New Mutants: Scribblenauts - Gesso

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

The art fair begins encouragingly enough. Topaz gets a quick lesson in what is art (hint: anything can be art) and is Pixie's first customer at her booth!



Art wasn't generally Topaz's thing, and she'd be lying if she said she wasn't slightly bored as she wandered down the street, checking out the stands. But she'd never been to District X and she was interested to check out the area, so she'd tagged along on this.

Her eyes zeroed in on a familiar shock of pink hair, and after a moment of thought she bee-lined to the booth, tilting her head as she approached. Pixie had an interesting variety of things, including painted shoes and some paintings. "Three guesses where you got the inspiration for that one," she said dryly, pointing to one that looked suspiciously like a Shade.

Pixie looked up from arranging her booth at the sound of Topaz's voice and waved cheerfully.

"Hey! Yeah..." She let slip a nervous giggle. "Sorry if it's kind of creepy. I had all these scraps of velvet left from a sewing project and they sort of became art therapy. Now I don't really want them, but hopefully some tourists might. This is my first time doing a booth so I have no idea if I'll sell anything. Have you been to the District X art and craft fair before?"

"It's a really good likeness, actually." Which was a roundabout way of saying it was creepy, but she wasn't really bothered by it. "I'm sure someone will think it's...modern or hip or whatever and buy it." Yeah, art was not Topaz's thing. "I've never really been here at all, actually. Never had a reason to."

"Oh really?" Of course there were many NY neighborhoods Pixie hadn't been to either. She draped a plain piece of velvet over a table and set some customized high heel shoes on it. The fabric also hid the boxes underneath. She set some older projects, painted Converse, on a rack borrowed from work and nudged that into place in front of the table. "I work just over there," she gestured vaguely across the way. "EVolution. Do you like fashion?"

"Ah...not particularly?" Sometimes it hit Topaz just how strange some of her friendships were. This was definitely one of those times. "Never really had much time for it myself."

"It's not everyone's cup of tea," Pixie said, smiling. "I don't feel particularly fashionable myself but I like learning about it, creating my own personal pieces. It's an art form. Pretty much anything can be art. I also really like cars. Anyone's expression - be it on a canvas, fashion model or working machinery - that moves you emotionally is art."

"Well when you put it like that..." Topaz murmured, tilting her head she examined the Converse. They were nice... "How much?" She asked, gesturing at them. "I'll be your first customer."

"Really?" Pixie beamed. "What size shoe do you wear? These ones are thirty. The shoes are gently used and I machine wash 'em, paint them with acrylics, and seal the paint with gloss for protection. The ones on brand-new shoes are sixty and I kept and painted the boxes, too."

"I'll take the gently used, saves me from havin' to break them in," she said dryly as she dug through her tote bag to find her wallet. "Size seven."

Pixie separated out the gently used size sevens, which was the most common size. One pair had a stylized wings and bones motif, another was a mass of writing tentacles, one was celestial in theme and couple were painted with different geometric and organic patterns. All were colorful and demon-face-free. Pixie had a difficult time reading the other girl's expressions and wondered which design she'd be drawn to.

Topaz examined them for a moment before finally settling for the celestial ones. "They're all lovely," she said as she picked those up, turning them over. "But I think I'll take these ones."

"Cool," said Pixie, putting the celestial shoes into a little paper bag with handles. "I was tempted to keep those ones, but they're too big for me. My feet are tiny."

"Well on the upside, you did make them," Topaz pointed out as she handed the money over. "So you could always, ya know, buy a smaller pair and paint them for yourself."

"True. And then again, it's hard enough to keep my collection and my closet manageable. I like to think of my shoes going off into the world, having adventures. Thanks for buying them and giving them a good home," Pixie said as she took the bills.

"I promise to take good care of them," Topaz assured her with a small smile. "So do you need any help settin' up? Isn't much to see walkin' around just yet but Ms. Jones wanted to get us all here early..."

"Sure, that'd be great! I'm pinning the smaller velvet paintings to this back drop," Pixie said, straightening a board covered with fabric. "And I need to figure out how to hang these signs."

"Brilliant." Topaz made her way around to the other side of the booth. "I'm sure we can figure somethin' out, maybe someone has string...?"


Artie meets a fellow classmate from his art school while waking the fair, and they talk food and fatigue and hipsterism.



Artie rocked back on his heels and looked up at the mural. It was big. It was showy. It was only about half finished because blah blah art is a performative process and only the token waist high fence separated it from the street at the edge of the fair.

That was going to end well.

He looked over at the artist, who was currently cleaning his brushes and waved.

Ishmael Hernandez had been muttering to himself as he cleaned his brushes, but he brightened to see Artie approach. "Hola, Artie," he said in greeting. "Did you happen to bring any food?" he asked sheepishly. "I may not have thought this whole '24 hour mural-a-thon' thing entirely through when it comes to meals."

Artie snorted. No, really? He did, however, hand over a paper plate filled with allegedly-Hungarian bread, a spiral cut potato dumped unceremoniously on top and a boba tea. Hands free, he tapped "it's all freaking hipster food, man" into his synthesiser. "Your work looks good." A passer-by muttered "mutant freaks". Artie ignored him.

"If I'd been thinkin', I would have talked to a classmate of mine. She's all into baking cupcakes and stuff. Shit, I coulda had white lady picnic food." He went to work on the potato, barely bothering to chew it. "'Sgood," he said with his mouth full, offering a fist for Artie to bump. "'Sides, pretty sure some folks'd call us..." He grimaced at the passer-by. "I was going to say 'hipsters'."

