The Best Artist

      Oliver was the first Artist I ever hung out with. A slender, freckled wraith of a boy, Oliver sported a clown-like head of curly red hair atop which he affected a noodled beret, round wire-rims and some sort of scarf or ascot he'd filch from his parents' closet for the occasional salons he'd subject me to by way of play-dates in his family's huge apartment. If, at the age of nine or ten, Oliver had been able to complete the image with a jaunty Van Dyke, I'm sure he would have, and the relative pros and cons of removing an ear for authentic effect was a frequent topic of discussion on these strange afternoons. He never wore the ascot and beret at school, where such sartorial overreach would have required having the crap beaten out of him, but in the privacy of his own home, before an uncomfortable audience of one, there seemed to be no limit to his efforts to channel some bygone denizen of La Vie En Rose.

  Where Oliver came by this insight into late Nineteenth Century bohemian culture is a mystery; his parents, I think, were archeologists or anthropologists and were never home. Their apartment was decorated with an array of small pedestals upon which fragments of apparently ancient sculptures and pottery shards were displayed, the walls hung with prints and paintings that seemed modern and important to me, though they weren't to my taste and I knew very little about art beyond what I'd picked up from my mother and her friends. A maid usually let me in and Oliver, in full regalia, would lead me to a sunny portion of the living room where he might have Scotch-taped his own pictures to the wall, floor to ceiling, for us to “critique”. These efforts were about what you'd expect from any third grader: partially fleshed out stick-figures, cockamamie street scenes, landscapes with dragons or horses, with the occasional half-baked, fruit-bowl still life thrown in for professional effect. It seemed important to Oliver that we engage in some sort of quasi-formal discussion about his pictures and I would squirm and struggle for anything at all to say. If these sessions made me uncomfortable, they paled in comparison to those afternoons when Oliver would set up an easel and stool, don a powder blue smock and insist that I sit for a portrait. Assuming the position, eyes asquint, kidney-shaped palette in hand, he might make the requisite, ridiculous gestures with thumb and forefinger before commencing on what, invariably, came out looking more like Oliver himself – or a bowl of fruit – than me. Creepy as this performance was, I would sooner or later get the giggles; Oliver would puff up in a sort of mock tantrum, rip the paper from the easel and demand I take a turn while he sat, which did little to curb my cackles.

   One sunny afternoon while we sat drawing side by side at the coffee table, Oliver suddenly stood up, strode over to the wall and took down a Picasso bullfight lithograph. “Watch this.” He said, prying the backing off the frame and removing the print. Brushing aside our clutter, he lay the litho down on the smoked-glass table, grabbed a pink eraser and, with the tip of his tongue protruding slightly from the corner of his mouth, proceeded with vigor to erase Picasso's penciled signature and, upon that now smudged and sullied spot, signed the thing with “Oliver”. Even then – without fully comprehending either the value of a Picasso or any distinction in provenance between signed prints or the stuff you'd buy at the museum gift shop - I knew this was some sort of major sacrilege. I was stunned by the hubris, the monumental narcissism required for such blasphemy. “I am the best Artist!” Oliver bellowed as he replaced the print in the frame, hung it back on the wall and withdrew a few feet to admire his work. I remember feeling shame and confusion; I couldn't make eye contact with Oliver or look at the wall. Instead, I focused on the tiny pink detritus from the eraser, now tangled in the white, shag rug. I don't know what the consequences of that afternoon were. I don't remember hearing of any punishment or censure, and, though I'm sure I continued to visit his apartment over the ensuing years I can't recall looking at the wall or seeing the print again. I don't know what ever became of Oliver. At one point, decades ago, I'd heard he'd become an actor with a role as the nerdy side-kick in a popular coming-of-age movie.

   For most artists, I think - the painters, the poets, the writers, certainly – creating the thing is a lonely affair, fraught with doubt and struggle and invariably, in the end, less than satisfying. Toiling in obscurity, a little narcissism and hubris go a long way towards keeping you in the game and may just make you a star. Just ask Picasso.