the artist's ceiling

The artist's ceiling is a long way up. Attached to it are nine large striplights. Composed of four bulbs each. Or maybe three. Making twenty seven lights, or maybe thirty six. I can't remember, although she knows exactly.

The artist took a photograph from someone else's ceiling. Of a dark brown table, surrounded by six dark brown chairs, placed over a dark brown wooden floor. The artist called it an 'armoire' or 'escudo' or 'coat of arms'. Although in fact it is a picture of a table surrounded by chairs above a floor.

The artist denotes the beginning of the Western tradition of representational art at the moment a shroud was placed over the face of the dead Christ. The marks left on that shroud took us down a wayward path from the Dark Ages through the Renaissance unto the border which is the present.

The artist had a picture of a monkey standing on its hindlegs. It reminded me of the anteater in The Pantanal. Which, when approached, went directly to biped mode. Hissing and clawing like a little man. Fear renders animals human.

The artist made a good fish stew and played Davendra Bernhardt on her Mac. The Columbian composer, his wife, the French nurse, the Belgian artist and the French artist and the Spanish artist all drank red wine. The artist had a bottle of white wine. It was the same white wine they serve in Rebatos. I tasted it to check. It tasted like vino de la casa.