I hadn’t expected attendance to drop off on the fair’s last day. No—if anything, the biggest crowd seemed to come that day.
Until then there’d been almost no need for me to help with customers, but on the final day I had to pitch in with simple guidance, and sales were highest on the last day too. Since artwork prices weren’t pocket change, a lot of general visitors seemed to compare carefully all fair long and make up their minds on the last day.
Phantom’s results were excellent.
We didn’t hit the target, but that was because the others were such go-getters they’d set it high; in practical terms it was impressive enough, and even those who ideally wanted more seemed satisfied in reality.
With five or six hours left until closing, of roughly 120 works in total, sales were complete with about ten pieces left, excluding Shushu’s works, which had been placed in an exhibition contract with a Chicago gallery.
“Tired?”
Noticing me checking my beat-up sports watch over and over, my sister sidled up, tapped my shoulder, and asked. I must have looked like I was checking the time because I wanted it to end quickly; I rubbed the back of my neck with an awkward grin.
“No. I’m waiting for someone...”
She looked curious but didn’t pry. A visitor showed interest in one of the ten works remaining, and she moved that way at once with a professional smile.
The people I was waiting for were a family who’d come to our booth on day two of the fair.
The father was East Asian; the mother looked Western with maybe a touch of Latin heritage; they were a fairly large family with four kids. The oldest boy seemed about my age; the youngest looked around ten. Despite their relaxed clothes, they had visited our booth with faces as serious as critics’, their kids spread across ages and distinct personalities.
Because their expressions were so grave as they looked at the works, I wasn’t sure at first they were a family. But if they weren’t, that unique mix of races and ages wouldn’t make sense.
“We’re looking for a new painting to hang in our living room.”
Turning to me—waiting behind them as they viewed—the one who said that was the youngest. He had his mother’s curls and rosy cheeks and his father’s dark, lovely eyes.
I worried about my clumsy English, but my sister and brother were both with clients; I didn’t have another option. My smile must have been stiff, but I did my best and stepped closer.
“I’m turning eleven this fall. We’re changing the living room painting to celebrate.”
“Really? That’s cool. Happy birthday in advance.”
Just the birthday wish made him beam like he’d been given a lavish present.
“This one’s a candidate too.”
The little finger pointed to one of Inwoo’s pieces—the only work of his we’d brought to this fair.
“So far this one’s in first place.”
Inwoo’s work had a simple, crisp form that vaguely recalled comics, but the palette was dark and heavy, and parts handled separation and deconstruction in a way that felt grotesque; it wasn’t the style you’d expect a child to pick.
“Can I ask what you like about this painting?”
“I have secrets too. I don’t want to say, but my family keeps prying and it stresses me out—this feels like how my heart feels then, so something clicked.”
At the kid’s clear answer I took another look. The silly-looking comic-style figure in the piece did seem to be suffering from unwanted attention and pressure—only the pain had been turned into something laughable, as if it were nothing.
Digging to the bottom and exposing pain’s bare face can be art; but a straightforward confession of your own weakness—the lack of courage to do that—can be art too. So I didn’t dislike Inwoo’s piece.
As the kid said, something had “clicked”; I felt as if I’d clicked with the kid through the work, and smiled in sympathy.
“Even at ten you can have secrets.”
He turned to his family and said it emphatically, as if for them to hear, and they burst out laughing, faces full of helpless fondness.
“I think I get it. I feel the same. I hope this one gets chosen.”
Teens usually have their own plans for free time, so getting six family members to find a day to come to an event like this together wasn’t easy.
The very fact that they all gathered—with serious attitudes—to decide together on the painting that would decorate the family living room was a light shock.
No, more than shock, it made me consider an area of art I’d never really thought about—the viewers, the people who buy and enjoy the work.
I’d never been a painter, and I quit before I concretely dreamed of becoming one, so I’d never really reflected on someone else owning my painting. In the past, for me, painting was an act focused on “I paint,” on self-expression.
But that day, through that family, I could picture something specific: if I accepted his offer and became a Phantom artist, my paintings might become someone else’s property; I might meet people who would reassign their own meanings to my work, bring it into their everyday spaces, and weave it into their daily lives.
Suddenly it felt like that might be the only way for a painting not to die—to stay alive.
“What if someone had taken it in the meantime?”
“It didn’t sell, so it’s fine. I really did leave on time.”
At the kind of harmless grumbling that passes between siblings, I turned toward the sound. It was the customers I’d been waiting for.
The family, back at Phantom with the oldest two brothers bickering, ended up buying Inwoo’s work. They didn’t arrange delivery; they took it with them then and there.
Watching their backs recede through the crowded fair, clutching the piece carefully to one side, I felt a pang of envy for Inwoo.
For some artists, honor or financial success might come first, but if you’re chosen by someone who truly understands your work, wouldn’t that be the happiest thing for most artists? That presumptuous guess knocked on the shell of my dull, neglected heart.
They weren’t the only ones.
