Art Work

11th of Culminations in the 5th Year of the Reign of Yale Redwater, on Circe

Anything can feel like work if one does it long enough.  When Salamah had come up with the bright idea of creating an Art Gallery open to anyone, that taught all sorts of lessons, and was state of the art...when that idea had come up, it was during a particularly whimsical moment. He had been playing with his son...

****

Omar's eyes had a liquid intensity to them that was, he felt, the best combination of parental traits.  He was a small, thin, lovely boy, currently drawing a picture on the Picture-Pad, a rather expensive bit of whimsy, but one he was entirely worthy of.  Salamah smiled, sitting next to the boy, his clothes mussed up from a tussle and a chase.  Salamah had been it.

His smile was entirely without pretense and artifice, and he looked at the boy and for a moment he felt a sudden connection to all boys.  He hadn't had a Picture-Pad...he loved and appreciated art, but even had he possessed the talents to be the next great artist, no miner's son was going to have the time for that...so, was there value in such opportunities.

And he needed a reputation. Ideas began to form, and though he tried not to be, he was a bit distant with his son over the next hour.  He'd have to make that up.

****

Some things had even begun to seem to be falling in place on their own.  Vincent, whose profits were projected to be fourteen-thousand Solars by the end of the month, had recently opened a brisk, if somewhat marginal art-trade between Pollux and Al Niyat.  Besides his own purchases, he was able to filter out the best pieces for his gallery.  Choosing was difficult, but it was managable.  Buying all the pieces felt so very decadent.  By the time he was ready to start choosing the pieces to try to string them together into a bunch of themes, he had spent more Solars than he had ever, prior to becoming a Noble, ever had at one time, and without even coming close to bankrupting him.

But when it came time to choose how to lay out the gallery with his wife, who would also be on the Board of Directors (a total of five people) to help ensure control.  Plus, of course, it would give his wife something to do.  And Jamilla, like Salamah, was said to have a very good taste in art.

Naively, optimistically, he had figured they would be done within a few days at the most.  And then all that would be left would be to prepare for the opening day which, symbolically, was going to be the 1st of Origins, though the facility would be fully done some time before that.

****

As the second week of working on it was only hours away, they bickered.  Sure, they both had complex and interesting tastes in artwork, but they were very different.  Salamah's was more wacky, esoteric, off the cuff, things he liked, many of which--the dancing, the games, the interactive installations--were not what Jamilla, with a far more refined, traditional taste.  And wasn't afraid to press it.

"One holographic display of far-northern Ritual Dance is more than enough.  It'll already fill up an entire room..."

"I could put it in the same room, and have them alternate," he suggested as a compromise.

"Acceptable, though, really, it's not the best..."

"The numbers were ran, some of this stuff is really popular.  What are we going to do as far as the paintings go?  You picked far too many..."

"Not enough, I'd say," she said, all of her love for him buried beneath her desire to make the gallery exactly what she wanted.  "If only we hadn't been outbid for..."

"It was crud and you know it, a third rate work by a second-rate artist," he said, his lack of sleep--he hadn't slept in days--finally breaking his resolve to politeness.

****

In the end, it had not only taken a full month, but he had been forced by a call from Vincent, claiming important news to announce, to continue his work through proxies and vid-screens, allowing her to have more influence on it than he did.  What he thought at the time, was that Vincent better have a good reason for drawing him away from this.

As it turned out, Art was a lot of work.

Cast

Duke Salamah Laurent, age 50:  Duke of House Laurent, and a lover of funny, eclectic, off-the-wall art.  His tastes were honed over many years on his own.

Jamilla Laurent, age 57:  Her tastes are refined and polished, cleaned up and created by her parents, teachers, and so on like one might polish a diamond.