Archive for August, 2007

Sparkle Girl the Art Critic


After Garnet’s father fixed up the room in her house that she uses as a studio, Garnet painted it. The ceiling is a metallic blue, and the walls are blue with sparkles.

The effect is quite striking, especially when the sunlight streams through the windows. But the granulated sparkle paint should have come with a warning: “This paint is incredibly difficult to apply. A gallon covers far less surface area than you could reasonably expect from a product so expensive. And before you’re done, you will wonder, as you pause between curses to catch a breath or as you drive to the home-improvement store to buy two more gallons that you never dreamed you would need, what possessed you to buy it in the first place.”

Putting it on was like trying to paint with sand, Garnet said. I will have to take her word for that. Eager as I was to help, some incredibly important project of my own – precisely what it was escapes my memory at the moment – prevented me from doing so.

Garnet’s birthday arrived not long after she finished painting the studio, and, as a present, her parents, sister and brother-in-law gave her a posh professional easel.

These days, when Garnet works at her easel in her perfect studio with its sun-kissed walls, she looks like an artist in a movie that will bring her the adulation she so richly deserves before the credits roll.

Her current work-in-progress depicts two women looking up at light streaming down from above.The other day, Garnet was using a color that goes by the name of Metallic Regal Red to paint one area when Sparkle Girl came in and asked why she was painting the sky red.

Once Sparkle Girl mentioned it, she could see it that way. Until that moment, though, the thought had never crossed her mind.

She just thought of it as space, she said.

“Outer space?” asked Sparkle Girl.

No, just space, said Garnet.

Sparkle Girl thought about it for a moment and then said in a tone that left no doubt that she thought Garnet was making an artistic misstep, “Ah, well, you’re the artist. You can do whatever you want.”

And off she walked.