In Stone

1: "I kind of feel like you're real."

1: “I kind of feel like you're real.”

“If you look closely you can really see the stress lines in his face. It just captures so perfectly that moment of masculine sexual peak.”

Caia turned her head to the left, squinting a bit. No matter how she looked all she could see was a cheap hunk of clay that had been roughly shaped into man masturbating in a creepy crouch. It perfectly captured the moment of creepy sexual peak.

It wasn't that she was unfamiliar with sexual based art. Sex in art was a common theme, she saw it all the time. She had seen works depicting much more graphic things than this statue. So it wasn't the content that bothered her.

What bothered her was that the artist had no style and very little talent and was trying to cover for that with a blatant, crude effigy of sex that was both bland and unoriginal.

“Looks a bit like my ex.” McKenzie's statement was so blunt and dry that it made Caia snicker.

The shopkeeper was very good at his job. The twitch in his eye was almost unnoticeable. It probably wouldn't have been there at all if McKenzie hadn't been making such comments all day.

Caia and McKenzie loved going to museums and art galleries and art stores. As sculptors themselves, doing any of those things was a fun weekend for them. However, at art stores, they often ran into plain things like this. She had to admit that the seller was doing his best to talk it up.

It wasn't even that it was ugly. There was an entire branch of art that was 'ugly'. McKenzie made such pieces all the time. She found pretty things to be boring and uninspiring. In the ugly and the crude and shocking she could see the fundamental nature of things, so she said.

Caia found it funny that McKenzie enjoyed the ugly so much considering that she herself was so very pretty. She was very tall and her willowy, thin frame belied what Caia knew was a very strong, tough woman. Her Irish ancestry was made obvious by her pale skin and flaming red hair. She had been Caia's friend for a few months now ever since Caia had joined the sculptors' group that met every week at the recreation center. Though McKenzie had been in the group for years, Caia was the first one she had gotten really close to.

Which surprised Caia more than a little. While McKenzie liked ugly art, Caia herself was into the beauty of realism.

Caia was at least half a foot shorter than McKenzie. She wasn't willowy, she had just deep curves that filled out her small frame. Her short hair was dark red, almost auburn, and bounced happily around her face, only ever constrained by a headband. Her small, pert nose sat above a pair of delicate lips and below a pair of dark hazel, almond shaped eyes. People that met her said that Caia looked like a doll. She took that to mean that she was pretty, but uninteresting visually.

Which was fine. Caia would rather be known by her art than her face. That was where she put her personality and her heart. The sculptures she made were an extension of herself, part of her. If someone must judge her, she would prefer they do it from that.

“Well, you two are obviously connoisseurs of art. I'll just leave you to browse on your own.” The salesman turned, finally overcome with his annoyance with them.

“Took him longer than most,” McKenzie remarked.

Caia shrugged and continued down the rows of sculptures. “You could stand to be a little more kind to them. They're only doing their job.”

“Maybe if they knew art I would be.”

“They know art. They just have to sell art that isn't even worth the title sometimes. You have to admit, he was better at talking it up than most.”