So You Want To Own An Art Gallery: Art For Art's Sake? No Way!, #1

By Lee Benson

An art gallery is serious business...isn't it? Not when it involves manic artists and predatory female staff it isn't.

"The funniest and sexiest of debut novels"

• Language: English
• Publisher: APS Publications
• Release date: Apr 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781911310457

Lee Benson

Lee Benson is an award-winning journalist with 30 years of experience as a newspaper writer, columnist, and author. He is currently a metro columnist for the Deseret Morning News and wrote numerous columns about the case as it was unfolding.

Book preview

CHAMPAGNE IS A COLOUR

The next morning, at the crack of noon, I stroll up to the doors and peer through the glass.

The sight greeting my eyes is total carnage; a wipeout, akin to the aftermath of an all-night rave. There are spilt explosions of wine on the marble floor, plus food, well-trodden-in. It resembles a vaguely abstract installation surrounded by lingering wine bottles with a few drops hiding inside, still in shock methinks.

Good grief. I scan my new establishment. Is this an art gallery or a nightclub? There’s even a bright red lacy thong hanging from a spotlight. Admirable I think. Someone obviously had more than they bargained for.

The phone rings rather too loudly. Surprisingly it’s still visible on the counter amid the debris. Julian answers it with an air of disbelief. He puts his hand over the earpiece and shouts loudly into the room, so presumably it’s for me. ‘Someone wants to buy the large landscape on the back wall. She’s coming in to see it again in half an hour.’

So let’s get this right; within thirty minutes, three of us will turn this establishment into a place in which nothing at all happened last night. This is going to take a miracle.

Luckily for us art gallery time is rarely a precise science, especially when it comes to taking money. My customer underestimates by over an hour. The place now sparkles and we look like we’ve won something in hand-to-hand combat. Time to crack open a bottle of champagne. Just as a thank you and sedative.

‘Is it going to be like this all the time?’ asks Belinda, her hair somewhat disheveled.

‘I sincerely hope not,’ is all the reassurance I can manage, placing a full glass of fizz in her hand.

At two o clock on the dot, Mrs. C. Topping strolls in carrying half a dozen full, expensive looking, shopping bags. Her credit card has taken a battering already today, obviously. ‘I need a drink,’ she states.

‘Red White or fizz?’

‘Oh how kind. Champagne sounds perfect.’

She drops all her bags in the middle of the gallery and strolls over to the most expensive painting on show.

‘I just love it’ she exclaims. ‘It will go so well in the snug.’

Snug I thought measuring up the six-foot square painting. Some snug. Never ever question unless the customer is absolutely, completely and utterly wrong. I smile. ‘Would you like it delivered?’

My heart is missing the odd beat. My most expensive painting is about to find a new home. I endeavor to remain calm on the outside.

‘Would you mind?’ she says, offering me the empty glass. Julian is there like a shot. What a bar we run. ‘With pleasure’

I say, ‘Is there anything else you might like whilst we’re coming out to you?’

‘Actually’ she says, ‘It’s my husbands’ birthday and he loves nudes. Lucky Mr. Topping.

‘We have a superb couple in the stock room.’

Off goes Julian to retrieve the two paintings. Belinda on the other hand is looking on in dismay; I’m thinking that maybe she’s never seen someone spend so much money at once in her life before. I walk over and politely put my hand on her shoulder to grab her attention. ‘My dear! Would you mind putting the kettle on. It’s in the kitchen.’

She goes off, still in a daze.

Three glasses of champagne later, three paintings are sold. Investment in quality liquid refreshment always pays off.

‘Tomorrow would be perfect.’ She slurs her words. ‘And do you mind taking these few bags as well. I’m off to lunch with the girlies.’

She slips her platinum card out of her wallet and places it in the machine, which whirs briskly. Within seconds, the sum has cleared.

‘Thank you Madam.’ I hand her card back to her. ‘Call me Tina’ she smiles. ‘See you at midday.’

Freed of her shopping, Tina wobbles slightly out of the gallery into the retail world of the wealthy.

‘Bloody effin hell!’ says Julian, losing all his public school training. ‘Did you see the size of the rock on her finger?

GLOWING ORANGE

Open for a week and a great start. Lots of red dots on labels which technically means they’re sold.

I’m feeling quite delighted with everyone’s efforts, although a touch jaded given that the launch party has lasted three days and is, to a degree, still ongoing after normal closing time.

It’s early evening, and I’m attempting to look busy at the computer, catching up on notes and thank you letters, valuations and the like, when someone walks in through the doors.

I look up to acknowledge a blue hair do with an array of multi-coloured clothing, holding a large, black, art-folder with Death is Life emblazoned on the front in dayglow orange.

Saying to her, ‘I’ll be with you in a minute,’ - at a rough guess she’s female - I close down the computer, replace my pen and stand up.

To my complete shock, I’m confronted with a naked female, tattooed from head to toe, lying prostate on top of her folder.

‘I thought you’d get a better understanding of what I’m about,‘ she says.

Now don’t get me wrong, as a member of the male human race, a naked female is very much my kind of woman, to be appreciated and admired.

However, call me old fashioned, but invasive tattoos graffitied over a body of ample proportions doesn’t quite do it for me.

I cough and say calmly ‘May I request that you get dressed and then you can show me your artwork or leave.’

The artist says nothing and slowly covers herself up, finally shoving her feet into green Doc Martins, with an attitude of protest. ‘My theory is to glow from within the painting and I only use glow paints. You must come to my studio, I insist! I want to have sex with you!’

It’s at this point that No is the only correct answer - on so many levels.

I have to ask, ‘Are you taking any medication at the moment?’

She flings her papers all over the gallery floor, ‘Why can’t people just fuck and have sex and stuff without all the complications. I hate you!’

So now I’m faced with an emotionally frustrated glow in the dark, in the form of a highly explosive female. The rules of engagement have dramatically changed. The solution is simple; I press the new security alarm