Varhaus No. 6

Gabe's Article

---

Free Press Extra

I Know Varhaus. I Can’t Tell You...

By Gabriel Thomas

---

February 1, 2028

Downtown-

I heard about this place the way you hear about everything worth knowing in this city. Sideways. From someone who wasn’t supposed to tell. An event. A chapel inside a building on Michigan Avenue. Singing kids. Best sandwich bar anyone had ever seen. I wrote it down and forgot about it.

Then I heard about it again. Different person. Same look on their face.

I started making calls. Nobody would talk on record. One person laughed when I asked. Another just said go. I had nothing.

Then an invitation showed up with my name on it. Black tie. Food bank. Varhaus hosting. I assumed someone made a mistake. I went anyway. I brought Susan. I had my notebook.

I did not get a scoop.

What I got was a room full of the city’s best people spending real money for a real cause while somewhere behind a pane of glass a kid in headphones ran a live online art auction to an audience I couldn’t see. The paintings were on the wall. The money was moving. The whole thing was engineered to within an inch of its life and looked like it wasn’t engineered at all. Ruth, if that’s even her real name, gave me a glass of wine and a lanyard and was halfway through a phone call before I realized I’d been handled. On the way out she handed me a wooden box. Mug inside. Handwritten note. Chesterton Quote. “Off the record”. A date.

I went back. They showed me a good time. Then another. Then they swore me to secrecy.

I have been played by an artist in sweatpants and a woman who may not be named Ruth and I cannot tell you one true thing about what goes on inside that building on Michigan Avenue because I promised I wouldn’t.

What I can tell you is what other people think.

I asked twenty of them.

---

“I walked past it for three months before I went in. I thought it was empty.” — a neighbor

“One day I could hear Wu-Tang through the door. Next time I walked by it was monk chanting. I went in but there was really nothing happening.” — a regular

“I saw a guy painting topless in sweatpants through the glass. Like nobody was watching. a little weird...” — anonymous

“I don’t get abstracts. I still don’t. I don’t get it, but I think I understand something new.” — a retired teacher

“Something in there catches the senses before it catches the brain.” — a local artist

“They gave me wine and nobody tried to sell me anything. I kept waiting for the pitch. It never came. I want one of those paintings, I wish I had a wall big enough.” — a contractor

“They asked me more about myself than anything. I didn’t expect that. I’m still thinking about the questions.” — anonymous

“I’ve never had pretentious people care about me. I don’t know what to do with that.” — a single mother

“I don’t know if they’re really arrogant or really humble. I genuinely cannot tell. Maybe that’s the same thing. I can tell that whichever it is, is on purpose.” — a gallerist

“Nobody explained anything to me. I appreciated that more than I expected to.” — anonymous

“I asked what the painting meant and he asked me what I thought. I wanted to leave. I stayed another hour and he let me paint on one of the pieces he was working on.” — a first-timer

“There was a priest there. At a party. On his knees, in a shed, praying the rosary. What a party!” — a friend

“My mom used the food bank when I was a kid. I don’t take that lightly. I heard what they raised at that Christmas party. A room full of art and wine and they doubled the record for the food bank. I don’t know what’s going on in that building but I know that night mattered to real people.” — a mother of 4

“I cried and I’m not going to tell you why.” — a librarian

“I am Arturo Bandini!!!” — an artist

“I’m not sure they play nice with others. I looked them up. They’re not members of the arts council. Not affiliated with anything. Just a building on Michigan Avenue doing whatever they want. What about community art?” — an arts administrator

“The mug thing is either genius or insane. I have three of them.” — a skeptic

“Figure it out. That’s what the door says. I’m still working on it. Assholes.” — anonymous

“I walked in. Nobody there. Good music playing. Coffee was fresh, little sign said help yourself. I sat down in front of this huge blue painting and just...stayed. Never saw anyone. Best hour I’ve had alone in I don’t know how long.” — a local businessman

---

You see? It’s not just me.

The Chesterton line said something about looking at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times and being safe. The thousandth time you’re in real danger of seeing something for the first time.

Most of the folks I asked had only seen Varhaus once or twice. They have hundreds of visits left in them...or maybe they saw it properly the first time.

Either way, Varhaus is a production by thoughtful and united people. Real, unusual, inconvenient thoughtfulness. I can’t prove that in print and I can’t tell you how I know it. I just know it the way you know a good sentence when you read one. Or a cryptic quote. Or a mug with 3 goals written on it: “Go to Heaven, Do simple commerce, show people they’re not trapped.”

They played me. I’m not even mad. There are things I know about that building that I will not put in print. That’s not something I’ve ever said before in twenty years of doing this. I’m still deciding what it means about me.

Go figure it out yourself.

Next: