The address takes the young man to a Victorian townhouse. Redbrick, dark grey window frames and fascias, grey slate tiles. The house looms, dark and dramatic over the street. No car sits in the driveway and he hopes he isn’t late, hopes he did not lug his black folder about public transport, apologetically knocking the ankles, knees and shoulders of fellow travellers for nothing. He rings the doorbell and with uncertainty, he fiddles with the unravelling folder handle while listening for movement behind the door.
To his relief, he is alerted by the sound of metal sliding, grinding and sticking to the life that exists behind the door. It opens and a woman on the older scale of middle-aged stands in the doorway. She is thin, with marble grey eyes and jet black hair neatly plaited and resting over her shoulder, golden rimmed glasses sit atop her head.
“Yes?” She says, indignant.
“Oh sorry,” the young man suddenly realises it is his turn to speak. “I’m the artist resident, for the studio, with the Uni?”
“You’re late.” Her voice is clipped.
He checks his watch: 11:30
“You said-“
“I said eleven thirty am which means I expected you at eleven twenty am.”
“Right.”
“I like my guests early.” She seems as though she is about to launch into a disdaining rant but concedes, “Never mind. Come in, come in.” She tuts and ushers him inside.
As he passes her, the scent of lavender and something else, sweet and floral emanates from her, the kind of scent his mother would wear.
He looks around the reception hall wondering what to expect, but the tidy space did not provide him with any clues. The hallway was dark and deep with a narrow black painted staircase. Disarranged paintings lined the smog grey walls. To their immediate right is a door but nothing else, no shoes or coats linger.
“You brought your samples with you, yes?” She turns and asks, leading him down the hallway, loose Minton tiles move underfoot and clack as they drop back into place.
“Yes.” He replies. He had brought his samples with him, with great reluctance, for the samples had been subject to the utmost ridicule and repugnant remarks: ‘Very talented technically but lacks imagination, vision and depth.’ His lecturer wrote on the commentary sheet, this he had thrown away.
Fortunately, his talents had superseded his lack of “depth and imagination” just enough for his lecturer to suggest he partake in this summer’s residency, to which he eagerly accepted to not seem like a petulant child.
The woman stopped by a small cupboard under the stairs and opened the door. “You may put your belongings in here, except the samples, we will need those.” The young man slid his rucksack and jeans jacket off and handed them to the woman. She hung them up and closed the door.
“Take one of these.” The woman says handing him a small brown packet of papers. He pulls out a sleeve and two more slide out with it, small rectangular cuts of sand-coloured tracing paper. “Like this.” She instructs, taking a sheet and wiping it across her brow and down the bridge of her nose, her t-zone fully covered. She pulls the sheet away and holds it out to him. The grease on her forehead soaked into the paper, forming dark brown shapes against the thin, beige sheet like a sort of Rorschach test. He looks at the sheet longer than necessary. Unable to read anything of it, he looks up, the woman’s grey eyes rest on him expectantly, your turn, they say.
Feeling exposed, the young man takes his sheet and rubs it along his forehead just as the woman had done with hers. He finds himself enduring the sensation of the paper crinkling between his fingertips and forehead but he does not wish to be impudent. He pulls the sheet away and assesses the darkened spots on the paper. In anticipation of approval, he turns his gaze up towards the woman. Satisfaction riddles her face, her eyes widening, good, they say.
“Tea?” She asks, her voice brighter, more welcoming.
“Please.” The young man replies as he scrunches the paper into the palm of his hand.
In the open plan kitchen, the woman busies herself with tea leaves, teapots, cups and saucers, and brown sugar.
Looking up over the rim of her round glasses, she explains, “Some prefer it with fresh peppermint, or would you prefer honey?”
“Either is fine, thank you.” He replies and as she goes back to the tea leaves et al, he takes the opportunity to look about her home. It was as he had expected, homely in that sort of earthy way. Assortments of dried flowers in deep bellied vases. Books in piles on tables and sideboards, on bookshelves, Mansfield, Tolstoy, Hemingway and Shakespeare, an odd crew of literary greats, all equally as dead as they are regarded canonical. The walls of her home are painted a vine green, perhaps to give the many plants she housed a sense of true habitat. The sash windows, still single glazed, were laden with deep blue velvet curtains that ran the length of the windows and reached the dark exposed oak floor, they let very minimal light into the room. Ornaments and trinkets lined almost every surface, more paintings hung where there was room, interspersed by the odd photograph, all too small to make out from a distance but large enough to work out the subject matter: people. The young man danced with the idea of making a closer inspection when the woman’s voice rung out from the distance.
