Sunrise Box Set

Chapter 1-6

* * * *

One of the things I liked best about my new job was that I met a lot of fascinating people.

One day toward the end of October, Jean told me I had a phone call from Brad Telford, whose work was going to be featured, along with that of his partner, Christian Fields, at our next show. I hadn’t talked with either of them before, and I was eager to get to know them. I’d seen slides of their work. Christian did boldly expressionistic acrylics, and Brad was, believe it or not, a blind sculptor.

“Hi, Brad, this is Whitney Pell. I’ve been looking forward to talking with you and Christian. And we’re looking forward to your show.”

“Hello, Whitney. Chris and I are excited about having a show together. We haven’t been asked to do that very often. It’s about the show that I’m calling, in fact. We’d like to come to Stafford and see the gallery for ourselves. It would help us select what works we want to put in the show. Any chance we could drop by this coming Friday?”

I took a quick look at my calendar and saw that their visit was doable that day. “No problem.”

“Great! I think we’ll drive down on Thursday afternoon. Chris wants to see the fall color. We’ll get there about dinner time, spend Friday in Stafford, and drive back to Richmond on Saturday morning.”

“Sounds good. May I impose on you and Christian to have both lunch and dinner with me Friday? I’d like you to meet the chair and some members of our gallery committee at lunch, and I’d really like you all to myself for dinner.”

He chuckled. “So we can talk shop?”

“Nah, we’ll have had enough of that. So we can talk about being gay, of course.”

He laughed at that. “Oh, I didn’t know you were family. We’ll look forward to it.”

“Having said that, I confess I’m really curious about how you manage your work. You won’t mind explaining to me, will you?” I asked.

“Of course not. Everybody wonders how a blind guy could do portrait busts.”

“Do you want me to make hotel reservations for you?”

“No, thanks. I think Chris has already got something lined up at the Hampton. Is that a decent place?”

“Yeah. It’s new, attractive, conveniently located, and I hear they put out a fairly extensive continental breakfast.”

We said we were eager to meet each other and rang off.

I had Jean call Fiona McWhorter, the chair of the gallery committee, to explain what was happening and ask her to invite as many members of her committee as she could round up to lunch on Friday. When we knew how many were coming, we’d make reservations at Palmer’s, a restaurant where my predecessor often took visiting artists.

On Friday Chris and Brad didn’t show up until about 10:30. Apparently they liked to sleep late. When Jean told me they were here, I got up to invite them into my office so we could chat a while. Normally, I’d offer to take them on a tour of the facility. I paused a moment, thinking of Brad’s vision impairment, but decided to make the offer anyway. He could always refuse if he wanted to.

When they came in, I offered them coffee, which they declined, saying they’d had plenty at breakfast.

Brad was a big man, 6’2” and 220 pounds, I guessed. About forty, he was losing his hair, most of which was still brown, though there was some gray at the temples. He had been and still was a handsome man. He was soft spoken and seemed very gentle. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about him was his beautiful blue eyes. They didn’t appear to be damaged. And he looked at you when you spoke to him.

Christian was a little guy, shorter than I am by an inch or so, and quite thin. He had a full shock of sandy hair, which appeared to be blow-dried and therefore rather fluffy. His green eyes had very long lashes. His features were delicate, and his fingers were long and thin.

We chatted awhile. I asked them about the drive down from Richmond.

“Oh, it was lovely,” Brad said. “Chris describes things so perfectly, I feel I know exactly what he’s seeing.”

“Then you haven’t always been blind?”

“No. Perhaps if we’re going to be together for dinner, I can tell you about that then.”

“Only if you don’t mind. Now, would you like a tour of our facility?”

“Yeah,” Chris said. “That’s one of the reasons we came.”

“Okay,” I said, standing. “I’ll show you around this morning, and after lunch we can come back to the galleries where your things will be exhibited.”

Chris and Brad stood as soon as I did.

‘Whitney,” Brad said, “you’re probably wondering why I’m coming along on this tour.”

Before I could stammer out something tactful, he continued.

“You’d be surprised what I can pick up. Vibes for one thing. It’s amazing what you can feel about a place if you try. And, of course, I’ll learn even more from listening to you explaining to Christian what he’s seeing.”

“Then, gentlemen, let’s go.”

Brad reached out for and immediately found Christian’s elbow. Then they moved off as one. I was touched by that simple movement. It seemed to me to indicate their relationship, a beautiful metaphor.

We hadn’t walked far when Brad said, “This house is pretty old, isn’t it? Despite the climate control system, it has the lived-in smell of an old building.”

