Having a mentorship meant that I could spend the last hour and a half of the school day at Kronos. Kris didn't like being at the gallery if there wasn't an event, or if it wasn't peak hours for foot traffic, so he ended up just giving me keys. Which naturally I thought was AWESOME! It was a really great set up. I went to the gallery most days. I'd work on planning and making/printing posters most of the time. But otherwise I had a lot of free time. So sometimes I'd bring my art to work on, or maybe homework. Sometimes I'd skip but not very often. And other times Zane would skip school to come hang out with me.
With all of this time and resources, we started having massive shows. 3 bands a night, two nights a week. And we'd pack the house. An average night had a door count of 200! Things were moving pretty smoothly. Kris started working on other parts of the gallery, throwing more art openings (often he'd host an opening right before a show just to see how many people would stay for the show, it was amusing.) A group started an improv night on Wednesday night and a private BDSM group rented the space on Sunday afternoons. We had a full schedule planned out months in advance! And trust me, we lived it up.
One night, at our weekly spaghetti dinner, Kris stood up to make an announcement. He even tapped his wine glass with a fork.
"Ahem. I just wanted to let everyone know that Kronos is not only steadily breaking even, we are actually making a profit!"
We all stood up and cheered. The gallery had come so far in the past few months. Kris had told us before that he had feared that he'd have to shut the gallery down. "No one buys art!" He'd say. "What is wrong with people?"
But now he didn't have to worry about that! The relief and happiness that filled the room that night was remarkable.
After dinner I pulled Kris aside.
"That is wonderful Kris!" I said. "You know, that the Gallery is actually making a profit!"
"Yea!" he said giving me a bear hug.
I took a step back. I was so grateful that Kronos had come into my life, I didn't want to ask for more. But I needed to do a thing for school and I wanted to do it at Kronos. So I took a breath and...
"Kris. Can I have my own opening?" I said starting to get hot from anxiety. "I need to have my art displayed somewhere as my final project for my studio art class, and I thought it would be really cool to do it at Kronos!" Now my eyes were even hot.
Kris pulled me in for another bear hug. "Yes! Charley that would be wonderful!"
He grabbed a bottle of wine and disappeared into the living room.
Really, I thought, holy shit WOW! My own opening! How cool is that!
I ran into the kitchen and grabbed Zane.
"Come here!" I said excitingly.
"What?" He said with a mouthful of spaghetti.
"Zane! Kris is going to let me have my own opening!" I jumped up and down a little.
Zane spit out his spaghetti in the trash can. "Really? That's great!" He said hugging me.
Then we all went into the living room to watch the X files. I laid my head on Zane's shoulder. I couldn't believe how lucky I was.
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