For the first time in decades, Max had executed a marketing plan to promote an exhibition. The board members were as excited as their curator when they peeked at the strange canvases delivered to the gallery, and they offered no protest when Max presented them with the cost of his proposed marketing campaign. There were glossy ads placed in national magazines devoted to the arts. He ran full-page ads in several city newspapers. His campaign extended beyond print to include television, radio and Internet avenues. Max wished he might have done more, but he reminded himself that he must expect some limits on his budget at the start of any exhibition.
Max stood in the center of his gallery’s reception room on the first day of Clive Turner’s exhibit and smiled to see all the faces gathering on the other side of the glass, double doors. He had only included peeks of the exhibition’s works within that marketing campaign, and peeks were enough to draw so many to the gallery.
“I’m worried about so many visitors waiting out there, Max.” James Moultrie once again inspected the velvet rope he hoped would give a little organization to the coming traffic. “It’s really raining hard out there, and that crowd’s going to cause all kinds of harm to the carpet. The forecast calls for hail. Say there’s really nasty weather on the way. Maybe it would be best if we delayed this opening another day to give the weather a chance to clear.”
Max turned his attention to one of Clive Turner’s canvases upon the wall. Its dark clouds seemed to whirl as the curator considered them. He had considered the piece as an abstraction when he placed it upon the wall, but he suspected that painting would look very much like the sky that brewed outside his gallery’s glass doors.
“We’ll lose too much momentum if we delay the exhibition,” Max replied. “We’ve spent too much money advertising today as the start of the exhibit. Carpet can always be replaced. But there’s no need to keep those folks waiting any longer in the rain. We’ll just open the doors a little early. And if a bad storm is coming, it’s better to help them find shelter in our gallery than to turn them back into the storm to get home.”
Max raised a hand, and the intern at the door unbarred the latch. The crowd surged inside as wind rushed into the gallery. The paintings shook on the walls, but none crashed onto the floor.
James Moultrie frowned as visitors spilled beyond the front register. “We’ll just have to come around to collect the entry fee. Please remain behind the rope as you enter. Please refrain from touching any of the paintings.”
People continued to crowd into the gallery, soon pushing those at the edges precariously close to the pictures mounted upon the walls. Max thought many of those oils remained fresh, and he feared that an inadvertent shoulder would soon smear the colors. The curator’s attention turned to that painting featuring a girl surrounded by a field of blazing sunflowers with the sky darkened by the insect swarm. He feared for that painting. Templates were mass pieces of mass-produced inspiration. Little was lost if one fell to the floor and shattered. There was no such thing as an original kit. None of the templates were exceptional. But that girl of brush strokes amid that field of sunflowers was very exceptional indeed. Max doubted Clive Turner possessed any duplicates of his paintings that had hung upon his opus wall. None of that artist’s canvases could be replaced once they were shattered.
“Please everyone, do your best to keep moving through the gallery,” Max shouted above the crowd’s murmur. “Those just now stepping through the door please wait in the reception hall. There will be time enough for everyone to consider Mr. Turner’s exhibit.”
But the crowd grew denser, and all those fingers drew nearer to what the curator had chosen to hang upon the walls.