time.

My van wobbled as I jerked it back into the lane from which I had drifted. I banished thoughts of Sophia (mostly) from my mind. Examining the curves of her body in my head was making for very distracted driving, and I had missed the curve in the road I was on! I concentrated on safety, speed enforcement avoidance, and the way the fall colors in the foliage faded back to green as I sped toward my destination.

I arrived far too late in the evening at my motel. I had been derailed at lunchtime by a lone, gnarled tree in of all places a McDonald's parking lot by an off-ramp. Its shape haunted me all through my Quarter Pounder, and I sat in my passenger seat with my small pad and compulsively sketched that tree. It was not a waste of time, I had realized as the piece took shape. It would be, when I had time to finish it, possibly at night in my various motel rooms over this trip, a beautifully quirky addition to my catalog. It was unlikely to be colorful enough to bother making lithographs of, but small matted prints of it would sell well to younger customers who needed something to stand out in their first apartment for 35 bucks, give or take.

*

The first morning of an outdoor show was always the worst. It began with the earliest of wakeups, a stop at Starbucks for an extra large coffee with oat milk and their little omelette bites, and then getting to the location early to set up my tent/pavilion so I could display my work. I have an unhealthy addiction to those egg bites. Unhealthy for my pocketbook.

This show was one of the better ones for set up, because my spot on the sidewalk overlooking the river was diagonally across from the space reserved for one Kylie Farrier. Kylie is a sculptor, and she and I exhibit at the same shows quite often. Luck of the draw had us neighbors this time. Given that proximity, by unspoken agreement, we helped each other erect our shelters for our booths. It made the work easier and faster for both of us.

I even had time to help her wrestle some of her taller pieces out of the stupidly large van she owns to transport her stuff. How her diminutive, five foot tall frame produces some of those soaring aluminum abstract works that are her signature is always beyond me.

As we toted one of her biggest down the short embankment from the parking lot and over to her space, Kylie looked behind her to negotiate a curb then watched out for me as I did the same. "So, Todd," she said slyly. "You always say you like the trip down this way. Girls prettier here than back home? I'll bet you have a sitting lined up in the evenings for one of those noodie pics you hang up in your Special Alcove we just erected."

"I very much hope so, Kylie. What time do you think you could be showered after we close up today?" I countered with a lightly leering smile.

"Ha!" my friend laughed. "No chance! Your work is like a photograph. Can you imagine, having every person who wanders through your booth and then comes over to mine, suddenly realizing when they see me that they know what I look like naked?" she scoffed back with a wink.

I looked at Kylie. At shows, she always wear what seems like sculptor's working clothes--a baggy pair of faded denim overalls with scorch marks and a big hole or two on the knees or legs, with a tattered old sleeveless white undershirt beneath. It was a costume, of course. I happened to know that she worked in a heavy cotton duck jumpsuit with full sleeves, and damned sure no holes to let through sparks. But it was an effective costume. She looked like a sculptor. She had none of the tattoos, piercings, or weirdly colored hair that many of her fellow avant gardeners sculptors, male or female, liked to rock, but her mousy brown hair was always cut and styled in some outrageous way. This year, she had gone for a shockingly spiked cut. I personally felt it ruined the studiedly disheveled look she was always going for, because that do so clearly required a lot of mousse, hairspray, and time. Still, it kinda rocked. Her petite bare arms displayed by the undershirt were small, but visibly muscled, and nicely so.

In other words, she was hot as a pistol, and I'd have killed to be able to do a nude of her.

"Yes, but on the bright side, all those people would... then turn around and... come back to... buy one," I grunted as I set down the weighted base of the... whatever this piece was supposed to be. "I'd sell a van full at every event," I joked, straightening up.

The two of us almost always bantered like this at some point when we saw each other. We had never hooked up, to my everlasting... mild regret. She had never given me any kind of clear signal that she was actually interested, and most of the time I wasn't either. Having sex with fellow artists on the same show circuit is always complicated. I have done it. I know.

"Well, if we did do it then, I'd have to get a cut of each sale," Kylie scoffed, and we turned back to the parking lot. I went in a slightly different direction to start bringing out my own stuff. The rest of Kylie's inventory were smaller pieces she needed no help with.

That was the first time Kylie had ever expressed an even joking opening to actually doing a nude sitting...

I started with my lithographs first, the large, super high quality reproductions of my best works. I had them produced in limited numbers. I seldom brought any originals to shows, though I would display the price for the original, if still available, on the tag beneath each litho. I'd bring the display bins of matted prints down later.

