Recently while traveling for work in Chicago, I came upon an art gallery along the Magnificent Mile. I’d noticed the enormous canvas works walking by before I noticed the free entry sign at the front door and walked in.
Quietly, I paced myself through the floor-to-ceiling paintings, noticing how the artist had hidden images in the paint itself in some of them. Layers of bright yellow, green and shades of pink and purple paint were outlined in thick strokes of white and black on one. I thought: “Is that smoke rising from a building? Do those two rounded finger-like objects coming together look like Michelangelo’s Divine Touch?”
I stood directly before another of the canvases, noticing how the figures within were larger than myself. This painting was darker, almost all grays and blacks. Some figures had faces and others appeared shrouded, and I wondered if the same artist had painted both. There was only one other person in the shotgun-style space — a middle-aged, dark haired man who had been milling around, wiping counters and arranging items as I viewed.
“Are you the artist?” I asked.
“No,” he said, and went back to his work, shuffling a few papers.
I went back to looking, eventually pulling my phone out for a quick snap of one of the paintings I wanted to consider a bit more later. As I placed my phone back in my purse, he asked why I had come in. I said I was in town for my day job, but that I’d like to walk around my first day anywhere and see what is near me to become oriented, which is a habit formed in my second job, which was writing and editing a street newspaper.
“So you like to help people,” he said, not asking as much as making a statement. “That’s good.”
I explained that it’d be more accurate to say that I enjoy people in general, and that the work allowed me to make friends and acquaintances with all kinds of people from all over the city and then make some kind of record of it.
He responded by saying that the pieces in the gallery were his. He said that pretty often he acted like he was not the artist because he felt people were more honest about a painting if they didn’t know who made it.
“Do you believe in God?,” the man asked suddenly.
Lord, have mercy. I wondered how I had traveled this far north to get the same kind of grilling I’d gotten constantly while living in the hills of Coffee County. I considered how much I wanted to say or whether I should just turn around and walk out. This person didn’t know me, and there was no downside to walking away. Against my better judgement, I answered:
“Probably not the same kind of man in the sky one you’re asking about,” I said.
He smirked, appearing eager to speak as I continued.
“I believe in science and that nature brings us so much beauty that it seems impossible that it came from nothing. I believe most of us should feel lucky to get to experience life on earth and should spend less time considering who created all of it.”
“Ah, so you are like my son,” he said, shaking his head, not in anger, but in resignation.
It was still inside the gallery, but outside tourists and others were hastily and noisily making their way toward dinner. We kept talking. I asked about how ego played into the choice to not reveal his work, and he said he’d wanted to know what visitors thought, even if he might not agree with their assessment. He explained that in his studies of religion and theology, he’d come to the conclusion that God in trinity, the Triune God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, best explained our origin as humans, sustained life and persistence on earth.
With a mother raised in the Catholic church and a formerly Pentecostal father, along with fervor-filled memories of dating in the latter sect in high school, I recognized the beginning of a salvation pitch. Even if this wasn’t where the artist was immediately headed, my previous experiences taught me how quickly it could end there. Conversations about personal salvation never tend to go well in my experience, but I am more curious than not and knew I could easily shake off any discomfort related to evangelism, so I allowed the chat to happen without feeling any pressure.
He asked if I had children, and I replied yes, a daughter.
“Well, what do you tell your daughter?,” he asked, peering from over his glasses, which had slipped slightly down to the middle of his nose so I could see his full pupils staring at me.
“I tell her that she is good and that I love her,” I replied.
I knew that I hadn’t really answered his question and probably wasn’t going to at that moment. It felt right and honest to reply the way I did, but the truth is also that in the moment I found it difficult to describe to a stranger how I’d relay my own personal spirituality to my offspring.
He offered to take my photo with the painting I had photographed earlier, and I agreed, despite wondering whether his snapping of the photograph was somehow trapping me in his painting. (Perhaps I’ve read too much horror and speculative fiction.)
I lingered slightly after, taking the time to view the smaller, more tucked-away paintings. I saw one of a pair of Dalmatians and a few others with more recognizable human figures. They weren’t any more or less interesting, but I wondered about the choice to hide them further back in the gallery.
But to answer his question about what I will tell my daughter, I will put it in a way that maybe this artist will understand. Some people may be better off really hunting and trying to figure out who the artist is in order to appreciate the work. They might even compliment the artist believing it pleases their ego and gives meaning to their creations. They might wonder why the artist requires total honesty from them, but begins the entire thing in mystery. But others might find it more honest to not need to know who or what created it to fully enjoy and care for it. Honesty may reveal itself as more of an art than a science, but I believe truth is more absolute.
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