Art's Blood

CHAPTER 1 Don't Know Much about Art, But . . . (Saturday, August 27) From her vantage point at the top of the steps leading into the gallery, Elizabeth Goodweather regarded the pile of burnt matchsticks with an expression that wavered between hilarity and disbelief. The heap of pale wooden slivers, some charred just slightly at one end, others little more than a fragile curl of carbon, sat in the exact middle of the room on a low pedestal covered with a sheet of thick red vinyl. The assemblage was about four feet in diameter and its peak was knee high. And growing. The stark bone-white walls of the gallery had been covered with a fine grid of narrow scarlet-lacquered shelves bearing red and blue boxes of kitchen matches in uniform rows. As Elizabeth watched, one after another of the dinner-jacketed and evening-gowned throng of art patrons took boxes from the wall and began striking matches, extinguishing them, and adding them to the charred accumulation that was the focus of the evening's event. Seemingly all of Asheville "society" had turned out to mark the late August opening of the Gordon Annex: a long-awaited and costly addition to the Asheville Museum of Art. It was the munificent gift of a single benefactor--Lily Gordon. This elegant little woman--"somewhere in her nineties," whispered a woman to Elizabeth's left--had cut the crimson ribbon that stretched across the entrance to the annex and had spoken a few brief words in a voice that, though slightly cracked with age, was clear and carrying. Her spare frame was upright, conceding not an inch to age. Now she sat in a comfortable chair with the museum's director crouched by her side and the chairman of the board leaning down to catch her words. The old woman wore a simple but beautifully cut evening dress of black satin accented with white--"vintage Chanel," Elizabeth's neighbor had informed a friend--and her arthritic fingers were covered with rings that glittered as she reached up to accept a glass of champagne from the chairman of the board. Behind her chair stood a tough-looking, gray-haired man in a dark blue suit. His craggy face was expressionless and his eyes scanned the throng without stopping. More a like a secret service agent than an art lover, Elizabeth decided. Fascinated, she studied the little group, wondering what this very old woman made of the scene unfolding before her apparently amused gaze. "She's always been the museum's greatest patron," someone behind Elizabeth murmured, "absolutely millions of dollars. Her house is literally crammed with art--Picasso, Kandinsky, Pollock--just to name a few. She and her husband began collecting just after World War II. Of course . . ." The voice moved away and Elizabeth smiled, wondering if she looked as out of place as she felt in this rarified crowd. "You are coming in for the opening of the Gordon Annex at the museum, aren't you?" Her younger daughter Laurel, on a visit out to the farm a few days earlier, had fixed her with a demanding eye. "It's this coming Saturday." "Ah," Elizabeth had hedged, "Saturday . . . Well, I. . ." "Mum, this is a really important show! And you know the artists--Kyra and Boz and Aidan. They're just across the hard road which makes them neighbors. So the least you can do . . ." As an aspiring artist herself, Laurel was very much a part of the burgeoning art scene in Asheville and had done her best to develop Elizabeth's appreciation for the latest trends. Last year Laurel's passion had been outsider art; this year, performance art was evidently the next new thing. Although she supported herself with a job tending bar at an upscale restaurant, Laurel devoted most of her free time to constructing vast mixed-media "pieces," as ElizabeLane, Vicki is the author of 'Art's Blood', published 2006 under ISBN 9780440242093 and ISBN 0440242096.