This barely fictitious story follows my earlier posts, “Tales of an Adjunct,” and continues to clarify what it’s wish to ascend by way of the ranks of academia.
Who’s the patron saint of pregnant girls? St. Agnes? No, that’s the patron saint of virgins. St. Lucy? The depictions of her with eyeballs on a gold plate terrify me. Now I keep in mind: St. Gerard Majella. I would like an intervention for all of the morning illness. “Oh, St. Gerard, I beseech thee, please make the hurling cease.” How am I going to get by way of this interview with out getting sick?
Riffling by way of my mom’s field of outdated prayer playing cards from the Nineteen Forties, I come throughout one for St. Gerard, the virgin saint. He seems acquainted. Then it hits me. He seems like Sting. Besides Sting is sporting a monk’s gown and holds a crucifix, flail, and a few white lilies. For some motive, the lyrics “Each breath you are taking … I’ll be watching you …” chime in my head. Flipping the cardboard over, it reads, “O wonderful St. Gerard … thou didst bear, like thy Divine Grasp, with out murmur or criticism, the calumnies of depraved males … Protect me from hazard …” The irony of praying to a male virgin to intervene on my behalf appears ridiculous. I’m by no means going to get a job at a Catholic girls’s school. The nuns will sense I’m not a practising Catholic. They know; they all the time know. I put the cardboard in my pockets, get into my automobile, and make my option to St. Mary’s Faculty.
The gates to the faculty look idyllic as they open on to an allée of gigantic sycamores whose cover looms overhead making a tunnel propelling me ahead. At its finish stands an imposing constructing, the motherhouse, and a visitors circle. With out readability, I veer proper on the second alternative, not wishing to cease and ask on the motherhouse. It’s not as if I dislike nuns; I simply don’t wish to be requested about my views on Catholicism.
I remind myself: concentrate on the instructions. Driving previous the nuns’ cemetery, pool and tennis courts, I mirror that it’s fairly a juxtaposition. Then my thoughts strikes to eager about what I’m going to say in the event that they ask me about my paintings. Will I be forthright and say, “My present physique of labor, Publish-Catholic Relics, is about how the Catholic church’s view of girls is unacceptable. The Catholic church provides three identification choices: 1) virgin, 2) whore, 3) mom. I don’t assume these are nice choices”?
Do I admit that an exhibition of my work was protested by the non secular proper? That they took out advertisements and wrote letters to the editors of a number of papers? The police investigated the exhibition to find out if the exhibition violated group decency requirements. I remind myself the county prosecutor issued a letter saying it didn’t. Individuals say, “Even unhealthy press is sweet press.” I disagree. It was a horrible expertise. Within the exhibition visitor guide, somebody wrote to me, “All you want is an efficient fucking.” Another person threatened my life.
I do know at the least one of many artwork division school members is a nun. What if she asks me to explain a few of my artworks? Are you able to think about her face once I say, “Properly, one piece is mainly a jewellery field encrusted with gold beads. Inside there are footage of Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Teresa, textual content about feminine masturbation, and a few pubic hair–like Spanish moss”? Will she have a look at me in horror, cross herself and take out her rosary beads? All I can assume is I’m not getting this job. Zero probabilities.
I discover a parking house, open the door and instantly throw up within the parking zone. I mumble, “Sorry,” and assume, “Perhaps the rain will wash it away. Hopefully, that’s sufficient puking till I’m completed with the interview,” pop a few Tic Tacs in my mouth and stroll to the artwork constructing. Once I catch my reflection within the glass door, my ideas wander. “God, I’m enormous. Black shouldn’t be slimming. It can not disguise seven months of being pregnant. Should be all of the BBQ chips and lemonade; it’s the one factor I can eat. God, that’s bizarre.”
A lady with short-cropped hair (assume Mia Farrow’s Vidal Sassoon hairdo within the movie Rosemary’s Child), sporting a stunningly giant sterling silver Zuni squash blossom necklace and a knee-length loopy quilt–like recycled kimono jacket meets me within the foyer. “Hello, I’m Joan, the artwork historian. Good to fulfill you. This is among the galleries” (with a sweeping gesture on the open foyer). “I’m sorry nothing is on view proper now. We’re between exhibitions. Include me.”
We stroll by way of the pristine hallway, up the steps and enter a room by way of an oak door with a frosted glass pane and a transom. The slide library. This one appears rather less dank than those I’m used to seeing—a bit extra daylight and rather less mud. The vines of a heartleaf philodendron encircle the entire room. I supply, “Excuse me, I can’t assist however discover the magnificent plant!” Joan proudly replies, “Sure, I began it in 1972. It’s greater than 75 ft in size now.” Combating again the urge to say one thing like, “Do you could have a reputation for it? Audrey?” (she won’t get the reference to Little Store of Horrors, and I’ll be remembered for being the weirdo who needed to call the slide library plant), I merely say, “Stunning specimen. That’s fairly a feat.”
