Dear Cellulose Frankenstein,
America is loud. Everything here is oversized, over-sweetened, and utterly deafening. The people do not speak; they broadcast—which sounds a bit ironic coming from an Italian.
To escape the sensory assault of New York, I have been spending my afternoons in my aunt's art restoration studio in Westchester. It is a sanctuary. Down here, there is no meaningless chatter, only the hum of the ventilation system and the sharp, clinical smell of acetone, isopropyl alcohol, ethyl alcohol, ethyl acetate, and centuries-old dust.
It is a hospital for dying art, and I find myself fascinated by it. Not by the paintings themselves—most are mediocre portraits of dead aristocrats or religious scenes—but by the process.
Today, I watched my aunt work on a seventeenth-century landscape that had been ruined by decades of smoke and neglect. It was covered in a thick, ugly layer of yellowed grime. She didn't use a brush to paint over the dirty ugliness. She didn't try to add anything new. Instead, she took a cotton swab, dipped it in a highly toxic, precise chemical solvent, and gently rolled it over the canvas.
In an instant, the yellow grime dissolved. The original, pristine blue of the painted sky was revealed underneath.
It was an epiphany, dear Franky. A true revelation.
Traditional artists are arrogant. They believe they can create beauty from scratch by meaninglessly throwing paint at a blank canvas. But true perfection isn't created; it is uncovered. Unveiled. I feel a bit like Plato documenting Socrates' intellectual trespassing.
It is the meticulous removal of dirt. Chemistry, I realised, is the ultimate art form. A single, perfectly calibrated drop of liquid can erase a stain and restore a compromised surface.
And then, the door to the studio banged open. I didn't even have to turn around to appreciate whose audacity had just shattered my aha moment.
Mr. Henri Delacourt had made his theatrical entrance. Or, as I prefer to call him, Henri Delacunt: the walking expense report.
He is a local gallery owner who brings pieces to my aunt for restoration. He is also the human equivalent of a grease stain. He is a loud, sweaty, aggressively boorish man who wears too much cologne, dresses like a clown, and speaks to my aunt as if she were a dim-witted servant.
During this lovely encounter, he stomped into the lab—a place where nothing existed without purpose—shouting into his phone about profit margins and accidentally knocking over a tray of specialised scalpels with his oversized coat.
He didn't even apologise. He just laughed, a grating, wet sound that made my skin crawl, and demanded his painting be finished by Friday. If you've lost track of time, Franky, today is Wednesday. His request puts an incredible burden on my already overloaded, exhausted aunt.
The air in the room felt more toxic with Mr. Delacunt delighting us with his presence than it did when I breathed directly over my aunt's restoration chemicals. He ruined the air. He disrupted the symmetry. He shattered the artistic, contemplative environment. And for what? My aunt was already working tirelessly on that landscape, as she always does. The restoration would be ready very soon anyway. He was just unnecessary noise.
I stood up to grab a solvent my aunt had asked for, and I simply watched him. I looked at the yellowed, ruined painting on the easel, and then I looked back at the source of my annoyance. They were the exact same thing.
Both were layers of vulgar grime obscuring the peace and beauty of the environment. My aunt uses chemistry to cleanse the canvas. Why couldn't the same logic be applied to the room itself? To people? To society?
I have spent years studying how people create art, feeling empty and uninspired, inevitably reflecting that apathy onto the art itself. But looking at Mr. Delacourt's flushed, loud face today, I realised something fundamental. True art is not about adding more to an already crowded world. True art is about removing the noise to unveil beauty and meaning. It is the curation of silence. Of contemplation.
I think I have finally found some inspiration, my dear Franky.
It is time to get to work.
Bye, paper Frankenstein. See you soon.
Vera