I told him that Sunrise had been built in the 1920s. In the early 1970s when the then owner had been killed in Viet Nam, his widow had been eager to sell it. The Stafford Arts Alliance had been looking for an appropriate home, so the parties soon agreed, and voila!

We spent a while in the various smaller galleries. Christian and I took turns explaining to Brad what the spaces were like and what was on exhibit there. Next I showed them some of the classrooms in Sunrise. Chris was impressed with how well-equipped they were.

I was about to get on the elevator to go back downstairs to the main floor when they suggested they’d just as soon do the stairs. Brad’s hand, of course, was on Christian’s elbow. I was following them. When Christian got to the bottom, he bent his knees. Brad tensed for a moment, chuckled, and said, “Bastard. You’re asking for trouble later, you know.” Then he turned to face me. “He does this to make me think there’s another step. It isn’t dangerous, but it does keep me alert.” Christian grinned, patted the hand on his elbow, and we continued.

Next I took them to the new building, where they got to see the concert hall, the green room, and the classrooms there. Christian had lots of questions, and Brad occasionally had some, too.

By the time we’d gotten back to my office, Chris said, “Whitney, I’m impressed that a relatively small city like Stafford has such a fine facility. How do you manage?”

“For one thing, it’s serendipitous that there are so many people in this community with both the interest in the arts and the money to support their interest. We have a lot of retired professionals with deep pockets. We have a number of fund-raising projects, of course. And then we’re always going to the State and to area businesses with our hands out.”

“I suppose things are tougher for organizations like yours since 9/11,” Brad commented.

“True. But then, I think part of the problem is that the current administration is just not interested in the arts and doesn’t believe in spending public money in support of them.”

“Are you talking state or federal?” Chris asked.

“Both, but the feds are worse.”

He sighed. “We hear that everywhere we go.”

Lunch with the committee was what you might expect. All the members were female, as was true of most of our committees. It was a mix of elderly widows and middle aged women whose husbands made enough they didn’t have to work and could be involved in an organization like the Arts Alliance. I didn’t have to do much but eat and listen. Fiona more or less presided, and everyone was eager to ask questions of our visiting artists. Or, in a couple of cases, lecture them on what art was all about.

That afternoon Christian, Brad, and I spent some time in the two galleries we planned to use for their show. First of all, I apologized for the two women who’d felt they had to set the younger men straight on the true meaning of art. They both laughed, and Chris said they got a lot of that and I shouldn’t worry.

I told them we’d discussed showing their works in separate galleries and pretty quickly rejected the idea. It was a two-man show. And since Brad’s stuff would be on podiums in the middle of the rooms and Chris’s paintings would be on the walls, it just seemed to make more sense to spread the entire collection over the two rooms.

When we got to the first of the two main galleries, Brad said, “Oh, this room feels so airy and open.” I wondered how he knew but wasn’t going to ask. He continued, “There are slight echoes from the flooring. I’ll bet it’s hardwood, isn’t it? And there aren’t any soft furnishings to deaden the noise, either.”

“I’d never noticed the echoes. I suppose whenever I’ve been here, I’ve been concentrating on the displays.”

“Just so,” Brad said, smiling. “I think this will be a most suitable space for displaying our work, don’t you, Christian?”

“Oh, yes. And with all the lovely space in the two rooms, we’ll be able to bring lots of our things.” He then went on to describe the current exhibit, giving Brad lots of detail about the wall colors, lighting, spacing, etc. They wanted to see some of the podiums we used for displaying sculpture, so I grabbed my cell phone and asked Jerome to bring us a couple of them.

When Jerome got there with the stands, I introduced the three men. He apologized, saying he had to get back to something he was doing for Jean. I admired his V-shaped back and great butt as he walked away from us. Chris caught my look, grinned, and winked at me.

“Are these the standard podiums?” Brad asked.

“Yeah,” his partner replied.

The items in question were wooden elongated cubes. We had a large supply of them in varying heights for the display of sculpture, ceramics, glass, and other three-dimensional pieces.

“What color are they?”

“White.”

“Are they all white?”

“I honestly don’t know,” I told Brad. “We haven’t actually used them since I came to Sunrise in June. I’ve just seen them stacked in a rather dark storage room.”

“I don’t want to be a pain in the ass, but could they be painted? I think the white would be pretty stark.”

“There’ll be no problem about painting them. I think we have plenty of time.”

“the walls in both these galleries are a warm pale gray,” Chris told Brad. “I think they’d be perfect with your stuff.”