The doorway to the convention room is off the slide library, and Joan leads the way in which. It appears like a secure room. I speculate, “Was it designed within the early Seventies for directors and school to cover from protesting college students?” I enter the room. The members of the artwork school rise up and introduce themselves—William (portray and printmaking), Jay (images), Beth (fiber arts and printmaking) and Sister O’Kelley (portray and drawing).
Members of the committee ask questions on my expertise organizing exhibitions. I speak about managing the artwork gallery at Ohio College as a graduate scholar and dealing with nationally identified artists. I point out curating exhibitions for the Girls’s Caucus for Artwork in Houston, together with a present of works by girls who had been at the moment or had been in jail. “Many of the work was already gathered for us, however the guards allow us to meet one of many girls in her cell. She handed us the work in probably the most pious trend. It was a drawing of Jesus as a girl; many different works had been non secular in nature. I might characterize the recurring theme as in search of hope.” Sister O’Kelley nods approvingly.
“Girls in troublesome conditions, I feel, are sometimes misunderstood. As an undergraduate scholar, I labored in a girls’s shelter in Boston positioned within the Fenway, not removed from Kenmore Sq.. It was thought of one of the crucial harmful neighborhoods within the metropolis on the time. On Friday and Saturday nights, I (together with one other employee) would get there early to make espresso, put out meals, linens and blankets for the couches, and no matter objects had been donated (garments, underwear, female merchandise, and so forth.). There are a variety of misconceptions concerning the homeless. Girls are susceptible to being assaulted. They’re additionally more likely to have psychological well being issues and a system that doesn’t permit for long-term residency. Our job was to provide them what they wanted, ensure that there was order and ensure nobody smoked in mattress. It taught me quite a bit about compassion and judgment.” Sister O’Kelley smiles.
The interview continues as interviews do: “The place do you see your self in 5 years?” (With a 5-year-old.) “Inform us about an expertise with a troublesome artist?” (Aren’t all of them troublesome? Or let’s simply say “excessive upkeep”) “Finances administration?” (There’s really a funds?) “Supervising college students?” (Energy instruments might be enjoyable for ladies) “Public relations?” (I’m identified to write down catchy exhibition titles—Taking a Byte of the Apple: Digital Artwork by 5 Space Girls).
Then got here the query I’ve been dreading. “What’s your expertise in coping with controversial artwork?” I attempt to decrease/keep away from the query by answering briefly, “Sure, I’ve had some expertise.” Earlier than I can add anything, Joan pipes up, “I’m certain you’ve heard concerning the sculpture we had on campus that was vandalized. We invited a nationally identified artist to create a brand new piece to show on the campus inexperienced. She created an summary piece, coloured just like the mineral cinnabar, that was comprised of a number of giant, textured, bulbous varieties. I feel we overestimated the campus’s capacity to understand summary artwork. Individuals hated it—college students, school, employees, alumnae and the administration. They didn’t assume it was artwork, however pornographic and referential to the male anatomy. It was dubbed ‘The Balls of Saint Mary’s.’ A petition was penned for its elimination. Then, it was vandalized one night time and damaged into giant sherds, as if somebody hit it with a sledgehammer. We needed to pay the artist for it—$20,000. The items are saved downstairs; we don’t know what to do with it. The gallery director resigned in protest.” By the tip of Joan’s story, time is up, and I’ve to fulfill the dean. Good. Dodged a bullet.
The assembly with the dean is in an imposing dark-paneled workplace, which smells of outdated polished wooden like my grandmother’s home (which, coincidentally, was throughout the road from a convent and church). The dean is a formidable girl—pragmatic, severe, mental—a chemist. Her costume is a uninteresting, belted, handmade cotton shirtdress, which she wears with wise taupe-colored lace-up footwear. She sits upright in an ornately carved chair with tufted forest-green leather-based and presents herself as if to convey, “Don’t you bullshit me. I’ve survived in a male-dominated occupation, and I can and can, if essential, take you out.” All I preserve pondering is “Is she a nun? She has bought to be a nun.”
After the dean, I meet up with the search committee for some wrap-up questions. Close to the tip of the interview, they ask me once I can begin. I say dryly, “Proper after the infant is born in July,” to which they snigger (I’m unsure why. Perhaps it was my supply. Individuals inform me I’m humorous however not on function). A few week later, they provide me the job, a 10-month, half-time contract place as lecturer and gallery director.
Up Subsequent: Tales of a Lecturer and Director, Half 2: Energy Instruments Are Energy