Chapter 4 - The Ripple Effect
By Tuesday afternoon, the Santa Fe arts community had begun to murmur.
In a town of eighty-five thousand people where the primary industries are state government, tourism, and high-end contemporary art, there is almost no separation between the business community and the gallery scene. Gary’s wife, it turned out, served on the auxiliary board for the New Mexico Museum of Art. Two of the city council members who had attended my parents’ anniversary were regular patrons of the Canyon Road galleries that carried my landscape work.
At two o'clock, the bell above the door of the Marcus-Vance Gallery on Canyon Road chimed.
I was in the back room, wrapping a series of twelve-by-twelve-inch gouache studies in glassine paper for a collector in Dallas. Julian Marcus, the gallery director—a tall, elegant man in his late fifties with silver spectacles and an encyclopedic knowledge of Southwestern modernism—stepped into the packing area carrying two ceramic cups of espresso.
“You’re a difficult woman to reach today, Rebecca,” Julian said, setting an espresso on the work table beside my tape dispenser. “Your studio phone seems to be permanently off the hook.”
“I had to unplug it,” I said, not looking up from the brown kraft paper. “My brother has left eleven voicemails since yesterday afternoon. His tone is deteriorating with each one.”
Julian pulled a bentwood stool over and sat down, crossing his long legs. He took a delicate sip of his coffee. “I had an interesting visitor about an hour ago.”
My hands paused over the roll of packing tape. “Who?”
“A gentleman named David Miller,” Julian said smoothly. “Dressed in a very fine tweed sport coat that didn't quite suit the temperature. He informed me that he was your father.”
A cold drop of dread hit the pit of my stomach. “Julian, I am so sorry. If he caused a scene in the gallery—”
“Oh, he didn't cause a scene,” Julian interrupted, raising a well-manicured hand. “He was remarkably cordial, in that heavy-handed corporate way men of his generation have mastered. He asked to see the owner. He complimented our lighting. He asked if we carried any work by Peter Hurd. And then he inquired about purchasing your entire inventory.”
I dropped the tape dispenser. It hit the wooden table with a sharp clatter.
“He what?”
“He offered to buy every piece of yours currently hanging in the front room, as well as the six canvases we have in storage from your autumn show.” Julian took off his glasses and began polishing them with a silk handkerchief. “He pulled out a checkbook from First National. He told me he wanted to surprise you. He said you were working too hard, that you were under an immense amount of emotional strain, and that he wanted to ensure his daughter didn't have to worry about sales for the next twelve months so she could take an ‘extended rest’ at a retreat in Sedona.”
I stood frozen, the blood roaring in my ears.
It was brilliant. It was horrifyingly, masterfully classic David Miller.
He wasn't going to sue me. He wasn't going to publicly denounce me. He was going to buy me out. He was going to purchase my silence with a single stroke of his pen, take my paintings off the market, frame it to his business associates as an act of overwhelming paternal benevolence, and then use the financial leverage to force me into a wellness retreat where my rebellion could be safely rebranded as a temporary nervous collapse.
“What did you say to him?” I asked, my voice barely audible above the hum of the gallery’s climate control system.
Julian put his spectacles back on and looked at me over the rims. His expression was cool, professional, and entirely unbothered.
“I informed Mr. Miller that the Marcus-Vance Gallery represents artists, not commodity brokers. I told him that your work was currently committed to collectors who have waited six months on a preview list, and that even if every piece were available, our gallery policy explicitly prohibits third-party proxy purchases designed to clear out an artist’s studio without their direct written consent.”
A breath I hadn't realized I was holding rushed out of my lungs. “Julian… thank you.”
“Don't thank me,” Julian said, picking up his espresso. “Your autumn show nearly sold out on opening night. You’re one of the most promising landscape illustrators in the Southwest, Rebecca. Your work has value because of your vision, not your family’s lumber yard. However…” He paused, his gaze sharpening. “He did mention something else before he left.”
“What?”
“He said that if I spoke to you, I should remind you that the tribute painting belongs to him.”
“It doesn't,” I said instantly. “I bought the canvas. I bought the frame. I paid for the walnut trim and the brass plate with my own money.”
“He claims it was a commissioned work for his anniversary,” Julian said. “He stated that because it was listed in the official event program as a gift presented to the hosts, it became family property the moment the cloth was removed from the easel. He said he intends to send a courier to retrieve it from your studio by Friday.”
“He wants to destroy it,” I said. The realization hit me with the weight of an iron anchor. “He doesn't want anyone else to see it. If he has the canvas, he can burn it in his backyard incinerator and spend the next ten years telling people that it was a terrible, misunderstood sketch that Rebecca got confused about.”
“Precisely,” Julian said. He stood up, smoothing the front of his jacket. “Which is why you are not going to keep it in your studio.”
“Where am I supposed to put a four-foot oil painting that my father is hunting with a checkbook and a lawyer?”
Julian smiled—a thin, mischievous crescent that I had never seen on his usually austere face.
“The New Mexico Museum of Art is opening their biennial juried exhibition on contemporary Southwestern portraiture in four weeks,” he said. “The submission window closes tomorrow at midnight. I happen to be on the selection committee, Rebecca. And I believe that particular piece—especially with that delightful little brass plate at the bottom—is the most authentic commentary on family architecture this state has produced in a decade.”
I looked at him, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
May you like
“You want me to submit it to the museum?”
“I don't want you to submit it to be vindictive, Rebecca,” Julian said gently, his tone softening into something paternal in a way David Miller had never managed. “I want you to submit it because it is your truth. And an artist’s only real defense against being erased by the world is to make their truth impossible to ignore.”
