the manatee.
With incisive contrariness abandoning all notions of entitlement, loftiness, and class, Geoffrey made the excruciating choice to lade his consciousness with the unknown,
a snouted denizen of African/Pacific/non-Atlantic nobility:
the dugong.
Swimming against all tides, neap, ebb, and tsunami, represents Geoffrey’s approach to making art.
Be unexpected. Be woke. Be brave.
The candle is by nature transitory. So is life. So is reality. So is meaning.
Everything changes.
Everything melts.
Milo said, “Now I understand.”
We edged past a couple of the paintings. A man with a narrow goatee long enough to be constricted in two spots by gold rings said, “I did this one when I was thinking about migraines and perspiration.” Midforties, long, wild curly gray hair, deeply tanned, hawk-face. When he spoke, nothing but his mouth moved.
The woman listening to him said, “Sweat purifies. Lakota or Chumash?”
Beard-ring walked away from her. She turned to a bald, scowling man behind her. “I like his attitude, maybe we should buy one.”
“Are you fucking crazy? He’s an asshole.”
“Exactly, Dom. We could use some of that energy. A little pushback to the Warhols.”
Bald walked away. The woman, alone, saw us and smiled.
Milo said, “When I hear sweat, I think Turkish bath.”
“That’s true,” said the woman. “Are you an artist?”
“More of a craftsman.”
“What’s your medium?”
“Rare.”
We walked away. The woman looked at the painting, then into her purse.
—
We made our way to a corner with another card table, this one used for empty glasses. Our bubbly, untouched, found a home. Milo worked his phone and pulled up an image.
Pie-faced woman in her thirties. Blue-gray eyes, pageboy dyed the purplish gray of an old bruise, complexion pale enough to suggest Kabuki makeup.
Medina Okash was more into biography than her featured artist. Born thirty-six years ago in Seattle, B.A. in fine arts from the University of Oregon, certificate in curatorial science from the Gurnitz Institute in Bern, Switzerland, employment at a minor New York auction house followed by stints at Lower Manhattan art dealers.
She’d opened her own gallery six months ago.
Her mission statement: Be fearless.
Armed with the image, finding her was simple. Same everything except for the hair, now electric blue. She held glasses in both hands, drank from each in turn as she nodded at whatever a pair of men in matching black suits and red T-shirts was telling her. Identical twins down to the anorexia. They traded off speaking, one sentence at a time.
Medina Okash’s head moved from side to side, following the duet. A couple of times she threw back her head and laughed loud enough to be heard over the crowd.
