“The Doom Statues” — Chapter 16

One of the artists, Rafael, spends three weeks, before the official opening, cataloging every piece of wood in the main building, most of it located up on the third floor. And even then is not quite finished. Others do the same with every drop of paint, the yarn, the fabric. Still more materials, in particular the wood and the paint, are found in additional quantities when cleaning out the barn.

A tall, skinny and pale blonde girl, Lydia, is working with photography as her medium, and tasked with snapping most official pictures, for posterity and promotional purposes. Meanwhile Tony, this burly if equally tall, black haired kid in full beard and some trendy horn-rimmed glasses, works almost exclusively with video. He has dedicated himself to interviewing people, shooting historical material on the progress made around here, in addition to his other artistic efforts. Anything of use in either of these realms Grace uploads to their website, from her perch at the reception desk.

The highlight of this main building, if not the entire compound, everyone seems to agree, is the spacious back room on the third story. With its brick balls, original hardwood flooring, ample tables and shelves built into the walls — not to mention an oven and some pottery wheels left over from earlier incarnations — this was obviously always a workshop. However, its main selling point for…