Artie smoothed his non existent moustache. "You might be a hipster but I'm not. No mo, no hipster."

"You keep telling yourself that, hermano. You don't gotta have a mustache to be a hipster, not like there's a requirement and a membership card and all that." Ishmael brushed sweaty hair out of his face, leaving a streak in it from the smudge of paint on the side of his hand.

A car drove by the edge of the exhibition, and a hand flicked a cigarette butt at them before throwing the middle finger as they drove away. Ishmael grimaced. "Fuckin' bigots, man."

Artie shrugged. Whatever. He ignored the passing car and said, with a degree of enthusiasm and pleasantness most of the mansion would have been surprised at, "Come on. Let's get a beer. You can get back to this once the idiots have gone home."

"Twenty-four hours for charity," Ishmael countered with a weary sigh. "But I'm gonna hold you to that beer once we're done here."

He shook his head. "You're crazy, man. I'ma leave you to this, and I'll be back tonight, with the floodlights."

Ishmael rolled his shoulders and neck, and grunted as he turned back to his mural, looking for the best place to get started again.



And Ty somehow manages to eat more than Kyle, and Namor just disapproves of everyone. Including Dali-inspired sidewalk artists.



Ty rubbed his hands together greedily as he watched a purple-skinned woman with a perfect afro pour dough into hot oil. She artfully spread it into a perfect funnel cake, and removed it at just the right time. Ty's stomach growled loudly as he gleefully absorbed the smell of the foods around the fair. "Could I get apples AND strawberries?" he asked the attendant. He gave her his best "kicked puppy" look.

"Yeah, for a dollar more." The vendor said blandly - it wasn't the first time she'd been asked. She didn't wait for Ty's response, he was a teenage boy, she knew what it'd be, and she turned to get both fruit toppings to put on his dessert.

From the next line over, Ty heard an amused barking laugh. "Dude, that's your what, fourth, fifth? sixth? plate of food today? Yo, you are gonna explode, or grow another arm. For serious, I can put away food but you put me to shame. Where the hell are you keeping it?" Kyle shook his head as he asked - Ty wasn't -that- skinny but he wasn't packing on muscle (or fat) like most of the people with mutant metabolisms, and he didn't have a sugar-fueled power like Jubilee or Angel.

For Namor's part, he was staring very seriously at a collection of abstract acrylics washes oblivious to Ty's foodventures. The young man started to make a comment and then caught himself multiple times. Frustrated, he turned his nose up at the art and refocused his attention on his two compatriots.

"Mr. Johnson," and there was an exasperated tone to match paired with the statement, "There are others waiting in line. We can get more food later."

Ty somehow managed to balance the funnel cake while he grabbed a handful of napkins one at a time, as the dispenser didn't want to cooperate. "G-gimme a minute. These th-things are messy," he said, still grinning like a loon. There was SO MUCH FOOD. And some pretty pictures.

"Dude, chill. It's his money, he can buy eleven funnel cakes if he wants." Kyle pulled a disgruntled face at Namor - but also grabbed a handful of napkins himself, tucking half under his arm and holding the other half out to Ty.

"Sides, the more stuff people buy the more people want to do this again next summer and the program's actually like, a good cause. You really do not want my lecture on like, how arts and music funding benefits other educational goals and actually raises performance in underfunded districts. It's boring if you're not into that." He grinned, all his teeth showing, and then took an over large bite of soft pretzel.

"Not my point. I imagine they would make more money if we let the other patrons purchase funnel cakes." In Namor's defense, there was a long line, but Ty really wasn't causing a backup. He poked at a foil-wrapped plate in his hands with a plastic fork, spearing part of a kabob. "There are any of number of social theories for neighborhood betterment that could be cited to in support of that statement. Are you referencing one in particular?"

Ty, not ready to turn his intellect back on after a few months of intense summer school, just stepped out of the way and dug into his funnel cake. He almost finished chewing before he spoke up. "That sidewalk artist chick did some c-creepy work. It was awesome." His mother may have been horrified to hear him call anything deemed creepy put into the category of awesome, but when your power centered around shadows, you got used to it.

Namor's gaze drifted over to the sugar-covered teen. "She was referencing Dali. Poorly."

"You draw melting clocks on a sidewalk while people are walking on it and you see how well you do." Dali was melting clocks, Kyle thought. At least he hoped so, or else he was about to sound -so- dumb. "And I'll totally drop the extended lecture series on you about social theories and all that junk when I'm like, capable of caring more about that then how totally poor I'm going to be because there are like four indie comic book people here and my girlfriend is totally overworking herself this summer." Maybe if he kept babbling inanely Namor would stop being a grouch.

Doubtful, but Kyle had eternal hope, or optimism, or he'd had a lot of sugar. One of those.

"Some say the decline in our post post-modern era is due to a lack of appreciation for history and the over-materialization of art," the noble continued in the same bored, superior tone, "But those are the same people who like to wax on about the Winter of the Western Era. Spengler offers little to an intelligent conversation." He munched on his kabob idly. And then, in the same tone, "We should consider heading back to the vendor section if you wish to make purchases."

"Dude about the best thing I can say about Spengler is that he wasn't a Nazi." Kyle shrugged one arm, and pointed down the row with the other. "I go that way. I take the bottomless pit here with me, so he doesn't eat all the art." He gave Ty a faux-stern look, that the young man had seen on most of the Mister G Filled His Swear Jar Donut Days.

Ty followed dutifully, never pausing his consumption of his precious funnel cake.