I tended to crate up the lithos four to a box for transport. I favored light frames so each was an easy haul. I had multiple copies of many, but the backups stayed in the truck to protect them from the elements. When I sold a piece or two, I'd run back and grab their replacements.

I'm a good artist with a good reputation, but this was a tightly juried show, so everybody there was a good artist with a good reputation. Sure, there were still artists like the lady five stalls down from me who sold flowers painted on bricks, but hers were actually quite beautiful flowers painted on bricks. My point is that I'm not good enough at the political side of the art show world to reliably be able to get an end booth every year, and this was a year I had not, so I had no outside wall space for extra display.

It did make hauling out enough pieces to fill my space easier.

My last crate, after the prints were out and set up, was the crate for the back alcove I always created with an inner wall--the alcove I displayed an Adults Only sign at the entrance of. The front of that wall, facing the street, was where I kept the few standard portraits I brought, mostly pets, but a female face or two. I might sell one during the whole show, probably the black and white cat with the adorably mismatched eyes. These pieces were there to remind people that I did commissions.

I never sold the portraits of people. Who buys a portrait of a stranger to hang in their house?

The people who buy the portraits of strangers that I display behind that wall, that's who. My nudes. It is kind of a sketchy little dark space back there, but I prefer it to the creeps and morons who display nudes out in the open at shows, where hundred of twelve year-olds will see them.

I want to be clear, the nudes are not a huge portion of my sales. Landscapes are where I make my mortgage and utilities. But I do sell a decent number of naked lithographs. And I sell a whole bunch of landscape prints from my bins to people who buy them as an excuse to 'just pop into the back to see what's there'...

I hung the guys first, then went to put up the larger number of female nudes. I looked at the particularly awesome form of Helen Smyth, which I always hang in pride of place. She knows I sell lithos of her portrait and gets a huge kick out of it. So does her husband. He is a very lucky guy, I thought, not for the first time. I found myself wondering again if Kylie might have been serious about doing a sitting...

The show wasn't supposed to be open until one on the first day, so when I finished early setting up, I took a walk to drink in the atmosphere. This arts fair is held annually on the banks of what the locals charmingly call a 'river'. They had recently spent millions of dollars building one small dam, while dynamiting another, and what was once a wide, muddy eyesore was now a narrow, fast flowing stream, winding through a grassy, landscaped field in the middle of downtown. I leaned on the concrete rail and drank in the view of the clean, swift water, sparkling in the sunlight, making everything around it feel brisk and fresh.

I needed to do a landscape of this little river, probably from the other side. The view would be even better over there, with the small downtown skyline in the background. While it was true that I would sell enough of the project just here in town next year to make it worthwhile, I meant that I needed to do it. Some vistas just reach out and grab me by the lapels, demanding my attention. I felt the compulsion here.

I turned back toward my booth and ambled over, examining who my neighbors were besides Kylie. To one side were jewelry artists I knew from way back. They were an elderly couple who produced very arresting, very sparkly, very shoddy silver pieces, mostly pendants and earrings. I didn't mind having them near me, as I often had people spend extra time going through my print bins while someone in their party was lured in by the old couple's baubles.

On the other side was a new guy, a potter. I started to sneer inwardly a little, but then I stopped myself and also inwardly apologized. His colors were drab, I'll admit, and not at all to my tastes, but as I got close, the lines were freaking fabulous. I was drawn in by them, and diverted to look them over closely.

We introduced ourselves. Walt was from Arizona, and was trying out a few fairs here in more eastern parts. "From the desert, huh?" I asked, looking at his pavilion. He just had the roof up for shade, there were no sides, even rolled up in the top. "It rains here. A lot," I cautioned. "What do you do if it pours on us?"

He shrugged. "This ain't my first rodeo, Robert. It's all glazed ceramics. It rains on the merch, I just wipe it dry. I prefer the airflow." I shrugged. Made some kind of sense. And since he clearly knew how to secure his pavilion from winds, I was happy to let Walt do Walt.

It did not rain that day, or for most of the event, in fact. The weather was glorious, and really brought out the crowds. Through Saturday, my sales were already up over the whole run of the same festival last year.

Even so, there were some down times. Early Friday, the crowds were thin, since Thursday night's TV weather forecast had been dicey. Kylie and I traded turns watching each other's booths for a an hour, allowing us each to walk the rest of the festival, and catch up with old friends among the artists.

Okay, Kylie probably mostly caught up with old friends. I just grabbed a particularly good hot dog and quick-stepped over the bridge to do that sketch that had been calling out to me.

