Art and Mayhem at the Barracks Showcase - A Story to Chill Your Aesthetics

It was a quiet Thursday afternoon at the Barracks. Deanna and WhiteFeather were contentedly creating new wonders. WhiteFeather was feeling a bit off.

“I’m feeling a bit off,” she said to Deanna. “Please don’t take offense if a stray sewing needle should stick in your arm.”

“We all have our days,” said Deanna as she pulled a sewing needle out of her thumb. “Maybe you could use the sewing machine for a while.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” said WhiteFeather, as she sewed merrily. “Oh, and watch the air for flying sewing machines.”

“It that Dana outside looking perplexed,” said Deanna.

“I believe it is,” said WhiteFeather. “Maybe you should check it out. I’m a bit busy making sure that this sewing machine doesn’t fly.”

Deanna went outside and saw what had perplexed Dana. “Oh, my God,” she said.

“You’ve spilled art all over the grass,” said Deanna.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” said Dana. “I had paint and brushes and found objects and some kind’ve hazy idea and I was coming over to say hello to you and WhiteFeather and suddenly I spilled it all on the grass. You wouldn’t happen to have an art scrapper, would you?”

The two spilled arts said, “No! No! Don’t scrape us, Dana. We’re an unexpected dimension of your artistic statement. Scrape us and … well … you’ll die.”

Deanna got really pissed off when she heard art threatening Dana. She walked right over to the spilled art and said, “Threaten Dana again and I’ll stomp you. I will.”

Dana said, “It’s OK, Deanna, I get this from my art all the time. You create the damn stuff and then it disses you. Damn art.”

WhiteFeather came out and said, “Having trouble with art, Dana?”

“Yeah,” said Dana. “I just spilled a bunch of it on the grass and now it’s giving me a hard time.”

“Art’s like that,” said WhiteFeather. “Or it wouldn’t be art.”

“You mean I have to put up with this for the rest of my life?” said Dana.

“You could go into accounting,” said WhiteFeather.

“What was that the art said again, Deanna?” said Dana.

“I think I may have this figured out,” said Deanna.

“Look!” said Deanna. “It peels off the grass. Dana, your spilled art peels off! Now, artists everywhere can spill art and then peel it off.”

“My God,” said Dana. “I have more art. I can spill it all over the Barracks area … all over the downtown area, all over the city, all over the province, all over …”

“How would you like a sewing machine in the head?” said WhiteFeather. “Be happy with the art that gave itself to you.”

Suddenly, a random tourist yelled, “What’s that stuff over there cluttering the beautiful green grass?”

“Don’t listen to him,” said Deanna. “He’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt with mis-matching flowers.”

In an extreme moment of infinite compassion, Deanna attempted to quell the tourist’s negativity. “Hey tourist guy,” she said, “do you like my necklace? WhiteFeather put real corral in it.”

“Fuck you and your necklace,” said the tourist.

“He’s all yours, WhiteFeather,” said Deanna.

Later on, Sophie dropped by and Deanna and WhiteFeather invited her to read a story that Biff gave them. “He said it was a family story,” said Deanna. “You wouldn’t lie to me about that, now would you?” she said to the camera.

The camera said, “Click.”

“There’s a lot of fucking going on in this story,” said Sophie. “I don’t think it’s a family story.”

“Well,” said WhiteFeather, “he seems to have a good grasp on how to use the word ‘a’”

“It’s the verbs that make me wonder,” said Sophie.

“Hmm,” said Deanna, “that verb is just plain dirty. But what can you say about a man who farts when he takes pictures?”

“Biff farts when he takes picture?” said Sophie.

“We caught him,” said WhiteFeather. “He tried to blame an artificial life form, but it was him. It was him.”

But they still read the story, dirty and all.

“This dirty stuff isn’t all that bad,” said WhiteFeather.

“And it has a happy ending, sort of,” said Sophie. "Was his brain really missing?"

“He better not be taking a picture of the top of my head,” said Deanna.

After reading Three Ladies of the Fountain, Deanna, WhiteFeather and Sophie went into their residency and WhiteFeather said, “Care for some tourist soup, Sophie?”