Faux Monet

Visiting The Doctor, Part 1

The first things I noticed: a conference table, leather chairs, strong lighting. It was a waiting room of an expensive lawyer or prestigious banker, not the neighborhood doctor or dentist. Those rooms are styled for the slice of life crowd, sick with unruly kids.

I didn’t like the blue leather.

I pulled on the tough slender limbs of his collection of bonsai trees - a double monterey juniper, a cyprus. The triple ball topiary looked absurd. They were preserved.

Dee said, “Stop that.”

The artwork was overly emotional sap with the obligatory Monet, the one that was featured prominently in The Thomas Crowne Affair. I would have preferred the movie poster of a redheaded Rene Russo.

The Monet was an imitation painted by geriatric artists in China who work together on an assembly line for masterpiece forgeries. These fakes are sold in places like the Museum Store.

I ran my fingers over the bumpy globs of paint. I even pushed on the board to see what happened.

Dee said, “Stop that.”

“It’s a crappy imitation.”

The hack Monet clashed with the hack Richard Estes. The room was cluttered with other museum collectables, Native American totems, and Asian furnishing. His waiting room was an indulgent place to keep nice crap that wasn’t worth keeping.

“I like this bronze of the man carrying a yoke for water,” Dee said. “Maybe we should have more of this stuff at home. I think that painting of the photo looks more surreal than the Monet on the banks of the Seine. That’s wild, impressions making more sense than reality.”

“All this fake arty stuff is as bad as a pop song. At first, it’s catchy, then it becomes an overblown nuisance that people forget to tune out. Or throw out in this case.”

If I had a waiting room, I’d meet my clients there. My office would remain my office, a place to work and write.

Dee and I waited to the moment when I got annoyed that we had to wait. Then Dr. Marty - “Life Coach” - invited us in.

… continued