The Trouble With Art Museums (2002)

THE TROUBLE WITH ART MUSEUMS (short fiction, 2002)

Marie opened the box she had brought with her from home. The corrugated tan box was soft, frayed at the edges, almost paper-like in some spots. She had used this box to move her belongings from desk to desk, office to office, life to life, for over twelve years. She had used the same box on her move from Great Falls to Helena, from Helena to Austin, and now from Austin to Marietta, Georgia. Each time, she had carefully wrapped her picture frames, small crystal vase, silver potpourri bowl and matching desk accessories (a gift from her Aunt Violet, God rest her soul) in newsprint and secured them for the journey to the new city. The box was filled with newspapers from every city in which she had lived.

She carefully unwrapped her personal items and arranged them on the large, empty, putty-colored metal desk. From the bottom of the box, the last item she took out was the first item she had put in when she had packed her box in Austin. The item was a new wall calendar, full of pictures of great works of art, from the Museum of Art in Boston. Boston! Marie had never been to Boston, but it sounded like a wonderful place. Her supervisor at MacroTech in Austin had given her this calendar as a parting gift. Marie sighed, remembering Constance, Connie, a friend as well as a supervisor. Marie remembered the many lunchtime walks she and Connie had taken through the office park, a rather non-descript place that was brightened by Connie's description of the wonderful museums in her home town. Connie had brought the art alive, talking about the artists and their lives, often bringing a book about a particular movement to share with Marie. She would miss Connie, but Marie had promised that she would not stop thinking about art, that she would continue to explore museums and read some books about her favorite artists. Maybe she would even take up painting herself. Why not? There were so many things in life to enjoy, to try.

Marie tacked the calendar to the putty colored wall at the left of her desk, flipping it open to January. The painting for the month was "Starry Night" by Van Gogh. Van Gogh's works made Marie's heart race, she could feel the tension in the swirling, whirling paint, the intense colors. She always though that Van Gogh must have been the most intensely unhappy and intensely happy person who had ever lived. To create such beautiful paintings, so alive, so breathtaking! What a great gift. Marie wondered if she could ever create something that beautiful. It might be enough, she often thought, just to try.

Marie looked about the cavernous room, filled with putty-colored desks, and putty-colored chairs. Putty on the walls, putty on the chairs, putty, putty everywhere, she thought. The room reminded her of a pumpkin patch filled with the Lumina white pumpkins her grandmother used to grow. The clock at the front of the room shone on the desks like a large, storybook moon, lighting them up, casting shadows on the uniform emptiness. Not a scrap of color. How could a room like this exist? Marie's desk, by comparison, was already a riot of color. The calendar drew the eye like a beautiful jewel, the colors of the Van Gogh, though only a small print, looked like a spray of sapphires on the wall.

Seven forty-five. Everyone would be arriving soon. There were so many people to meet on the first day of a new job. Marie smiled as she imagined her new co-workers gathering around her desk, bright-eyed and friendly, perhaps noticing her calendar and, discerning her interest in art, striking up an intense conversation and inviting her to join them for lunch. Perhaps in this office people even went out for happy hour! Marie wriggled in anticipation, feeling the carefully pressed creases of her new red suit. Oh, this was going to be fine! A new city, a new job, and soon, new friends! She touched the calendar, rubbing it excitedly like a talisman.

"Good morning!" She called out a cheery greeting to the man who had just entered the room. The man stood at the coat rack just inside the door. He took off his tan overcoat, exposing a grey suit underneath. He looked around, saw Marie, and lifted his chin in greeting. Once free of the overcoat, he picked up his briefcase and walked down the center aisle, looking neither left nor right. Marie readied herself for conversation. "My name is Marie Beckwith." She beamed a genuine smile in the stranger's direction.

The man stopped at one of the desks and put down his briefcase. He checked his breast pocket for eyeglasses. "Well. I'm Harold Smythe." He reached over and turned on his computer, staring at the blank screen, absently jiggling the mouse. Then, he pulled out his putty chair, sat down and began to point and click. As Marie stood by her desk, lips parted slightly and eyebrows raised in anticipation, she started when Harold looked up from his computer screen. He looked at her (rather, at her red suit) and then at the calendar. Then he looked back at his computer screen.

