RIP Story : June 4th, 2024

“The Heart of the Festival” was revealed to the public on the first Saturday of the Census Art Festival. The city had finished it’s 5-year census and for the first time they included a question about where people or their families originated. The festival organizers took the information and planned an event that would showcase all of the nationalities who made up the residents of the city.

Local artists were invited to create pieces. The festival would take up the entire park at the city center. With all that room to fill, there was space for lots of local artists to display their cultural pieces. The census provided a distribution of where all the residents came from around the world. They took that information and invited artists to send a piece or come to the city and create a piece.

One of the artists who worked with metal, sent in a concept for a giant heart sculpture. The organizers saw this and knew it was perfect for the central plaza in the park. A central stage with surrounding fountains would be set up and the heart would be the shining piece of the show.

The artist was flown in and didn’t speak any of the local languages. They were set up in a local artist colony building close to the city center. City Council members would stop by the building every day to see the progress. As the show grew closer the council members started to come inside and ask if the sculpture would be done on time. “It will be done when it is done” was the answer. The other artists got so tired of council members coming into the building, they painted over the windows that showed the internal plaza where the sculpture was being constructed.

The sculpture was delivered to the city park the day before it was to be displayed. Strips of gold shined as a beacon of art and culture. The strips curved into the shape of a heart. They wanted to build the chambers inside the heart but there had not been time for that. The Heart was not hollow thought. Each of the artists who lived in the colony, or those who lived in other colonies but stopped by to see the project, were invited to place something inside the heart. “The Artist” as they came to be known by the local citizens was a hit. The City Council ecstatic they had a piece of art they could showcase to the rest of the art loving world. “This could be the first step to growing the cultural brand of the city,” was what one of the council members said.

“Absolutely not, the artist will have the option to take this back to their homeland,” one of the festival organizers said. Seeing the look on their faces, the festival organizer continued, “and don’t worry, we will pay for it. We’ve covered all the costs for this show as our own organization. You don’t get to hang on to what could be displayed in these artist’s homelands. Live in the moment, all of you.”

The Artist declined the offer and only asked for students from their homeland be invited back to see the piece and spend some time in the colony that was so inviting while they were in the city.

Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow.

EPILOGUE: This is the second pass at this story. I had a version that I liked a lot more written over a long weekend trip to Cambria. Then, before I could save my progress, the page failed on a refresh load and the entire story was lost. It’s been 3 days since then and I’ve forgotten the elements that made that first version so much better. I’m a little sad about it to be honest. I felt like I captured what I wanted in the first pass and lost the story after the internet ate it. Alas, as the story said, live in the moment and move on.