I went for this swanky cocktail shindig last week. The type where folk pick on their biting with toothpicks. The highbrow type with low lingering jazz music in the background and where people don’t laugh out loud but chuckle like aristocrats. The type with the glitzy invite and these ushers with long endless legs who run a long manicured nail down the list of invitees before looking up at you before saying with an officious yet flirtatious smile, “Please welcome Mr. Jackson, enjoy ya evening.” I hate the name Jackson, but some sins are forgivable in some circumstances. I’m just saying. The crowd was the corporate after-work type with ties and suits and spit shined shoes. I was in jeans. I’m always in jeans. And I stuck out like a sore thumb. Anyway, this do had all these abstract paintings on the wall and to fit the profile of prominence and affluence the invitees walked around, with drinks on their hands, gasping at these paintings and acting like they were really interested in them, like they really understood art. I wanted to laugh. You should have seen the white folk, staring at one painting for a good 15mins as if the paintings held the secret to success, as if the paintings were a crystal ball. The paintings had these small round red stickers at their edge which priced them should you be inspired enough to write a check. One of the paintings was going for something like 370k a pop! I gulped. I mean, I’m selling my car, Yuanita, for less, and my car plays music! There was this chappie (yes, I got that word from Jack Nicholson in the movie The Departed) in who was walking guests around offering a narrative about these paintings. You know, breaking it down for them. He had these long dreadlocks. That’s the thing with art, you got to have a look to complement it otherwise it wouldn’t make sense. Art always needs a prop. So anyway this chappie (can’t get over that word) in his long dreadlocks wore these ragged leather jacket and well worn jeans and real hip boots. On his neck hang these chains that rattled when he gestured with his bony hands. His fingers sported numerous silver rings. A black Johhny Depp. He looked arty to the bone and you should have seen the white folk hang onto everything he said. He was the messiah of art. I chortled silently. There was a painting of something that looked like a tree stump and on it was a head of an antelope and a baby suckling on a gigantic breast. At the foot of the stump was feet crow. That painting excited the white folk but it disturbed me deeply. Here is the thing, I respect art and artists, I really do. I think everyone has to believe in something, everyone has to have something that anchors them. And it’s tough to nurse your art, whatever it is, even if it involves painting breasts on tree stumps. But what I can never get over are artists explaining their paintings, the amount of rhetoric that leaves their lips is profound and corny. For the longest time I have harbored this suspicion that artists have no clue what they paint and that it comes to them after they are finished. So anyway, at some point I get a hold of Bob Marley here and ask him to explain that disturbing painting that was going for a hissing 78k. He seemed disappointed that I pulled him from his highbrow clients who held a promise of a sale. That plus I think that fact that I was in jeans didn’t help matters any. See, he saw me as a riff raff, some drifter who was there to pass time drinking the free drinks and stuffing his pie hole with the free biting. From his shifty body language I suspected he resented me a bit for not wearing a tie and a blazer. He hated me and you couldn’t blame him because I was being a total ass, asking dump questions and basically trying to challenge his art. I
deserved his wrath, I really did. So anyway, we are standing before that disturbing painting of a baby, breasts, an antelope and crow feet and he’s feeding me with some half assed explanation on the “story” behind this eccentric painting. He says something like the baby represents a new life, the genesis of life, the antelope – or impala – he says represents fragility of life itself and the breasts are the nourishment in which the baby lives on (obviously! Unless the baby decides to choma the antelope). What about the crow feet? He says it represents the heights in which the baby will go when it grows up. And what about the tree stump? I asked, “It’s a Mugumo tree!” he shrieks as if it’s supposed to be obvious. In short his explanation is bullshit. Since I’m idle and I’ve had about two glasses of wine I’m feeling a bit stubborn, I won’t let Bob Marley think he can get scot free with some half assed goombah. “I’m sorry, uhm, Felix, right?” “Phillip*.” “Right, Phillip. I’m just thinking aloud out my ignorance loudly; please forgive me, but that antelope… is there any specific reason why you chose it as a representation of fragility?” He thinks for a minute then barks, “No, do you know anything that could have replaced it?” “Yes, a goldfish.” He makes a pained face. “A goldfish?” “Indeed, goldfishes are very very fragile. Ask around.” He glares at me then looks back at the painting, perhaps considering how a goldfish would have fitted in the painting. “I don’t think so. I think an antelope fits perfectly here.” He declares. “Oh well, I don’t know, I don’t think it’s safe to have an animal like that close to a newborn, those horns can disembowel a small baby you know?” He snorts. “What inspired you to paint this, are you a new father?” He throws a lock behind his shoulder, something I found a bit gay. I mean, isn’t something some chic would have done in the OC, yes? “No. I was inspired by life. Life fascinates me, there is something worldly in not knowing how life comes together and how it keeps its pace until the end.” I sip my wine and nod politely even though I’m not sure what he just said. “I didn’t understand the crow feet.” I tell him. “What didn’t you understand?” “Uhm, I don’t know it looks demonic – ominous even- to juxtapose with the baby and new life and what
not.” I mumble. He looks at me, obviously impressed by the word “Juxtapose.” Hahaha. I’m vain, I know. “Crow feet are not evil. In some cultures crow feet were boiled and used as medicine to cure ailments.” “Like what, athletes’ foot?” I joke. No smiles from him, in fact he acts like he didn’t hear that. I’m beginning to think he smoked some weed before the function. Who doesn’t even crack a smile at a joke like that? That was a good joke…no? He starts looking around the room restlessly, perhaps to show me that if I don’t have any more stupid questions he will be going to attend to someone who has less questions and more money to buy his paintings. “How do you mark your painting?” I asked. “How do you mean?” he snaps. “How do you arrive to mark this painting at 78k?” I was tempted to add “because I don’t suppose you bought an antelope and asked it to pose to paint this piece.” But of course I didn’t, the mood was already too frosty as it were. “ I consider many things like cost of material and equipment, my time, the thought that goes in it and my expertise.” “How long did you spend painting this one?” I motioned at the painting with my glass. “What, the breast?” I started laughing because I thought he was joking, but I looked at him and realized he wasn’t, he looked at me like I was strange, like I was the one who smoked weed before the function. I ceased laughing. “I mean the painting.” “Oh, two weeks.” he said distractedly, still looking across the room at something. “Do you make a lot of money in a month from your work?” He looked at me like I had asked if he finished high school. My God, Bob Marley here was so high strung, he needed a drink. “What did you say your name was?” “I didn’t, but call me Zulu.” I wasn’t gonna tell him my real names. Shiit. “Zulu huh? What do you do?” “I’m a potter.” “Potter?” “Yes, I make pots, you know, from clay.” Oh the disdain in his eyes. The disdain in Bob Marley’s eyes! “Where do you make these pots?” “Kisii.” I said, hoping he wasn’t Kisii and he asks me where in Kissii. “Oh, okay.” He said before excusing himself and making a quick getaway leaving me there staring at the crow feet. Mine. Now as fate would have it, our paths crossed again before the evening ended. I was on this table chatting and drinking with the lady who invited me to the function. This was way after the speeches and guests were leaving at their own pleasure. Bob Marley stops by our table – one of those high cocktail tables where people stand around- to have a tete-a-tete with this lady and after a while they start talking about the media coverage and who showed up and all. And the lady turns and says, “Oh, have you met Biko, he might do something for you in that regard,” You should have seen the look on his face, you should have seen him look like he had eaten that antelope he painted. You should have seen him try to be nice to me then. You should have seen him kiss the potters ass. And I let him.