Marie took the opportunity. "Do you like Van Gogh?" Good! Good opener! Everybody likes Van Gogh. Really, what wasn't to like? Van Gogh was known, safe enough, unlike Salvador Dali whom nobody really understood or a contemporary political artist who might be inflammatory. Everybody had seen this picture, it was a good thing to get started on. She smiled brightly as she leaned casually against the edge of her desk. The metal edge felt uncomfortable on her thigh.

"Who? Oh. I don't have much time for that arty stuff." He directed his gaze back to his computer screen. And that was it for Harold Smythe.

Marie looked out the window. Well, I guess he's just busy, she thought. Most people don't mean to be rude, she reminded herself. Besides, people were starting to stream in the door. A few more men, mostly women, young, old, thin, heavy, carrying all manner of bags, lunches, newspapers. They were boisterous as they stood by the coat rack, hanging their tan, brown, or putty overcoats on misshapen wire hangers. A plump woman sang out "One, two, three, there ya be!" A burst of laughter issued from the knot of women. One of the men chimed in with "Oh you women! Any little thing sets you off!" Hearty laughter all around. Marie noticed that she was nodding her head and smiling in a very determined way, trying to discern what was clever about the conversation. There must be something funny, or they wouldn't be laughing. I'm just new, she thought, they are just repeating punch lines to funny old stories. After I've been here a while, I'll laugh too.

The group turned an about face like a well-trained core of cadets at a military training academy. They proceeded forward as a unit, eyes front. They stopped when they saw the red suit coming toward them. "Good morning! I'm Marie Beckwith, new account representative." Marie extended her hand and smile warmly.

The plump woman in the front spoke for the group. "Well. Marie. I'm Lois. I'm sure you'll like it here at Taylor, Tate and Vaughan." Marie stood there with her hand extended and her eyebrows raised for a few more moments as she waited for the woman, or anyone, to shake her hand. No one did, although they did all smile putty-colored smiles at her. "My goodness," Lois spoke for the group. "What a bright red suit." The group dispersed to their desks, leaving Marie standing alone in the center of the room. Computers clicked on, proceeded through their series of beeps, and the second hand on the moon clock inched forward another notch.

Marie used the time she expected to spend getting acquainted with her coworkers to familiarize herself with the accounts that had been assigned to her. Periodically, she looked up from the pile of manila folders and studied the people in the room. Across the aisle sat a moon-faced girl with small eyes. The name plate on her desk said Betsy Morrisey. Betsy Morrisey. Betsy Morrisey. Marie said the name over and over to herself under her breath. This had been a habit of hers since she was a little girl and had sat alone in the back of the car on long car trips with her parents. The moon-faced girl turned and looked at her.

"Are you saying my name?" she asked dully, as if she were speaking from very far away, from the very surface of the moon. Her lips were flat, spreading out like the Sea of Tranquility in the middle of her face. Marie watched the lips move. She wanted the girl to say something else so she could watch her lips form the words. Marie realized the girl was waiting for an answer.

"Saying your name? Well, I guess I was. Please forgive me. I noticed your name rhymed, and I like to play with words. Words are funny, aren't they?I mean one word just leads right into the next and pretty soon you have poetry. Why, I read somewhere that most poets get started in the poetry business just because they like to play with words. I just love words. I really do. Say, who do you prefer, Robert Frost or Emily Dickinson?" Marie waited expectantly for a reply. None arrived. Betsy looked at Marie as children who have never had to move always look at the new kid on the first day of school, disdainfully, blissfully unaware and uninterested. Marie smiled weakly. Betsy turned back to her computer screen.

I guess I won't be having lunch with Betsy, Marie chuckled to herself. She called her account contacts and made an appointment for get-acquainted visits throughout the week. Noon arrived and a few people brought out lunches from home. Smells of egg salad and tuna wafted around the room, mingling with new carpet smell and an undercurrent of Calvin Klein's Obsession. There's always one woman who wears too much Obsession, Marie thought. She leaned around her cubicle wall and knocked playfully on the file cabinet of the man behind her. "Hi there!" She looked at his name plate. "Ronnie. Is there any place good to go for lunch here? I'm starving. First-day on the job, you know, nervous-hungries."