The view was every bit as good as I had hoped. It was a small but interesting downtown skyline, with lots of interestingly designed, newer, tall buildings from this little city's recent growth. The river's course now ran through what was now a park, well manicured and planted with trees that could survive a rare flood. The water was mirrored by pathways and benches, all sweeping along down below the pavement of the waterfront street. And that street was lined with the colorful chaos of the festival, tents and people filled that border between nature and concrete. It was better than I had expected.

I realized I had better set myself an alarm, or I'd keep right on working. I concentrated first on the line of the festival, just in case I ran out of time. If I did, I could come back over to this side of the river on Monday morning before I headed out, and finish the top and bottom.

I barely got the festival line complete before my wrist thumped with a warning that I was leaving my booth in Kylie's dubiously responsible care too long.

*

Saturday was packed, from half an hour before we were supposed to open, until well after things were supposed to end for the day. The heat of summer had held on late down here, but had finally broken back on Monday, leaving the sky blue and clear and the air fresh and pleasant. And people were buying. All of us artists were in a good mood.

Kylie had a particularly big sale, and came bouncing over somewhat scenically to brag in excitement. "Robert! I sold the Soaring Swallow!" I whistled low. I knew she had had a five-figure price tag on that monster, and I refrained from asking if she actually got that much. I also privately rejoiced that I would not have to help her carry it back to her van after the show was over, as I had done far too times.

Walt also heard, and stepped over to congratulate her as well. "Hey, great!" He said, grabbing her bare shoulder gently and shaking it. "That was the big, soaring, blue beauty, right?"

As Kylie nodded at him with a smile, I reflected that Walt's booth had an even better view of Kylie's than mine did. He'd had a chance to become very familiar with the form of that eight-foot aluminum beauty... and of its five-foot sculptor...

That was still a form I wanted to sketch naked some day. Except I didn't. I had that tendency to fall just a little in love with my subjects, and I was already just little bit in casual love with Kylie. What that dynamic might make happen was potentially awesome in the short term, but a bad idea in the long.

I hid a sour expression, not knowing if I was feeling protective or jealous. Those two emotions often hide one another.

For my part, I was doing land-office business myself.

I had sold so many prints, I was worried that I would have to go all the way back home before the next show just a hundred or so miles away, simply to pick up more inventory so I didn't run out next week. I decided that I could trust the super to go into my condo and ship me two more boxes I already had packed in the closet. Don't fuck me over, FedEx...

Kylie asked both of us how we were doing. She asked Walt first, dammit. He told us that he was having a great festival, and hoped to come back next year. Then he quite graciously passed the conversational spotlight to me, the bastard.

I related my excellent dilemma about my matted print inventory, then noted my biggest problem. "I actually sold my last litho of Fall on the Missouri River," I said, with mixed enthusiasm.

"That's awesome," Kylie said, punching me on the arm. "Why so sour about it?"

"Because now I don't have anything in that size of fall foliage, and those sell, obviously. I've got to get my backside in gear and finish this park piece I just did, so I can order two hundred lithographs before the Christmas show season hits." It was the piece in the park with the mother and two little girls that I had been working on when I first encountered Sophia. That had been a great day all around.

I better order three hundred of that piece, actually. And do more landscapes with figures for that matter.

"How about your noodies, Robert?" Kylie teased in a sing-song voice.

I hung my head for a moment, then grinned sheepishly at her and held up four fingers. I really was having a good show.

"Wait you do nude figures?" Walt asked. "Where?" he added in puzzled perplexity, looking around my booth.

"He hides them behind that wall," Kylie said, punching me again. "They're so hot, he's afraid they will ruin some pre-pubescent boys' sexual development."

Walt instantly nipped back behind my wall. A perv. I knew it.

He came back out a minute later. "First off, congratulations on having the artistic integrity to do men as well," he said. "Second, you are fucking good, you know that?"

A perv with excellent taste.

Once more, we were all distracted by a new wave of potential customers.

Of course, most people who enter your booth are not actually interested. There is a whole panoply of people who come to an arts fair, and we all saw all the types that show.

On Friday, I had seen an apex example of the Teenage Gang. Five girls, all likely high school seniors or freshmen at the University three miles north, came giggling into my tent. I personally like to see kids like this, coming to a festival on their own. They never have any money to spend on anything beyond perhaps a single print for a dorm room, and seldom even that, but they are the future patrons who will be keeping my in my condo a decade from now. I want them to have a good time, so I always spend as much time with them as with anybody.

It didn't hurt that these five would have made a pretty decent cheerleading squad. The red-headed queen bee in particular was easy on the eyes. She wasn't even a bitch like gorgeous alpha girls can be, even though it was quite clear that this was totally her crew. They all seemed to like my work, saying things like, "Oh this is a good one, Cassie!"