Chapter 15 #2
“But Dylan is just starting out,” Clay protested, the ache rising up his throat.
“My life’s work has been about creating a space where no one gets to trash anyone else’s work.
It’s okay for people to say whatever they want about San Holo, because there are so many people who know he’s amazing.
But that’s not true for a fledgling artist like Dylan.
” When she opened her mouth, he rolled right over her words.
“Look at Gareth. He never painted again. Not until you encouraged him the other day.”
He turned back to his computer, and her hand fell away, trailing warmth down his arm.
“I get how you feel,” she said in the softest of voices.
“Especially because of Gareth. But there’s another side.
Think about kids. They have to learn how to walk.
They have to walk to school by themselves.
They have to enter the real world and see how it feels.
You have to let artists judge for themselves what people say and decide whether a comment can actually improve their work.
Reviews and comments make artists think.
You can’t take that lesson away from them, even if it hurts them when it’s happening. ”
She made him think of his brother and sister, Dane and Ava.
That’s how they’d been with him, with all of them really.
They’d smoothed the way for their younger siblings.
Today they’d call it lawnmower parenting.
When their parents died in that avalanche during their ski trip twenty years ago, Dane and Ava, being the two eldest, had dropped out of school to take care of the rest of them.
They’d all helped train Gabby in soccer so she made her high school team on the first tryout.
They’d sent her to cooking school in Paris.
Troy had wanted to become an Olympic diver, and they’d done everything in their power to get him there.
They’d worked their asses off to get Clay into Harvard, and he’d wanted to make the big bucks to pay them back.
By the time he graduated, though, both Ava and Dane had already made it big, Ava well on the way to creating her billion-dollar eldercare corporation, and Dane turning one resort into a worldwide empire.
They’d enabled their siblings to do what they loved while creating empires of their own.
It was after the tragedy with Gareth that Clay had recognized another thing big bucks could do.
“This is what I’ve worked for all these years.
To help artists like Dylan. Like Gareth.
” His heart hammered with emotion. “That’s why I created my nutrition and exercise app, so it would go viral, and I could sell it.
I took the proceeds—five hundred million—and grew that money until it allowed me to build Art Space and fund these warehouses.
Because I wanted to protect them. So nothing like what happened to Gareth happened to anyone else. ”
“You are such a beautiful idealist,” she said softly.
He wasn’t sure it was a compliment.
Being an idealist might be a beautiful thing, but sometimes it blinded you to reality.
And Clay had blinders on. “How could you ever in this world create a space for artists where you can protect them from other people’s opinions?
Because once their art goes out into the world—” Saskia spread her hands to encompass the entire globe.
“—someone will say, ‘Your art is crap, and I don’t like it.’”
He shook his head, his hair tangling in his vehemence. “I won’t allow anyone to come on here and cancel people.” He slashed his hand through the air. “No one can unload onto one person.”
“I agree bullies can’t be tolerated. But not every comment is made by a bully.
Sometimes they’re honest opinions, and they have to be allowed.
” She wanted to fold him into her arms, stroke his hair.
But she had to get him to listen. “You want to save artists from pain, and that’s a lofty goal.
I get that you’re passionate about this because of Gareth.
But artists have to grow a thick skin. Because once they, in whatever medium, put their work out there, it isn’t theirs anymore.
Books, music, paintings, street art—it’s all the same. ”
He stabbed a finger at his computer monitor. “If these negative comments make a person stop painting, then that’s bullying.”
She shook her head, even smiled softly. “Haven’t you ever left a book review and cited the reasons why you didn’t like the book?”
Clay’s jaw tensed. “I refuse to leave reviews.”
“But sometimes those comments help a writer see they need to make a change.”
“There are so many people who use the anonymity of the internet to be cruel.”
“That’s because all you remember are the mean comments.
But I can pull up a book review and show you parts that are negative and yet are still useful.
” She could have proven it right then, but he wasn’t ready to accept her philosophy.
She tried another tack. “If it were possible to create that perfect world with no negative criticism, we wouldn’t have the diversity of art that we do.
Sometimes a piece of art is made specifically as an ‘eff you’ to the people who say, ‘You’re no good. ’”
Clay sighed as if he were tired of the argument. “I agree that sometimes it can spur great works. But that’s not what they’ve done to Dylan.”
“But often great art is created under difficult circumstances. San Holo knows that from experience.” When she was only sixteen and her parents refused to support her artwork, actually throwing her out, she’d reached for her goal of being a great street artist with everything in her.
That didn’t mean cruel remarks were okay, but artists could use some valid comments for the good of their work.
“Art contains our hopes and dreams. But it also contains our pain. It’s amazing that you’ve given people a place to create and the support they need.
But one day, you have to let them fly and trust that you’ve done everything you can to make them strong in their belief in themselves and their art so they can take anything anyone dishes out.
Just like San Holo can have someone paint over a piece of his art and come out of it stronger than before. ”
She so badly wanted to tell him who she was. But he was an idealist, and he would hate her for lying to him, for sleeping in his bed, for making love to him, and never offering him her soul.
The guilt tied her insides into knots until she thought she might be sick. But she kept that stiff upper lip she’d learned from her parents.
After a deep breath, he looked at her, his eyes pools of misery. “I hear what you’re saying. But I’m still gut-punched by Dylan’s pain.”
“Dylan will be stronger, I promise you that. We’ll both help him through this terrible time.”
There was nothing left to say. Only something left to do. Saskia bent to kiss him softly, without desire—though that would come later—and with reverence for the man he was and the things he tried to do for the people he cared for.