“Ready!”
The young man smiles and offers to help with the tray and the woman accepted without vocal gratitude. As she hands the tray over, she says, “One must always be free of toxins before creating.”
The young man follows the woman back through the hallway, smiling and feeling mirthful, he is reminded of an old woman who lived nearby his home, a wisp of a woman with long grey hair. She lived alone with a black cat, she was an artist too. As a boy, he thought that she might have been a witch. Every October she painted black murals of graveyards in the windows of her townhouse and invited the local families to her annual Halloween party. The children were convinced the woman was screening them, deciding which child she would eat, after all, they had all seen and read The Witches. It transpired that the woman was simply lonely. Her own children were, by then, adults and she missed the raucous and chaos of youth swarming about her home. The parents took pity but were also grateful that they did not have to walk their children around the cold neighbourhood. The old woman died a few years ago, alone, and her ageing house stood empty since.
“Do you have a cat?” The young man asked, nostalgic.
“No, allergic.”
“Oh.”
The woman stops outside the door, now on their left, and sinks her hands into her smock to produce a set of keys. She inspects each key until she finds the correct one. The young man occupies himself with a black and white portrait of the woman, in the photo she is at least thirty years or so younger. Her jet black hair even longer, reaching the base of her spine. She sits studiously on a wooden stool beside a half-painted canvas, and while gazing straight down the camera lens she holds her paintbrush like a cigarette over the curve of her knee.
“Here we are.” She raises her voice and swings the door open, the young man steps inside.
The studio is a contradiction to everything he has seen thus far. Light floods through bi-fold windows that take up the width and length of the back wall. The remaining walls are white, one taken up with floor to ceiling cupboards and draws (also white) the storage broken in the middle by a large stainless steel sink surrounded by white tiles with grey grouting. The remaining walls are vast and sparse, save for the folded easels resting against the wall, the log burner fitted into the nearest corner and an old black Bush radio whose buttons had been finger-painted over and over.
In the centre of the studio sits a large, square plywood table covered in paint. The young man sets the tray down on the table, his gaze swallows the room.
“Something wrong?” The woman asks.
“No, I just didn’t expect it to be so... tidy.”
“I like a clean studio, especially when I have students.”
“Free of toxins?”
The woman flashes a smile and crosses the room, she opens a drawer and takes out a sheet of paper, from another drawer she retrieves a pencil. She scribbles something and looks up. “You can put your folder down, make yourself at home, this will be your studio too for the next four weeks.”
He does as instructed.
“What's your medium?”
“Oils, paint and pastel.”
“Hm.” She writes down notes. “Lay your samples out please.”
He begins to slide each piece out of the folder with the utmost care, laying them flat beside each other, but in no particular order to stop the woman from sensing his longing for her approval.
His lecturer had not explicitly explained their pairing, except that she would know what to do with him. From this statement he gathered that as long as she was impressed by his work, he would be ok, his lecturer could still be proved wrong in his judgement.
The woman began to peer over his work, hand to mouth she makes “mm” noises. “I see.” She says and nods, then, “Yes, ok.” she nods again, more enthusiastic this time. All the while her expression is unsympathetic and unchanging.
Finally, she pushes her glasses up until they rest upon her dark curls.
The young man has been chewing on his thumbnail. Each crack and snap echoes about the room.
“You can stop that now.” She smiles. It’s only small but prematurely instils hope. “Well, the good news is that you are most certainly talented.”
“What’s the bad news?” He asks with caution.
“It’s all very technical. There’s no heart, no passion, emotion. If you were riddled with absolute derision as you painted one of these pieces, I would not be able to tell.”
Crestfallen, the young man is silenced.
“Look, I know it’s not what you wanted to hear but you are here because there is a problem and I’m the person in charge of helping you fix that problem. Have you always been able to paint well?”
He nods.
“And you have always been told that you are special, talented... gifted?”
More nodding.
