TINY IMPERFECT FICTION 10

Ella didn’t trust the public praise for her work. She was highly suspicious of her own gifts and talents. 

When she read the effusive review of her show that opened last night, she scanned the words on the page, as well as her spider sense, for any opinions or descriptions of her work that may be evidence of the critic's careless eye or perhaps his muggle status as one who had never seen an actual good painting before. The reviewer's adulation of her splotches, scratches and marks on 18 large canvases oscillated between fanboy intoxication and momentous professional approval. The reviewer proclaimed Ella “the next Louise Bourgeois.“ I mean come on – discern the difference please- Bourgeois was a verifiable genius. Ella sized up her own genius as mercurial at best, having shown up only twice in her life – once at age 22, and once last October for three ecstatic and assuagingly intense days of painting in her studio. 

The reality that produced the supposed genius Mr. NYT waxed on about was: Ella peeling herself begrudgingly from the bed each morning, drinking way too much coffee, watching way too much CNN, strolling languidly to her studio around 11 AM, putting on headphones and scribbling on stretched linen. That's it. A grown kid (age 44) scribbling with a brush and somehow she got away with this being her job. Despite this blasé approach to her work, Mr. NYT called Ella “the freshest, most exciting talent not hanging in the Guggenheim yet.” She didn’t trust his words one iota. She wanted to, but she did not. 

The angel that hovered 28° northwest of her crown chakra was getting annoyed and called for reinforcements.