The Artist ~ Short story by John Vann
The Artist
WOW!
Brightness!
Vision?
Confusion.
Where am I?
Where is this?
Not dark.
But see nothing.
No window, no door.
Wall ends where? Floor begins where?
Nothing more to question!
See a little more now. Something in the corner.
Round on sides, but flat on top. Seems to have a handle. It swings up.
I can lift it with this handle. It has weight to it. The flat top seems to have a lip. I run my finger around it. It is smooth. I put my finger underneath. POP.
COLOR!
The round thing with the flat top has liquid color in it! The color is cold on my fingers, but very interesting. It drips on the ground and sticks to the wall. It even sticks to the ceiling when I throw it. It's really nice! So much more interesting. I don't like drab walls. I'll throw this liquid color around. And more... and some more.. This is fun! I throw and dribble and drop and splatter.... I will do this more! I will do this all day!
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I awake to lots of sprinkled and spattered color. I sure did a lot yesterday. Funny.. I remember it felt nice to do yesterday, and I thought it looked really good, but today I don't like it...it looks stupid. I go over to the cans and open them like I did yesterday. Much easier to open them today. And there's something here I hadn't noticed yesterday.. a stick with hair on the other end.
The hair is nice and soft and all pointing the same way.
While looking at it I dropped it in the can and the liquid color stuck to it. It makes nicer drips than my fingers. And really neat spatters on the walls. I paint over my old colors from yesterday, and it looks so much better! I like this stick! I really like what I can do with it... I paint with it. I paint more and more...I am so much better at it today! I will again paint all day.
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I awake today to my room of painted strokes. Again, it looked nice yesterday, but today it annoys me, angers me. It's so stupid! Why did I choose to paint this color here?? I don't even know what color to paint over it! And that brush... is that all I can use? Why can't I have a better brush? Why can't I reach the ceiling better? Everything would be OK if I could only reach the darn ceiling! I don't even want to paint today.. heck with it. But it annoys me terribly... that I can only paint again and hate it tomorrow?? What's the point?? Might as well just go back to sleep.. this whole thing is stupid.
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I awake today and see my unchanged room. Still painted as I left it. I'm not angry anymore, but I do feel kind of hopeless. Will I ever find a better brush? Newer colors? Should I even have painted the room in the first place? Will I get in trouble? Trouble with whom? Who owns this room anyway -- who's in charge? Oh shoot... I hope I haven't pissed them off with this painting... I mean, I was just trying to kill time, you know? I didn't mean any harm by it. Will they be angry when they see it? Will they make me wash it all off? Can I even do that or is it permanent?? Oh geez... I may have made a HUGE mistake. All for the sake of a little fun! Oh Lord..... I can't face the day... I sob myself to sleep..
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I awake and quickly remember my anxiety. Am I in trouble with the Landlord? I don't know... how will I ever know? But I guess what's done is done, right? If I'm to face the consequences... well, so be it. I sure hope the landlord is a forgiving type. And then it dawns on me! I can paint it back to the original drab color! I've learned how to paint well, so I'll give it a try now.. There we go, paint over and over and ... over... and over... hmmm... can't quite cover it all up.
I keep painting... I keep trying to cover it up... all... day... I... TRY....
I've done all I can do! I mean, it looks pretty good... but is it good enough for the Landlord? I think it is... but is he really picky? I mean... I tried! I really tried!! It ought to be good enough, I put in a good effort here! Damn it! Despite my best efforts to undo my mistake... it's clear what I did. I can't cover it up... And if he doesn't like it, ... well.. tough! I mean, how was I to know? It's totally unfair to expect me to NOT paint, and then hand me ALL THIS PAINT to use!!! What kind of a Landlord does that?? That would be totally cruel! I'll tell you, if that's the case, then I want no part of this Landlord. He can go stick it! If he doesn't like it, too bad!
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I awake to my nearly drab room, with my old paint subtly shining through. And today, the drab seems to compel me to ignore my fear of the Landlord. I really don't like the drab here, and I'm here now, and I need to make the best of it. The drab is just going to sap my strength, and since Landlord will know I've painted anyway, I may as well paint it MY way.
This is my room, at least for now, and I think I have the right to decorate it in my fashion. I reopen the paints in such a different mind than in the past -- I'm excited. Not with the blank curiosity of my first day, or the reckless abandon of my next, and certainly not compelled by the fear of most recent. I'm here... right now... and the wall calls to me. I have no one to please but myself.
And with the honest desire to do just that, I begin my work. I paint carefully where I wish, and aggressively where I wish. One color here, a different there, all because it is what _I_ want to see. I'm the one who is in the room... I'm the one who must see this every day. Makes sense that I make it the way I like it. This is my driving force as I continue. By day's end, I am tired.. and achy... and... rather satisfied. A plethora of colors, strokes, blends, drops and splatters.
Every square inch its own story, and the more I look, the more I see. I even notice how areas I did separately blend together in a way I didn't notice at the time. Interesting! You can tell what I was thinking and feeling at any point on the wall! I've truly left my mark here! I mean, it's not a masterpiece, but it's me.. and it's honest... and it's rich and vibrant and full of life. Come to think of it, I guess it IS a masterpiece! It is.. MY masterpiece... It is..... ME!
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I awake... finally... to the sound of the opening door. A door I had never seen before in my room. On the other side of the door, I could not see, or truly.. perceive. I could SEE, but I could not understand. And yet, I felt that I will.. soon.. A figure slowly steps in to the room with a smile of a long lost friend. No words, just that smile. He looks around, slowly and carefully, at every blessed paint stroke.
Every drop, every drip, every streak. Such care in his examination! Throughout, he would smile and nod before continuing. I felt no urge to interrupt him, I was rather intrigued... he now DID seem familiar, as if a friend from long ago... after quite some time -- I'm not sure how long -- I spoke to him. I spoke! I hadn't spoken in... well, I can't remember when I last spoke! But I spoke, saying:
"Do you like it?"
He turned to me with that amazing smile... "Yes! Of course I do! I love it. How could I not?"
I commented, "Did I do OK? I mean... there was no instruction, no list of rules. No way for me to know what to do... so I just did what I thought was right, you know?"
He nodded knowingly. "You've done very very well indeed. It's so unique... there's nothing like this in the entire universe."
I wasn't quite prepared for all the accolades here.. "Well... thank you. You can paint over it if you need to..."
"Oh no. I would never do that. This will stand forever. It is a masterpiece indeed, and I thank you for your efforts!"
I'm feeling quite humbled now.. "Wow... I mean.. what are the odds that I'd do a good enough job to earn that kind of praise?"
And through that smile, which now seemed so much more familiar, he said "I never had a doubt!"
As we walked through the door, and left my room behind, I began to really see what had happened, and to really see what my room ended up becoming. It truly was a masterpiece -- perhaps not measured by the strokes of paint themselves, but of the efforts I went through to get the final result.
The room is the testimonial to the process, and as such, is a record of all that I had experienced. And here it was for all to see now, anyone could go into my old room and through the layers of paint, be told the story of 'me', what I was, how I was feeling, when I was tested... it's all there... forever.
You know... I may want to paint another room sometime......