The Only True Genius in the Family by Jennie Nash

Author:Jennie Nash
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

The show was held in the Williamson Gallery—a beautiful open space with large rectangular skylights. There were bottles of wine and water at a table outside the door, and platters of grapes and orange cheese cut into cubes. People gathered around the tables—a woman whose large tattoo of an Irish cross was framed by the open back of her sundress, a man in a goatee, groups of students in jeans and army-green jackets—and inside, the rooms were buzzing like a theater on opening night.

The first exhibition featured a pie plate impaled on the wall with a butcher knife and a framed painting that was done in blood. Almost no one stopped to look at this work. They walked by, heads down, eyes averted. The second exhibition was a series of photographs that had been taken in a paint store. There was a shot of the paint chips lined up in their graduated rows; a shot of the machine that mixed the paint, coated in several years’ worth of drips; and a zoomed-in shot of a paintbrush that made it look like a sheaf of wheat. They were alluring and original and people stood in front of them talking animatedly about their experiences at paint stores, and with paint chips, and with painting their homes.

I imagined what it would be like to have my own work hung on the wall next to the paint-store photos—six badly lit shots of gourmet chocolate displayed with Harry Winston jewels. People would, perhaps, stop and nod in recognition. Haven’t we seen something like that before? they might whisper. Doesn’t that remind you of something Gourmet once did? But would they stop and consider the slant of light? Would they marvel at how the chocolate glistened just so? Would they take anything away other than a vague sense of having seen something similar somewhere? I doubted it. Next to the graduate student who had done a study of paint chips and made a statement about the presence of color in our lives, my photos would look exactly like what they were: client-directed creations designed to sell merchandise.

Bailey’s work was on the back wall. From across the large, open space, the paintings were far more commanding than they had been in the small room at the back of our studio. They needed the air around them, as if they were creatures that breathed. As you approached the paintings, you could almost hear the sound of the surf. You could almost feel the hot sand beneath your feet.

I tried to keep my eyes from moving to the painting of the wave. There was a knot of people in front of it, and another two groups a few feet back.

I veered toward Bailey. She was standing to one side of her work, talking to two men—one bald, in jeans and a V-neck sweater, the other taller, in jeans and a blazer. The men were older than the students. Their jeans were better cut, their sweater and coat were made of wool so fine it seemed to shine under the bright lights.

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