Kaloian: The Night Gallery

I lived next door to the Coast Highway Artists Collective in Point Arena for one year – the building was busy with artists displaying their work for sale, everything from paintings and etchings to jewelry and woodcraft, all sitting in their display cases and shelving waiting for the passing public to come in, appreciate and purchase. The gallery would close in the early evening and as evening turned into night everyone disappeared from the city streets – the dark gallery would begin to display magical signs of life, which I could easily observe from my neighboring window.

The arts and crafts, jewelry boxes and wooden furniture works would begin floating off the shelves and dance around the gallery, a parade of art would swirl around in a circular motion within the gallery walls, the woodworks of furniture, jewelry boxes and music stands would drag themselves along the gallery floor. Sometimes they would be joined by wildlife from the back garden who would seek shelter from the nightly Point Arena fog and rain along the gallery walls. I would sometimes hear the ghosts of Point Arena past, including the marching-by of Fourth of July parades from years ago, I could also hear the different cultures generating their music as Asian jewelry and Chinese pottery danced around with no one to interfere.

As night gave way to dusk, the rain would stop, the fog would go away the parades and dances of artwork, jewelry pieces, pottery and woodwork would wind down – each little trinket of art would return to the space on the shelf or in the display cases, only to appear completely undisturbed as the days artists would return to open the gallery again, waiting for the next appreciative traveler to wander in and admire them perched in their place. On my final night as the neighbor to this red painted gallery with bright yellow sunbeams, the sounds of these trinkets come-to-life began their final fade-away until nothing was left but a memory captured in these live movements of plucking felt on strings, yarn mallets on steel, wooden sticks on membrane, hammering Balinese gamelan and the final glistening of the gongs as the jewelry, pottery and woodwork became motionless again, waiting for their who knows when next chance to dance about again in the Night Gallery.

ALEXANDER KALOIAN
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