Artnophobia
(July 23, 2006)

Hi my name is Suzy TooToo and I’m an artnophobic.

Yes it’s true, but do not worry. Please wipe away those tears. Remember deep below this fetch outfit, this amazing body of blonde hair and purple eyes, is a beating heart – a beating heart of a raspberry-popping survivor.

Surprisingly, Ham was the first to uncover my artnophobia. It happened one afternoon when I stopped by World of Ham Headquarters to snag some chocolate crème eggs. Unfortunately, I arrived to find Ham’s office door locked. At first I was worried that he was on to me – that he locked his door because he knew it was me who had been eating his secret stashes of Cadbury Crème Eggs from his desk drawer. But then I heard his voice in his office. I leaned against the door to get a better listen.

“Ham you genius! You should change your name to Ham-casso – it’s that good!”

It took a moment but I realised Ham was talking to himself. What a dork!

Just then Ham’s rickety old office door opened and in my face was lions!
“Ah! Ah! Ah!”
“Suzy, calm down. It’s only me – your best bud Ham!”
“Ah! Ah! Ah!”
“Umm… okay maybe not your best bud but…”
“Ah! Ah! Ah!”

Ham looked at the painting of the lions in his hand.
“Suzy, it’s just a painting of lions. I didn’t mean to scare you. Well, in all honesty, I did but not to the point where you are starting to scare me. Actually Suzy it’s more than just a painting – it’s my painting that I, well, um, painted. What do you think?”
“Ah! Ah! Ah!”
“No need to be harsh. Remember it is my first attempt.”
“Ah! Ah! Ah!”
“I know what will make you feel better; a Cadbury Crème Egg.

Ham walked to his desk.
“Just a second Suzy, I’ll have those yummy cream filled eggs to you in a second. Just let me open my desk drawer.”

Ham looked into his desk drawer and found no eggs.
“Ah! Ah! Ah!” he screamed.

Seeing Ham dumbfounded about some Cadbury Crème Eggs made me feel better. I stopped screaming. So did Ham.

“What was that Suzy? I have not seen you that terrified since the raspberry frost of ’04.”
“I’m a… a… “
“What?””
“Artnophobic.”
“What?”
“I have severe artnophobia.”
“Yeah, I still don’t get it.”
“You ninny, I have a fear of artwork.”

I explained that as a young pretty girl I had a bad experience at an art gallery. It happened when I wandered away from the group during a class trip. There, on my own, I found paintings of orange bearded men missing ears and French landscapes so blurry that it made my eyes hurt. There were clocks melting, unibrowed Mexican women portraits and the one that put me over the edge… a man in pure fright screaming. I started screaming like the ill-fated painting until my teacher found me in the fetal position under some grey naked guy statue with curly hair.

“Oh the humanity! Why do paintings have to be so scary!”

Ham thought it over for a moment.
“Suzy I can help you. Next week I will take you to the Macintosh.”

The Macintosh is one of the most famous art galleries in Canada. Originally, it was a cottage, owned by the Macintoshs’ who furnished it with artwork. Over the years, word spread of their amazing personal collection so much that they never had a moment’s peace in the cottage. People kept appearing on their doorstep asking to see the works of art. Therefore, the Macintoshs’ turned their cottage into a remote public art gallery.

“The Macintosh Art Gallery! Are you insane? That would be the absolute worse place to take me.”
“No, no, no. Next week the Mac is celebrating its 37th anniversary. There will be cake, bands and speeches. It won’t feel like an art gallery at all. It’s perfect.”

“I’m not sure.”
“For sure you are. Suzy TooToo not up for a challenge?”
“You’re right! I, Suzy TooToo will conquer my fear of artwork. Good bye artnophobia.”

The following week Ham and I arrived at the Macintosh via Ham’s orange scooter. It’s not the fastest but it beats public transit. As we arrived at the gates, I realised that for once, Ham was right. The cottage feel and party atmosphere made the Mac feel like a long weekend escape in the Muskokas.

