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The Uncomfortable Gaze: Droo-Cynthia Visits the Spankers’ Drawings Gallery (153–23)

"The Scribe erased them," she said. "That’s the deal. The drawings keep the sting. My skin forgets." She let the shift fall. "Which do you think is crueler?"

Before leaving, I was required to pass through the repository. Here, one may purchase facsimiles of the drawings, but only on paper so thin that it tears if handled without cotton gloves. Also for sale: small wooden paddles engraved with Droo-Cynthia’s aphorisms. The bestseller reads, "The body is not a document. But it can be annotated." Droo-cynthia-visits-the-spankers-drawings-gallery-153-23

The largest work in the show, "The Gallery Watches the Gallery" (153–23–17), is a panoramic mural done in sanguine and sepia. It depicts this very gallery. In the mural, a crowd of faceless patrons stands before a drawing of Droo-Cynthia. But inside that drawing, a smaller Droo-Cynthia stands before a mirror. And inside the mirror, a tiny Tocker points at the viewer.

I approached. "Does it hurt," I asked, "to be drawn like this?" My skin forgets

"Both."

— End feature —

The second drawing in this room, "Implements of Intent" (ink on birch panel), lists thirty-seven objects: a slipper, a hairbrush, a cricket bat, a rolled-up newspaper, a conductor’s baton, a frayed ethernet cable. Each is rendered with the loving precision of a botanical illustration. Droo-Cynthia’s own annotations, scribbled in the margins, read: "The willow switch sings. The ruler recites facts. The hand remembers everything the others forget."