Two Writers and a Painter

Clarissa … A writer unsure of word’s worth.

Paul … A painter unsure of visual worth.

Meredith … A writer believing that there is worth in all arts.

Scene One
Clarissa, Paul, and Meredith are sitting around a table drinking coffee.  This is just after Paul’s art party, and Clarissa and Meredith are now his only remaining guests.

CLARISSA
You’re lucky you’re a painter.  I can never express enough in words.  There will never be enough
visual aid.

MEREDITH
You’re lucky you’re a painter because you were able to go through art class without humiliating yourself on a daily basis. 
(laughs)

CLARISSA
No, I’m serious.  They say that one picture is worth a thousand words.  Aren’t the visual arts more effective?

PAUL
Well you can paint something and you might mean to say “Americans need to stop creating war,” but the reality is you’re preaching to the choir.  Art critiques might recognize it, but the general public isn’t going to think that deeply about an aesthetically pleasing painting in their living room.

CLARISSA
But if you’re a writer, you always want to say more.  And there are plenty of times when we use symbolism and some nut job thinks that we’re degrading veterans.

MEREDITH
That has certainly happened too many times.  But I think any art can be easily misunderstood.  That’s why most of the most meaningful, passionate artists are activists as well.  Outright activists.  Those who just like to stay in their Manhattan apartment looking at pretty paintings and reading nature poetry don’t really care.

PAUL
Then how do you get a decent audience?  How do you get to those you want to get at?  We’re always just with the same people.  Educated, artistic whites who have had some of the cushiest possible lives.

CLARISSA
Well that’s why painting is better.  Anyone can look at a painting. 

PAUL
But you don’t see your working class hero walking around in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  And if we did bring some of them in there anyway, what good would it really do?

CLARISSA
You have a better shot at it than I do.  The people I write letters to hardly ever read those letters.  Carrot juice drinking bohemians end up reading it.

MEREDITH
I wish you were wrong, but you’re not.  However, maybe the trick is to befriend some best seller--

CLARISSA
What best seller would listen to us?

PAUL
Well how--

MEREDITH
Wait, I think I have it.  So we get the upper class.  Because they’re the only people who anybody listens to.

CLARISSA
You are not going to get the upper class.  Neither am I.  Paul might.

MEREDITH
Well, we know Paul.  Paul gets to the fat cats, and then they’ll listen to whatever he says.  Because we’re manipulative bastards, he’ll get our work to them too.  They started the whole networking thing, now we can compromise with them to show that we’re not entirely a different species.

PAUL
But aren’t we a different species?

CLARISSA
Not entirely, or maybe we are.  But they don’t need to know that.  I like theater too.  Meredith’s on to something.  The rich like art, especially if it has a high enough price tag to convince them that it’s worth it.

PAUL
Do you think they’d fall for that?

MEREDITH
Paul, people fall for fake expensive things.  Real, trend-following paintings aren’t going to be the hardest things to sell to some CEOs who have so much money they don’t know what to do with it.

CLARISSA
Incredibly true.  So how will we start with all of this?

PAUL
Clarrissa, you can write a persuasive letter to your accountant friend.  And Meredith, do you know anyone?

MEREDITH
I know a couple.  One’s a local politician, which makes it even better.

PAUL
Most certainly.  I’ll give you prints of my paintings to enclose with the letters.  How many?

CLARISSA
Let’s make it three.

PAUL
Will do.

MEREDITH
I believe my point has been proven.

CLARISSA
We’ll see how it works. 

PAUL
Isn’t that what the arts are, anyhow?

CLARISSA
True enough.  If I had published as much work as I have unfinished or unsuccessful, I would probably
be making a speech somewhere right now.