Author: Brennan Thomas

Andy’s Alley

He reads—“New… Naïve… Art”—and snorts. “The hell?” Whenever my father inhabits his Andy Warhol mode, he detests the museum’s humble collections. There had been a Degas exhibit here last year and a Rembrandt one before that, but the local sculpture filling the spaces left by these normally un-gettable exhibits draws only sucks and blows. “It means artists who work outside the lines,” I answer. “Amateur hour with clay.” He strokes a phallic-looking vase. “Hope the divorcée who made this didn’t quit her day job.” “What makes you think a woman sculpted it?” He points to the placard below the clay stalk. “Says here first name’s Leslie.” “Could just as easily be a man. Leslie Nielsen?” “Doesn’t count.” Andy is my father’s favorite dead artist to play. He sounds like a sewer-mouthed Socrates sizing up everything that ever frustrated him: bills, bosses, women, daughters who didn’t know what they were until they weren’t anymore. “Can’t you just appreciate the time it took this person to create that?” I cannot bring my father to museums anymore without …