“I see.” The woman gives a single nod and continues. “Well, I understand your misery. It’s hard when you coast through on talent alone without understanding that to be truly great you must work on it, you must be more. Expectations will always befall upon you eventually, my dear. That’s the nature of natural talent. It’s only ever a matter of time…” She speaks distantly, as though she is sounding it out for herself. “Oh,” she bursts to life. “what’s the time?”
The young man turns his wrist, “Ten to twelve.”
“Ah! Perfect.”
The woman goes to the radio and turns it on. “Now!” She claps her hands and turns her attention to the tea that had been left to steep, scenting the air with peppermint. “Sugar or honey?” She turns to the young man.
“Honey.” He speaks into the table, head down, eyes flitting about his work. Hours and hours spent painting. Wasted. Paint wasted. Money wasted.
“Don’t be so morose. It could be worse.”
“Could it?”
“Oh completely. You wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t something worth working on.”
He was sure there was a compliment in there somewhere.
“Drink this, it will calm you. Then we will begin.”
“Begin what?”
“Working out what your problem is.”
He wants to shout, “I DON’T HAVE A PROBLEM!” and make her understand that his work is good. It has always been good. He doesn’t shout. He breathes. He takes small sips of tea. The peppermint is stronger than he anticipated. He recoils, unsure if he likes the taste.
“Can I ask you a question?” He asks, a tremor in his voice.
“Yes.”
“Who gets to decide what is good art?”
“Well in this case, if you wish to pass your degree, your lecturer does and so by extension, I do. Now drink up.”
Minutes later, the next broadcast begins. A man reads, his voice steady and modulated. The young man attempts to listen, hearing words like Viking followed by numbers, then terminology such as, “Thundering showers” and “Occasionally moderate.”
He frowns, “What is this?”
“This? It’s the shipping forecast.”
“The...?”
“Shipping forecast.” She studies his face and shakes her head. “Don’t worry, I’m not mad, I am aware I’m not on a boat. Many people listen to it, it’s sort of, soothing. I listen to it before I start working. It’s become part of my process.”
“Your process?”
“You don’t have one?”
“Well not really. I just get up and go, I guess.”
“Purpose!” The woman mumbles to herself.
“Sorry?”
“You don’t work with purpose.”
In response, the young man frowns.
“Ok, so I wake up at five every morning. I make coffee and I read. I get showered et cetera and then I get to work, painting. That is my job and I treat it so. In the late morning I make tea and put on my radio, then I carry on until lunchtime. I eat lunch, then I return to work and finish at three. I don’t paint when I feel like it, I paint because I have to. I have a purpose. You might think, well I am twenty-one, why the need for such routine. But, if you are serious about this and you want to be recognised, paid, celebrated, then you must treat it like work and not a passion project.”
“North-West Fitzroy, Sole…” the man continues reeling off numbers that the young man doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand any of it at all.
Without a word, the woman puts her cup down with a clink as china meets china and occupies herself with the contents of her cupboards. Soon she returns and lays out the following items on the table. A pencil, a 10X10 homemade canvas, oil paints, brushes, an old jar filled with turpentine and a palette.
The young man feels a fear rise within him. “I thought we wouldn’t be painting today?”
“We weren’t but I want to see something. Don’t worry I have an apron you can use. Excuse me a moment.” She says, then leaves the studio. The young man buries his face in his hands suddenly faced with the reality of four weeks with this woman stretching out in front of him. He winces and lets out a soft cry, wishing he had been as mediocre as any other artist as he had done many times before.
It isn’t long before the woman returns, bearing a basket of fruit. The usual: apples, oranges, bananas and grapes.
She sets them down on the table and he knows what she about to ask of him. He feels insulted.
“You don’t have to paint it all but I want to see something on that canvas.” She explains as she sets up an easel. Then, she asks, “Do you want the apron?”
He shakes his head.
“Ok. I’ll give you an hour. Would you prefer for me to stay or leave?”
“I don’t mind.” He says, but then he thinks, “No, leave, please.” The idea of her hovering around as he works brings forth too much temptation to run from this house, from her.
She leaves the room. He deflates.
The man on the radio has concluded his forecast and the next broadcast is about to begin shortly.
He turns the radio off and endures the silence, the ear-pricking ringing.
He studies the basket of fruit, the colours and composition, and picks up a tube of white paint, squeezes it out onto the palette. Next, he selects the widest brush provided and dips it into the white.
