The Way I see it, The Final Stretch

On KAWS, art, and turning 24

Last night, I, Hailo went to the opening evening of “The Way I see It” selections from KAWS's private collection:

I wore a new Armani dress that I was considering returning and little black tights with bows and a green ribbon in my hair.

I misestimated the time it would take to get there, but my friend reassured me that there was a queue. When I arrived, we gushed happy birthday to one another because hers with the 8th and mine is today (the 10th).

We go inside and she knows so much about each piece, historical context, the mental state of different artists (a lot of schizophrenia in the room from times when they’d use art therapy to reassure patients and the degeneration of their art to study the disease.

Two dogs. Two babies. We reflected on KAWS, all that money in the work of an artist who is still alive and why he had so much work by people on the outskirts with next to nothing.

My friend (who will be featured here soon) is an extremely talented artist. She makes paper and comics, so we spent a lot of time in the corner with R. Crumb. One piece “Media” or something, something really stuck with me.

In the basement a piece on cats, more schizophrenia. We go back up and I see two artists I know and I comment that one of them is a twin but I don’t know which one is the one that I know, until he says hi and confirms it for me.

We go outside. A woman asks to bum a cigarette, but I don’t have one because I’ve never smoked one in my life. She is 54 and doesn’t look it and her husband has a piece in the basement.

She tells us that we should only date men whose fathers are out of the picture. That they’re nice, that they want to be good.

I tell her that I’ve been dating perfectly nice men and haven’t been feeling a spark. She tells me it’s because I’m not sleeping with them. We talk a little bit about negging and she and my friend give a brief history of negging -- the Bush administration and pick up artists, and that one book, and then my friend and I go to Fanellis to get club sodas.

We sit in the corner. I love the corner. The same crowd from the gallery. There is a beautiful woman reading on a stool in the other corner.

I realize that the man I met in here on Saturday was negging me, but it’s okay because he told me he would take me to Frenchette, so I put my name in his phone as Frenchette instead of my actual name.

My friend and I talk about our current projects. She shows me some sketches, I say that one is beautiful.

“You want it?” She says and tears it out and gives it to me. It fits perfectly in my purse (vintage Armani, I’m going through a huge Armani phase and I need the restaurant to open back up because it was like eating diamonds inside of a giant purse).

We make our way out and say goodnight. She tells me that the sketch is my birthday gift.

I think about the way I see it. What would be in my gallery. I have art in my room, on my walls, made by people I know and love, they give it to me as something in progress, unpolished. That’s sort of what Hot Literati is to me. It’s the breaths in between the work that is precious to me. The reflections, the process, the rough draft.

I am 24 as of today. I am on a plane. I needed to get out of New York and wanted to be left alone on my birthday.

I think I finished my manuscript and will be locking myself in a room for the next 3 days to edit it. When I am back, I will send queries out. Let me know if you want one (?)

I will not be texting back. If you want to wish me a happy birthday, buy me a drink, save public libraries, or perhaps both.

I do recommend the show, it had some really special stuff. And now, I will be signing off to finish my debut novel.