Yes I had for a friend a Famous Canadian Artist. This was long before I even conceived of myself as being capable of better than a few rather good drawings in my sketchbook. I really aspired to be a writer. I struggled at a few badly done short stories and dreamed of writing a novel. But an artist?
I first met her at church. I was just shy of my twenty-third birthday. It was a small, eccentric gathering of highly creative and intellectual Mennonites within an old East Vancouver heritage house that several of them owned and lived in together. There was an antique church organ crammed into the living room full of art objects and curios.
I thought she was much younger than her fifty-one years and even then there were many flattering press reviews about her and her art, always mentioning her youthfulness. I said nothing but began to observe her carefully only to find that she really did look fifty on a good day. She wore interesting clothes, many of them sewn by her friend from the church (the artist didn't live in the house but her friend, later her life partner, did). They both dressed alike, suggesting Medieval and Renaissance fabrics slightly modernized. Her friend never liked me. Now that they are a lesbian pair I assume there might be jealousy.
The Famous Canadian Artist was also a talented musician and played her violin in our church services as well as commanding a fine soprano voice. She had a tiny grey poodle cross, a delicate, gentle and affectionate little dog who loved to be petted and cuddled. She also suggested to me anyway Dorothy Parker's little poodle whom she tellingly named "Cliché."
The Famous Canadian Artist at first appeared to flirt with me, playing a kind of coy hide-and-seek behind a stairway curtain. I felt a little disturbed about this, not caring about becoming the fancy boy of a woman more than twice my age. Somehow a friendship did kindle between us. She invited me to her openings, to a concert, to dinner, to chat. She was witty, very bright, well-read, highly cultured and very down to earth and practical. I loved talking with her and our conversations were always varied, diverse, interesting and taking every possible direction. She had a strong sense of visual beauty and aesthetic, naturally, being an artist, the only artist I knew who made not only a living at art but lived very well and comfortably.
She loved my concept for an onion soup party I was going to hold in my little housekeeping room. I had each guest provide me with an onion. I did the rest. It was delicious and my little home was full of warmth and laughter as I fit four (maybe five?) adults and a child together.
I stayed in this church for exactly a year. Then I moved on to an evangelical fellowship where I lasted for maybe another year. I never heard again from the Famous Canadian Artist. I had initiated most of our contact, as I appeared to do at times with almost everyone, and I determined that if FCA was serious about keeping my friendship then she could make the effort to pick up the phone and call me at least once. I never heard from her again.
I did bump into her and her friend some fourteen years later. I was painting then and was just finishing a commission that would pay for my first trip to Costa Rica. When I showed her some photos she said "Oh, birds," with just a hint of cultured disdain in her voice. She was by this time living with her partner/friend in the area. I asked if we could stay in contact. Reluctantly she gave me her phone number while protesting that they get unwanted contact from all kinds of people. I replied I guess fame has its price to pay." They didn't care for my little insult and I never called her.
We ended up again in the same church, an Anglican parish in her neighbourhood. The rector liked neither me nor my art. Neither did FCA. She simply recommended that I go to a "Nice" art gallery with my "Nice" art. We coexisted in this church for not quite a year. She was of course a coveted parishioner, being a Famous Canadian Artist, and I had just survived homelessness and was reeling from symptoms of PTSD so I didn't exactly have any rank to pull. After months of snubbing me the FCA approached me one day at the end of the service. I was sitting with my head bowed in quiet prayer, wanting to be left alone, feeling hated and unwanted in this cauldron full of vicious hypocrites. I told her to please leave me alone because I wasn't feeling well. She reeled back as though I had punched her.
We never spoke to her again. The last couple of times I saw the two old women I pointedly ignored them. They are both well into their eighties now. I have concluded that she is a third-rate painter and that she owes her fame to her good connections and schmoozing skills. I don't think we'll ever see each other again.
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