Son of Regenerator

One day in class Megan brought a friend (thanks to the class "open door" policy). She was talking about something (I don't remember what) when she mentioned a "vault" of MFA artwork out at the Oakdale campus.

At first I didn't believe it. I began laughing and could not stop- I mean, seriously, this sounded like something from a World War 2 movie. But then I stopped laughing when I realized she was not kidding. I asked her some questions and Pete jumped in and told us what the Thesis Gallery was. From that point on, we were talking about the Thesis Gallery and what was out there. This was a good thing, because before that we were talking pointlessly about some group project and the idea of making bottle trees, putting Christmas Trees in people's yards, or some futile social protest.

So the Thesis Gallery is O.K. How good could it be? Some of the art was memorable, but on the whole you get the feeling that some of our past MFA graduates were not too geared up to make something for the University that will never be seen again, except on a limited basis. I keep asking Pete what he will be donating. He sidesteps the issue and does not answer and frankly I would not want to answer either. This is nothing to look forward to.

But what the hell? Then we showed up and wanted to do some show with some of this art. And now it's caught on, which is too be expected. Anything out of the ordinary usually does.


The piece that I liked from the start was the Untitled portrait of a woman, with her arms akimbo. He is the story of why-

The Summer that I turned 13, Max, an old widower who lived directly across the street from us, died of lung cancer. His wife had been dead since before I was born. He smoked unfiltered Camels and was a hard drinker. He parked his big LTD right out in front on the street, and sometimes he would have a brown bag with him- his Old Forrester or something of the like. He was good to me, always called me Mark (some old men tend to call boys "son" or, patronizingly, "Sir" with some bullshit sarcastic tone, but not Max).

He had been dying for years, according to my Dad, but still drank and smoked. Once I asked Max about this and he looked at me with a smile and said "What's it gonna do? Kill me?"
People who have cancer usually go the same way- they're fine for a long while, then all of a sudden they go downhill quickly. One day Max came outside and he looked grey and cadaverous . My own grandfather had gone in a similar way just two years previously and I remembered this deathly look. It really bothered me. Then one evening an ambulance took him away- I still remember the look on his face while he was on the gurney, being wheeled across his yard. He would die in the hospital, not his home.
I had been mowing his yard for the previous three years- from April to October, for $6, every week. I would take the $6 and go to the Comic Book store that was a mile and a half from our house, near HW 218 in Waterloo.
Max died right after the 4th of July, and his sister was at his house doing this or that and I wanted another $6. So I walked across the street and spoke to her about the yard and the cash and so on. The phone rang and she let me in while she took the call. So, since I had never been in this house before, I began snooping around.
I went into the old man's bedroom. The curtains were closed but some light came in. I stood at the foot of the bed and looked up to see a painting that would change my life forever- a woman, her arms akimbo, topless. But she was no beauty queen. Her face was a ghostly pale, with a lantern jaw. Her eyes followed you around the room with a Manson-esque stare. But that was not the coup de grace: despite the age in the face of the woman, her body was youthful and kind of perky. It was like a novelty painting out of some fiendish Mad magazine joke. I stood staring at the painting, unable to get my eyes off of it, scared and somewhat horrified- yet mesmerized. It was a real shift in my gears and I still don't know why. It affected my art and my humor.

So now, when I see something creepy like Margaret Olsen's mysterious woman, I can't help but be engrossed. Sometimes art is like that I guess. We like what we like.