Anna Weyant’s perfect day: “There are no mean guests at my fantasy Playboy Mansion”

Anna Weyant is quite possibly the art world’s ultimate ‘It Girl’ right now. Having been named the ‘millennial Botticelli’ by the Wall Street Journal, her paintings walk a tightrope between subtle humour and slight discomfort. Often uncanny depictions of young women, her works unearth a quiet delirium – one that feels bound to contemporary ‘girlishness’, but also to the weight of art history. At just 29 years old and with an auction record of $1.6 million and an army of fans, she’s already one of the art’s most sought-after stars. With her first London show on the horizon, ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolves?’ (if you know, you know), we got her to dream up a fantasy Perfect Day.

Morning:

I wake up in the Girls Next Door era of Playboy in a tiny log cabin that I built onto the Mansion. The cabin is surrounded by a small creek and connected to the main house by a bridge. Sprout is awake and making a breakfast of cinnamon toast (for me) and chicken liver (for her). It’s “Fun in the Sun” Sunday. There are no controlling or mean guests or residents at my fantasy Playboy Mansion. On my porch swing, I sip English Breakfast tea with the perfect amount of milk and watch a pair of illustrated Disney birds sing in the trees. I call my mom and she is also having a perfect day and doesn’t think it’s at all weird that I have parasitically built my home onto the north side of the Mansion. I tell her I slept so well (I did) and now I’m going to watch bikini-clad guests lounge by the pool. She says she’s proud of me. We hang up simultaneously. 

Afternoon: 

It’s pouring rain. The girls run inside to play board games by the fire. It was summer this morning but this afternoon it’s autumn. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I’m going home to snowy Calgary where I will see my family (who are all totally cool with my life choices) and Bear, my childhood dog who is still alive and happy. 

I sneak off to a quiet studio inside my cabin. The walls are lined with bookshelves and rain is falling softly on the glass ceiling above. The natural light is perfect. There is no glare on my painting, my hands aren’t sore and I don’t have a headache. Artemisia Gentileschi stops by to offer material and technical advice. Sprout has made the chillest afternoon playlist and I paint a still life with ease. I hate no part of the finished product.

Evening:

I jump onto a bed covered in fluffy pillows and crisp sheets and I open a bottomless bag of Kinder Chocolate Minis. Bueno bars do not exist here and therefore are not and have never been used as 7-Eleven delivery replacements for Kinder Chocolate Minis. I watch The Alpinist again and overhear the sounds of an evening garden party just outside my window. Later, with Sprout under my arm, I fall asleep to a NatGeo docuseries on alligators and their swamp dens.