He begins.
The woman doesn’t knock on the door when she returns an hour later, to the minute, as promised.
He has almost completed the picture, by this, she does seem impressed. As she looks over the piece she is quiet, her movements and facial expressions minimal, stealth-like.
It’s all there. He thinks to himself. Composition, colour, depth. It has depth, surely! He gnaws his thumbnail. He’s aware of it now. The nail crunches and snaps between his teeth, he doesn’t pull it off but continues to chew.
The woman looks back at him. Her face neutral.
She clears her throat. “Again,” she begins. “There is no doubt about your talent but what you have done is painted a fruit basket.”
The young man drops his arm. His hand feels like a ball of lead pulling at the ends of tissue, muscle and bone.
“I...”
“You don’t understand, I know.” Her voice is low and soft, commiserative, it wraps around his ego.
“If I wanted a fruit basket, I’d have commissioned an A level student, you are not an A level student, you are a master! This is all very beautiful, the tones, the shape, but you didn’t read between the lines.”
“But it’s a fruit basket!”
“Yes, it is, but it’s your job as an artist to make it more than a fruit basket. The fruit basket is inspiration, it’s part of the subtext. There are questions you should be asking. Whose fruit basket is it? Where is the fruit basket going or is it ornamental? What surrounds the fruit basket? That is the depth. That is storytelling. When a writer writes a great novel, do they give you all the answers or the details at the beginning of the story? No, they draw it out so that he has to keep reading on. Our job is to keep people looking, searching for clues of a bigger picture.”
She waits a moment for a response but his eyes cannot meet hers, they fixate on the curves of the apples where they blend into the shadow of an orange.
“I think, no, I know what your problem is. I have been where you are. You don’t paint because you want to but because you have to. I was right about you not having a purpose but no, this is worse. The joy of it has been diminished. You paint to others expectations, seeking their approval but not painting for you! And often you wonder why you even bother but it is because you don’t know if you are any good anything else, the same way you are good at this. It’s time you chose for yourself. What do you want?”
The question stifles the air. He doesn’t have to look up to know that her steely eyes are fixed on him and his permeable composure. It occurs to him that she may understand through experience and yet the impulse to run does not evade him.
The woman claps her hands and sighs. “Whatever you decide.” She says.
He nods, it’s involuntary, polite.
“Come on, pack up your things.”
As he collects his work into a pile, he thinks on the woman’s words, it was the first time he had heard someone pick his psyche apart. It felt raw, relieving, a diagnosis of sorts.
He slides the pieces into his folder while the woman tidies away her kit. Together, apart, in mutual silence.
Occasionally, he glances over, watching her plait swing as she washes her brushes. The aroma of peppermint now a vague memory in the wake of the turpentine, coarse and vitriolic but a familiar scent. It hones him.
The woman leads the way out of the studio, keys already to hand, she locks the door. He waits in the hallway as she retrieves his jacket and rucksack from the cupboard under the stairs, the tiles beneath him do not move.
“Thank you.” He says and slides his jacket on. He feels awash with relief.
“Think about it.” The woman reminds him.
He nods, for the last time in their encounter.
The woman produces a small brown A6 notebook from her smock pocket and extends it out to the young man. “Take this with you.”
“What is it?” He asks.
“You will see.”
He doesn’t refuse, of everything she has given him today, a notebook would be the most ridiculous thing to refuse. “Thanks.”
She twists the Yale lock on the door and says, “Let me know what you decide.”
He steps out into the light of the afternoon and a stifled smile appears on his face as he holds the notebook up briefly.
The woman waves from the door before closing it behind him.
The young man looks about the front garden, now noticing the neatly pruned wildflowers and shrubs. Holding the notebook close, he marches away from the house and out onto the sun-bleached street. As he begins his departure he can still feel it, the dark house present and watching. He finds it strange that it brings him comfort and flips open the notebook. The top of the first page is dated in pencil, 10th June 1979, below it are drawings of bodies, hands, feet and bones. The next page begins with cursive handwriting. “What is it for?” It reads, over and over. He flips the pages ahead. More drawings. Wildflowers, more people, no more bones. Ahead again, the last date in the book reads, 23rd May 1980, no entry is made beneath it. Empty lines await on every page.