Teenagers with backpacks who came and laughed as they spun off offbeat interpretations in front of pieces. Couples strolling the venue like a park date. Gentle-looking parents and children. Older couples discussing works with solid taste and knowledge...
All throughout the fair, I was deeply struck by the overall atmosphere—not just people in the art industry, but many general visitors freely enjoying and comfortably accepting art.
If I could paint works not for solemn reverence as objects of awe, but to share ordinary days and special moments with everyday people—over their sofas, in their entryways, at their bedside—paintings that live with life itself... then maybe a new era could open with a different meaning from what painting had held for me before.
Or, if that sounds too grand, maybe I could begin to find a new meaning different from before.
Whether I still had the power to tell stories through painting—I couldn’t be sure.
But the thought of a painting becoming part of someone’s life, reborn not just as “a painting I made” but as “someone else’s painting,” felt like a chisel and hammer grinding down and striking my numbed chest. It was unmistakable excitement.
I don’t know if this was his plan and intent.
But even the Golden Alpha Lau Weikun couldn’t have predicted a family like that would visit our booth and stage such-and-such an episode.
If, however, he’d aimed for the jolt and stimulus I’d receive from people who each love and enjoy art in their own way... then I had to admit the effectiveness of his plan in bringing me on this trip.
■ ■ ■
“That happened? You clicked, huh. That kid’s not ordinary. He’ll grow up to be anything.”
Setting down his beer glass, Inwoo nodded big, face delighted.
Maybe because it was news everyone was hearing for the first time, they all stopped eating against my intention and fixed their attention on me.
“The age gap between the siblings was so big—it was adorable. I didn’t know there was that kind of story. Knowing it makes it even cuter, right?”
My sister, who’d handled the family’s payment, smiled warmly, saying she remembered who they were.
“Since it wasn’t sold to a famous collector or gallery, it won’t help your career much, but it’s a heartwarming story.”
He said it while dipping lamb with long chopsticks in the red broth and swishing it, and Inwoo’s eyes narrowed at once.
Catching the look, he shrugged.
“What. Why. It is a heartwarming story. Who’s saying it isn’t?”
“Oh, right. From a dealer’s point of view, compared to an artist like Shushu who landed an exhibition contract with a big Chicago gallery, I’m a ‘no-help’ nobody.”
“Don’t put yourself down just to be contrary when you don’t even think that.”
I’d brought it up in simple ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) hope that knowing the story would make Inwoo happy about the sale, but the mood was drifting odd. I popped the chopsticks I’d raised for a clam into my mouth, then set them down quietly after looking between the two.
“Why are you fighting over nothing? We were eating fine.”
The manager, noticing me glancing between them, stepped in to mediate, but the ping-pong kept going.
“How do you know what I think or don’t?”
“From the start, you and Shushu carry different weight toward your work. You know that exactly. You expect results proportionate to the effort or passion you put in, no more. You’re not thinking of belittling your work by comparing it to anyone’s—not Shushu’s or anyone else’s—and you’re not thinking of throwing yourself in more seriously either. Appropriate results for appropriate effort. You’re satisfied with that, so why act up?”
Swishing another piece of lamb through the red broth, he spoke at leisure, without a hitch.
“Hm. You can’t fool the eye of a guy who eats by selling paintings.”
At Inwoo’s deadly-serious joke, he shook his head like, can’t be helped, and dipped the cooked meat in sauce and popped it into his mouth.
If my sister hadn’t whispered that the two were always like Tom and Jerry, to just ignore them and keep eating, I might have taken it as a real emotional spat—along with kicking myself for bringing up something unnecessary.
It was the first Friday after the Hong Kong trip, and we were only now having a late after-party after clearing the backlog of work.
Told to book wherever she wanted, my sister chose a Chinese place specializing in hot pot and dim sum. I’d had dim sum in Hong Kong, but hot pot was new to me.
No sooner had the pot split half with creamy mushroom broth like bone soup and half with hell-pit red broth been set on the table than—saying he’d heard from Juhan—Inwoo slid open the private room door and popped in. From then on, for some reason, his mood seemed a little low, and I worried.
“If you’re going to Chicago, a group show in the second half is going to be tough, huh?”
Picking up his chopsticks for the first time, Inwoo finally changed the subject. But what caught his interest wasn’t meat or seafood that would fill him—he went for limp cooked cabbage.
“It’ll go ahead as planned.”
This time he put down his chopsticks and dabbed his mouth with a paper napkin.
“How? You and the manager will both be away. How’s that possible?”
At his words—fishing out fish balls drifting around in the bubbling broth—Juhan and my sister froze with their chopsticks and shot him sharp looks at the same time.
“Hey, babies, why the scary eyes? I’m not disrespecting you. But running it with no lead on site—even you two, as excellent as you are—that’s a lot. And we’ve never run it that way before, have we? That’s what I’m saying.”
His uncharacteristically earnest explanation made me smile.
“The manager is staying.”
“...”
At the unexpected declaration from his mouth, the room went quiet. Only the hot pot split in two boiling away and the low murmur leaking in from outside the private room.
