Seeing Her Working At The Fold Gallery In Los Angeles

The Gallerist

When selling, you smile bright
Retorting true polite
Posh styling — hews so right!
All twining you too tight
Gallery jails firmly
Your gloomy wails stir me
Artistry hails to free
Below the fold to see.

Below, you fester dreams
The Fold bars seller screams,
I wish these flawless scenes!
To know your august schemes
The you who’s choosing
Haunting, luring, musing
My thoughts, for pursuing
So true is this yearning.

Below the fold we go.

When selling, you smile bright; below, you fester dreams,
Retorting true polite: The Fold bars seller screams,
Posh styling — hews so right; I wish these flawless scenes!
All twining you too tight to know your august schemes

Gallery jails firmly the you who’s choosing
Your gloomy wails stir me: haunting, luring, musing
Artistry hails to free my thoughts, for pursuing
Below the fold to see, so true is this yearning.

Further below the fold.

When selling, you smile bright; below , you fester dreams,
Retorting true polite: The Fold bars seller screams,
Posh styling — hews so right; I wish these flawless scenes!
All twining you too tight to know your august schemes

Gallery jails firmly the you who’s choosing
Your gloomy wails stir me: haunting ,luring musing
Artistry hails to free my thoughts , for pursuing
Below the fold to see, so true is this yearning

Below the fold I wish to know the you haunting my thoughts so true.

I once wrote, "Artists are the most arrogant and self-filled people to ever grace us with their presence." Though written long ago, I would not retract that statement because the description portrays the artist honestly, not negatively. In fact, I would expand my definition to include "disturbed" since to be an artist means seeing the world in a unique yet abnormal way. We see this peculiar vision sometimes in their works, but simple logic defines its necessity: if artists saw the world the same as everyone else, art would only be mimetic.

As a writer, I sometimes wear the artist moniker but secretly reject this characterization. Sure, authors share the quality of creation with painters, sculptors, musicians, and other artists, but their act of invention manifests with radical differences.

Beneath soft light’s glow where acrylics speak the language that we all know.

The way poems or prose articulate worlds, the painter opens a portal to peer into these realms. Similarly, musicians amplify those places constructed of emotions with their lyrics, voice, and instruments. Art is tangible and does not rely on the viewer to immerse themselves; rather, these arts immerse them. The only thing tangible about literature is the paper and binding.

Still, authorship and other arts share a purpose of creation, and achieving this feat takes that bizarre perspective and an arrogance unfathomable to believe the worthiness of their warped view's birth. Good art is born of flesh, independence, conflict, disturbed, critical, and beautiful. That disturbed, altered state of perception reveals as a fearless honesty where the result is vastly more important than the means to that end. I think most artists 'get it' when I say,

I will know the truth and will lie to discover its meaning.

Under sculptures flow the prophetic speech to languish or boldly grow.

Beyond the strange machines dispensing gifts-artistic for finer dreams.

Contradiction and fabrication are the artist's tools as much as the brush, camera lens, piano, etc. Armed with these accouterments and mediums, the artist becomes the provocateur of truth, obsessively mining, sometimes annoyingly, the wisdom of the surrounding world. Whereas a nonartist might wonder when or how they will fall in love, the artist captures, defines, and expresses the meaning of that love, often at the sacrifice of affection. Like the philosopher finding a maxim at the end of rational inquiry, the artist arrives at her axiom via snapshot, sketch, song, and many other avant-garde syllogisms. Yet the artist also becomes a self-perpetuating enigma, understandable but never known.

Like the images and content below the fold, we never truly know the artist.

I fell in love with a fine arts major attending the Ringling College of Art and Design. Before learning of her education pursuit, I knew she was an artist. She captured my fascination from behind the counter, where she toiled mere feet from my department in the grocery store where we worked. Her motion behind the counter layered with style and grace as if she were a work of art. My curiosity blended with my writing, which, at the time, likened to literary, broken-line psychotherapy more than poetry.

One of our first conversations whirled in topics, and amidst her conversing repertoire, so naturally, she posed the question, "What do you think of porn?"

"If it's art, it is certainly overdone," I answered.

With anyone else, I might have assumed the question a test, seeking a correct response to a values quiz, but as natural as she asked, I answered, knowing she worked her craft, seeking truth’s visionary fuel. Similarly, I presented her poetry on our third or second date, and after reading my masterpiece, Blackheart: Love is a Whore, she moved in with me.

During our time, I saw below the fold, on many occasions, like watching her from our apartment's living room window as she used a spatula to scrape a dead squirrel from the parking lot, which she promptly transferred to the pavement and sketched. Another time, I awoke from an afternoon nap on one of those rare days off work. (Truly, we starved as artist and writer.) I discovered her sitting on the bed staring, just before pulling my boxers down to work her charcoal sketch.

She was sharp, sweet, sexual, vain, and volatile. Moodiness and rationality shared the same space, which I did not understand as the byproduct of artistry. Love for her largely fixed on this persona yet escaped understanding, no matter how often I peered below the fold. I am certain she was similarly perplexed over my dark, brooding, arrogant writer pretense. Immaturity, lack of experience, financial struggles, and a few mental health issues inspired our marriage and divorce.

Such stories are so common amongst artists and writers that it is trite to speak of them. Yet, a truth rises from the mind that views all things as art’s subject, even love, hate, or insanity. I wholeheartedly believed writing heart-drenched, rage-filled lines with her as the poetic object manifested love, not just bad poetry. I am sure, as a model for her art, she blindly loved the same. Though hackneyed, the story clarifies the inability to make the artist into art and the unwavering desire to do so.

Beneath ranged pieces, our dreams escape to ecstatic and kinder scenes.

In arranged faces, lore told diverse, emphatic – powers sayers bold.

I am drawn to finding her below the fold because we understand each other, even if we do not comprehend ourselves. It is a familiarity beyond shared purpose: a longing for the truest, impossible affection. We are compelled by the promise of her insights for better or worse, with lies and deception, and only at the cost of sanity or insanity. We desire the authenticity only art can conjure, and that is the most necessary, powerful love that cannot be sustained. No matter the passion offered, she remains unbound, ever divining wisdom with her intrinsic, shareable lens, never adorned by another: the way two cannot share the same pair of glasses.

Amidst rare voices, you're spoke in verses too perfect below The Fold.

She calls to me: a siren singing, promising her magic and the inevitable doom.

There, from below the fold.