"Lunch? Never eat it myself." The man patted his stomach and cocked his head in the manner of a former marine who is about to tell you what is wrong with Amurrica today. "But if you go in for that sort of thing, you got your choice around here. Yessir, the Thorson Family Barbecue is about two blocks down Front Street, and the Jones Brothers Southern Style is around the corner on Water Street. Both good places. The man gave Marie a big smile. She noticed he had a thick neck and a moon-face similar to Betsy's.

A moon-faced man behind me, and a moon-faced woman to my right. I have two moons orbiting me. Just like Mars! Marie suddenly felt rather wicked inside her red suit inside her putty-colored cubicle. "I was sort of hoping for someplace with a salad bar. Is there someplace where people usually go?"

"You girls! Always watching your figure! Well I guess if you don't watch it, none of us fellas will either, am I right?" He chuckled. Marie's eyebrows knitted into a quizzical look in spite of her determination to get along with each and every one on this, her very first day. Every time it happened, she was dumbfounded when someone called grown women "girls." Still, he was the only person who had shown any signs of being friendly. She decided to ignore it and move on. "I don't know of any place with a salad bar, ma'am. About half the folks here bring their lunch. I don't rightly know what the others do."

"It's too bad there isn't an art museum nearby. In Austin, my colleagues and I used to bring lunches from home and go to the art museum grounds. Sometimes a band would play. Then we would stroll in the museum for a little while."

The man held up his hands in the "whoa" position. "The trouble with those art museums is that they've got no Christian values. I mean, the nudity is one thing, that's okay I guess if it's tasteful and all. But some of these artists, like that Mapletree fella, they got no common decency. I can't take my kids to see something like that."

Marie gave a non-commital nod. She didn't really care for "that Mapletree fella" either, not her taste. But she was troubled by something else in the man's tone. He, along with Harold Smythe and Betsy Morrisey, seemed determined not to like art. They acted as if purple howling dogs would show up on their front stoop at the stroke of midnight if they gave into creative, or any other, desire. Marie glanced at the clock. Noon. She gathered her thoughts, her things, and left.

That afternoon, her pre-order of office supplies arrived. When Rita, the unit secretary, brought the box back to Marie's desk, she lingered, making small talk and looking enviously at each brightly colored item Marie pulled out of the box. "Gee, I've never seen anyone use folders in those bright colors before. I didn't know folders came in purple and yellow. Ooh! Look! Red, too! What are you going to use the red ones for? Everybody in this office orders green." Rita's whole face was lit up. It was the most curiosity Marie had seen on any face in the office.

"Color adds life. I'll color code my clients, red for restaurants, yellow for wholesale food distributors. You should order some colored folders too, Rita. I think things could use a little more color around here." Marie was feeling expansive, almost giddy. She grinned at Rita, whose bright but blank face reminded her of a bolt of cotton calico, full of the promise of what it might become under the right artistic hand.

"I think I will. Wow, you know, I've looked at the pink folders a dozen times. I've just never had the guts to buy them. They cost extra, you know." Rita was hesitating. Spending extra money on something just because it was beautiful seemed not only frivolous, something her mother had discouraged, but downright unpatriotic and probably un-Christian. She looked pleadingly at Marie.

"Rita, I think that if you are surrounded by beautiful, artistic things you will be more productive. As a matter of fact, I think we should hang some prints or photographs in this office. Good for morale, and good for business. I'd be happy to pick them out."

"Do you think? I have a catalog...at least, I think I still have it, I may have thrown it away. It's full of prints and things for offices." Rita giggled, the promise of adventured seemed to well up in her, gurgling to the surface and splashing over. "Oh my goodness! Oh my GOODNESS!" She walked away from Marie's desk toward her own putty expanse at the front of the office. She continued shaking her head and waving her hand in the air as if she were at that very moment testifying at a church revival.

After 20 minutes of rooting around at the bottom of all six of her desk drawers, Rita pulled out a faded, creased catalog of Fine Art Prints Suitable for Today's Office Environment. On the front of the catalog, a politically-correct crowd gathered in admiration around Monet's Irises. Rita beamed and held the catalog up so Marie could share in her victory. Inspired for perhaps the first time in her work, Rita brought the catalog right back to Marie. She was panting with excitement. "Okay. Pick. I'm ready." Rita licked the tip of her pencil and held her notepad aloft...

(Part 2 to follow in next entry)