relative value, part one

photo by Sara Blackburn

The light was dusky, though whether the sun had sunken beyond the horizon or not was hard to say. The sun wouldn't have been visible on a cheery day; it would have been hidden for all but a few minutes from any given angle by the towering monarchs that make up the city. On a grey day like this one, couvert, as the French say, the sun was nonexistent. But no showers had materialized, and the two of us decided to skip the taxi and chance a walk home up Madison Avenue, along the path that I beat back in the days when I was a working girl. The boys were at home and it was nice to be on our own, a rarity in the previous couple of months.

As we walked, she kept up an adorable stream of chatter from her stroller, reliving the fun of that afternoon's Valentine crafts with William and Davis at the French Institute and remarking on the stylish spectacle of passersby and boutique windows as we walked. I, too, noted them, though silently, and the longer I walked the more dispirited I became. I was wearing my most presentable maternity trousers and coat; my regular pants weren't quite comfortable yet and breastfeeding had made it impossible to button anything else on top. With each passing block I grew shorter and wider, my clothing more beige. I used to look like those girls, I thought, thin and proud, edgy about the eyes, in skinny jeans and boots to dress down a beautiful silk top. I used to look in these windows and plot my takeover of Manhattan, thinking I was well on my way.

I spent my twenties gaining a toehold in the art world, only to swan dive into the deep end of Life As We Now Know It. Two small children. Learning to do the daily cooking. Plotting my next renovation. Discussions about pregnancy and mortgages crowding out talk of literature and art on social occasions.

It grew darker and colder. Saturday night couples hailing cabs to go downtown for dinner and drinks began to replace afternoon shoppers, and my depression deepened, knowing that an evening of breastfeeding and bedtime routines awaited me at my own destination. My steps toward home slowed. Whining came from the child in the stroller as a bitter wind kicked up, and we paused below the windows of the Ralph Lauren flagship, the jersey waist of my trousers undoubtedly exposed as I  stooped to wrestle with her blanket. What was the point?

My plodding steps continued until, unexpectedly, my head swivelled, my eye caught by a new storefront with large Damien Hirst spots in the window.

"Mommy," she said, her wide blue eyes also staring at the window, "do you think on some day we could go to that museum together? Do you think that would be good?"

DAMIEN HIRST, Happiness, 2008

I could have kissed her then and there. In we went. Everywhere we looked there were jewel-encrusted skulls and colorful paintings of spots. She wished she could have a sparkly dot painting for her room, $6000, and there were spotted camping chairs for $2000. And then, on the wall, a trio of pictures composed of butterflies and syringes affixed to small, square white polka-dotted canvases, Hirst masterpieces for $25,000-$50,000 each.

I laughed out loud. I had seen the series before, and may have even arranged the purchase of similar ones years ago. They had been out of my price range then, of course, but I had probably assumed they wouldn't always be. I had relinquished any such thoughts when I had given up my place in that world, but not without a pinch of the kind of wistfulness that turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt.

I reached down into the basket of the stroller and pulled out the box my daughter had made that afternoon, white and covered in a decoupage of butterflies and flowers. Earlier, I had bragged to a friend that it showed a real eye for composition, but here, in the gallery, the similarities between it and the canvases on the wall were startling (though hers was missing the syringes). I showed her and and I could see that she was proud of her own work. So was I.

On the way home and for the rest of the evening, concepts like market forces and zeitgeist, narrative meaning and irony swam in and out of my head, all the factors that make the Damien Hirst version worth tens of thousands of dollars and my daughter's worth only that at which she and I value it.  But the joke is on them. Because while we may want to be beautiful, cool, stylish, clever--all those things that the market imbues with meaning--they really are just window dressing. The symbols of innocence and pure emotion that media and art so often appropriate, with irony and derision in their voices, are simple expressions of life in its real form.

VIOLET, Happiness, 2012