Here’s a little background information on some of the characters in “The White Elephant of Panschin,” coming out later in 2019 from the Peschel Press.
In “The White Elephant of Panschin,” this particular image is the bête noire of Professor Vitebskin.
He doesn’t like them off the canvas, either. He finds them supercilious, stuffy, sneaky and sly. They don’t regard him with the awe that he deserves. Professor Vitebskin much prefers his fluffy little dog (Pomeranian type) who adores him as the wellspring of everything wonderful. Cinnamon is always immaculately groomed and her behavior towards her adored master is obsequious to a fault. Cinnamon, is his dearest companion and, unlike his three ex-wives, Professor Vitebskin would never cheat on his dog.
Cinnamon doesn’t like cats either, and chases them when given the opportunity. All the ex-wives owned a pet cat, as was common for their class and status. Cinnamon really enjoyed using cats as chew toys and Professor Vitebskin encouraged the activity, which didn’t endear himself to his exes.
So as art professor at the University of Panschin (a.k.a., PanU) Professor Vitebskin considers baskets of kittens in art as representing everything he thinks of as twee, low-class, clichéd, overdone, bourgeoisie, trite, and déclassé.
This image turned into his personal, most-hated-image-ever a few years prior to the events of The White Elephant of Panschin.
A student of his, Clyde Monez, did extremely well in his classes and was to the professor’s eyes, a true, devoted acolyte who said and did all the right things. The professor expected Monez to become a fine-art painter, supported by family money as he developed his reputation for avant-garde work. His accomplishments would burnish Professor Vitebskin’s reputation as the discoverer and nurturer of outstanding artists.
Buy Clyde Monez harbored a terrible secret; terrible, that is, if it ever got out that Clyde Monez thought everything he was learning at PanU was a crock of shit. He took the classes, and did the assignments, but he also worked hard on his own art, which he did not show to anyone in the fine art department. Clyde also secretly took classes at PCC (Panschin Community College) in the commercial art department where he learned to draw really well.
In short, he learned to draw what sold, and what sold were cute pictures.
Clyde graduated with a degree from prestigious PanU, but also a much less notable degree from PCC. He did not begin his career in fine art, made possible by large infusions of family money.
Instead, he began doing commercial illustrations, which he had been selling all along under an assumed name. One of his first commissions under his own name was a story illustration for the local home and lifestyles magazine, Panschin Today. Clyde got along well with the editors and eventually he showed them a series that he thought would sell plenty of magazines.
Panschin Today always provided a full-color illustration on the inside back cover as a piece of “art” to be collected, framed, and hung on the walls. They charged a bit extra for it because it was printed on the heavyweight slick paper just like the cover. This feature was very popular and all kinds of subjects were depicted: landscapes, animals, clowns, flowers, still-lifes, historical pictures, you name it.
Clyde showed them a series he had painted of baskets of kittens. These were incredibly cute, adorable kittens of every possible breed and color, sometimes wearing bows or little straw hats or playing with balls of yarn. This series oozed cuteness. Based on the reaction of everyone who saw them in the office, which were variations along the lines of “oh my Gods! They are soooooo cuuuuuute!”, the editor took a flier on Clyde, still relatively unknown.
To be honest, it the editor wasn’t taking a huge risk. Cat and kitten imagery were a regular good seller because cats were expensive, fashionable pets.
The first printing in the “kittens in a basket” series sold out immediately. The editor, visions of bonuses dancing in his head, ordered another printing. It sold out again. Fawning letters poured into the editors. Clyde signed a contract to produce a full year of kitten paintings. This was especially lucrative as Mars uses the Darian calendar which is 24 months long. Every one of those magazines sold out at once. When the edition was complete, Panschin Today released a full, reasonably priced set of the “kittens in baskets” pictures on quality paper and that also sold extremely well.
Within the year, Clyde Monez had already made far more money than any fine artist from PanU ever had. As a successful graduate, he was invited to speak at the PanU’s annual art exhibit and during his after-dinner speech, he told everyone there that he owed his career to Professor Vitebskin. He had learned that if Professor Vitebskin hated something because it was sentimental twaddle, then plenty of other people would adore the same set of pictures, particularly if they were skillfully drawn.
He finished his speech with the following statement:
“The only thing that sells better than cute animals is porn.”
Professor Vitebskin was terribly embarrassed and insisted that it was proof that most people didn’t know anything about art. He loathed the kitten pictures and loathed them even more when some of the “kittens in baskets” images turned up in the studio of the fine art department, pinned anonymously to the walls. Worst of all, he felt betrayed by Clyde Monez, a student he had mentored and instructed with all his heart and soul.
Ever since, he made a point of telling everyone that kittens in baskets are the most worthless images ever painted; a sign of zero taste and skill.
Shelby came home (the very first week of classes at PanU) fully indoctrinated about the horrors of kittens in baskets. She tore down her own copy she had saved up for (fluffy white kittens tangled up in blue yarn spilling out of a basket adorned with a fluffy pink bow) and vowed before Veronica, Neza, Florence, and Lulu that no kitten pictures would ever appear in the White Elephant. This was too good an opportunity to miss and ever since, Florence, Lulu, and Veronica have teased Shelby about kittens in baskets. Neza has been more tolerant. Florence also rescued Shelby’s kitten picture from the recycling bin, ironed it carefully, and now it hangs up in the room she shares with Lulu along with the other ones they have been able to find.
Shelby has never admitted it, but she was secretly glad that Florence rescued her kitten picture. When she is unhappy and nobody is around, she sneaks into their room to admire their kitten pictures. They’re so cheerful and happy and she wishes desperately they could afford a kitten of their own at the White Elephant. The Bradwells used to own a cat before they lost everything. The cat, a long-haired, pedigreed cream-colored beauty, got sold along with everything else of value. Shelby still misses Madame Fluff, as does Veronica. The “baskets of kittens” pictures are as close as Shelby will come to having Madame Fluff back or having any other cat as a pet.
Shelby did keep her own portrait of Madame Fluff in the room she shares with Veronica, since she painted it. She could claim she kept it because Veronica insisted. She also knew her sister would never run out of things to say if she got rid of the painting because of Professor Vitebskin.
What Shelby did not know was that her portfolio, submitted to PanU in the hopes of an art scholarship, was rejected because she had included several loving portraits of their cat, Madame Fluff. Professor Vitebskin blew a gasket when he saw the cat imagery and rejected her portfolio as soon as he saw the first cat picture.
Despite being indoctrinated in the horrors of kitten art, Shelby can’t stop herself from liking them. She also knows what the household needs. This is why when someone else smuggled in a calendar to the PanU art department that had a cat or kitten for every month – Vitebskin threw it into the recycling bin as soon as he spotted it pinned to the bulletin board – she brought it home. Shelby said it was to save money for the family and it was. She also brought the calendar home so she could legitimately see a kitten every day.
Incidentally, some of these kitten images were painted by Clyde Monez.