As we walked through the galleries, I felt my artnophobia evaporating from my body. Those paintings were different from my childhood nightmares. They were nice, clean, and easy to understand – in short they were Canadian. I started to relax – to be my old perfect self. In fact, Ham and I started making fun of some of the paintings. That is until we went upstairs to the feature gallery exhibit – “The Complete works of El Christino.”

Neither of us had ever heard of the artist El Christino but her paintings proved to be our favourite. She had such diversity – a still of apples, a red mailbox; a view of a barn landscape so true that you’d swear it was a view from your own back deck. Then I saw it- la crème de la crème – the Suzy TooToo of paintings. It was a simple, yet glorious, orange and yellow sunset entitled “My Son is Perfect like this Sunset”.

“Oh Ham, this is the one. Whenever I feel my artnophobia creeping back, I will close my eyes, imagine this painting and the bad feeling will sink away.”

“Suzy if you like it so much, why not take a picture of it?”
“I didn’t know we could take pictures in here.”
“Here, take my camera.”

As he retrieved his camera from his knapsack, I thanked him for the kind gesture.

“You better take a bunch of photos. You want to make sure you have at least one good one.”

Ham continued to wander the gallery as I snapped photos. In the midst of artistic bliss, I heard a scuffle behind me. I turned to find a murder – not a murder of crows, but a murder of art gallery security guards – and they began to crowd me. Feeling my artnophobia seeping back into me, I panicked.”

“Ah! Ah! Ah!”
The murder of guards jumped back in fright. Seizing their hesitation, I ran through them to the stairs. After much ducking, dodging and runabouts I managed to ditch those pesky murdersome guards without damaging any artwork.

As I sat under a tree to recover from my ordeal, Ham’s shadow dropped over my face.
“Suzy, thank goodness I found you. Everything okay?”
“I’m ready to go. It is hopeless Ham. I can’t shake the artnophobia.”

“I guess Natalie was right about you. She said you didn’t have the mental toughness to be a Queen Amidala like herself in Star Wars. She said you were more like Queen of the Jawas.”

“You got me Captain Dork. What’s a Jawa?”
“It the little creatures in Star Wars that always get slaughtered. You know - the ones everyone seems to kill. In Star Wars terms they are equivalent to chickens.”
“Jawas! I’ll show that no-Oscar girlfriend of yours!”

I left Ham and marched towards the gallery.
“Wait up Queeny.”

I left Ham in the dust and marched through the front doors and up to the El Christino gallery. There I stood in front of my favourite painting recharging my artnophobia-fighting batteries. Just then, Ham coughed.

“Suzy, over here.”
I walked over to Ham who was leaning suspiciously against a wall.
“What?”
He looked down to a painting. A new painting, in fact so new it was added after I was chased out of the gallery. It was a painting of some lions.

“Wow, they put new artwork in here all the time. Even in the last twenty minutes. That’s so cool.”
“No Suzy.” He whispered. “I put it in here. It’s my painting I made last week – remember?”

Sure enough, it was Ham’s cheesy painting of some lions under a tree.

“How did you get it in here?”
“When all of the security guards were chasing you, I took it out of my backpack and hung it on the wall. It was part of my master plan.”
“But how did you know there would be a chase?”
“Simple. I squealed to the security guards on you. I told them that you were taking photos.”
“Hey! You even gave me the camera!”
“Yep.”

“You must die… now!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Suzy. Quiet or they will find the painting. The first objective was to help you with your artnophobia – which I did. While here, I thought I would do something nice for me as well. It’s a win-win.”

Just then, a little boy and his mother stopped in front of Ham’s Disasterpiece. Ham beamed with pride as the family examined his artwork.

“This sucks!” the little boy said to his mom.
“Sucks! What do you know you little snot. ‘Sucks’ coming from a zero whose best work is finger painting.”

My artnophobia was conquered and a little boy made a fool of Ham. What a great day!