Trevor Heft's
Whole Truth 3
by Trevor Heft
In the
latest instalment of Trevor Heft’s Whole
Truth, the UK’s most refined reporter meets
the controversial artist Tony Avocado, of whom
much is spoken, but little understood.
“Is it
true, Mr Avocado,” I begin, an empty page
splayed over my knee. “Is it…”
“If it’s
been said about me,” he interrupts, “then
almost certainly not.” His words rip through
a shadow surrounding his reclined form. In the
short-lived sightings that the fractures invite,
I find a smile.
“Is it
true that you were given the nickname Mr Avocado
after passing the world’s largest known
kidney stone?”
His allure
moves like a cloud of migrating birds. The
sunlight – which once merely crawled through
cracks in the blinds – swan dives into the
darkness, casting it across the floor. “That is true!”
he says, suddenly in full bloom. “I won a Pride
of Britain Award for that…”
This, despite
being yet another brushstroke in his untouchable
oeuvre, is not why I’m in his apartment. No,
I’m here to ask about the fallout from his
latest installation, Sweet Lord.
“I don’t
want to talk about it,” he says, despite
having invited me here to do just that. I focus
on his new beard until he relents. “I’ve
never been so proud of anything in my life.”
“It sure
is beautiful,” I say, as he fires me a
glance that might blow a hole through a rose
thorn. Then again, I know nothing about gardening.
In Sweet
Lord, Tony installed a stained-glass window
in The International Happiness Project’s city
centre church. Unbeknownst to anyone, the piece
– a portrait of Jesus postmarking letters to
Santa – was made entirely out of spun sugar,
which Tony believed would slowly melt as sunlight
poured through it, signifying the return of
Christ for some, and barbecue weather for others.
But the
morning of its unveiling was in fact so
miraculously sunny that the piece had long since
liquidised by pastor and crowd arrived. Tony
promised that if there had been
witnesses, they’d have marvelled at the
intricacy, applauding how effectively he’d
exposed our reliance on accepted materials and
forms.
Critics
described it as, “groundbreaking,”
blaming the widely shared photos of them all at a
local barbecue during the unveiling as, “the
insidious work of AI.” But the Church sued
Tony, settling out of court for the sum of seven
shifts teasing bees down from the organ pipes.
“It’s
been a trying time,” Tony says, fingering
his beard and inadvertently unmasking the
evidence of approx. one million stings. I press
my hand into his, a curtain falls, and I never
see him again.
I leave, because I’m ready to, but also
because a voice creeps beneath the velvet, “get
out, get out, get out!”
The interview
wasn’t as illuminating as I’d hoped,
but my editor will press ahead with its
publication nonetheless. Why? Well, because Tony
Avocado guarantees readers, that’s why.
Also, it’s still more informed than my
review of the Chelsea Flower Show – Crufts
for the Chronically Dull.
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