"... Damian Hirst by way of Jasper Johns?..."

"... trite, utterly trite..."

"... am I, like, a philistine if I say, "Ew!"?"

The bathroom was blessedly empty. She fastened the little brass latch. The gallery was a former one-room schoolhouse, largely unrenovated; the drafty windows and exposed brick contrasted nicely with the poster-sized paeans to genital piercing and flour-dough models of Bergen-Belsen. She unbandaged her hand with this-won't-hurt-a-bit briskness. It didn't hurt, not really. Her fingers and palm were criss-crossed with itchy red lines. If things continued to heal well, she'd begin another series within the month. She produced a tube of antibiotic ointment, applied a series of pearly globules, re-mummified her hand. "Art" is a continuum, she mused, repeating the process on the other hand, And so much of it is more pedestrian than they'd ever imagine. Rinsing the bottles with rubbing alcohol... Bell jars and Rolling Rock empties, bobbing in a stockpot on the back porch. Patching herself up afterwards, protecting the investment. Buying bath towels and Clorox at Costco. There was, of course, the one cringe-causing "other". Hard glass shattering under soft flesh, destroying as it's destroyed, growing darker and slicker with each successive breaking. It was a small part of the overall process. But it was large enough to garner interest, spur chatter over the mini-quiches, pay down the student loans bit by bit.

Sometimes - a lot of the time - it seemed dishonest. The surrounding banality, that was where it was at. Wasn't there enough pain in the Costco runs and stain removal tricks? Was culturing pearls insulting not only to oysters but to natural order?

She walked out back and stood against the flagpole until her husband picked her up. There was a vanilla milkshake waiting in the Festiva's center console.

"Am I... um... a fraud?" she asked, closing her eyes as they drove through the dark.

"Who told you that?" he asked, incredulous, "Want me to kick their ass? 'Cause I'll totally kick their ass."

"Nah, nobody... it's just... I mean... how is what I'm doing any different than one of them accidentally smashing a glass while they do the dishes?"

"Well, for one thing, they don't do dishes. They have dishwashers. People with dishwashers get to buy art instead of hawking it."

"So I'm not, like... demeaning the pain of existence by... you know... ?"

"You're existing, right?"

"Yeah..."

"You do your own dishes, right? Sometimes? Maybe not always before the cheese gets totally welded to the casserole dish?"

She laughed and rested her head on his shoulder. They shared sips of milkshake as they drove home, and for that half-hour, it was totally clear... it was art. They were art. The Festiva, the sink, the collection of stained towels, the struggling and questioning and slowly-diminishing debt.

"It's all kind of cutting the shit out of yourself and hoping you'll wind up with something pretty, isn't it?" she asked.

"Sometimes," he said, "To me, it usually feels more like running into a bottle factory blindfolded and hoping I get outta there with my life. And, you know, my junk. Want the last sip?"

"I do," she said, reaching out a bandaged hand.