Head of a Woman

July 14, 2020

"What we are seeking to see and understand in this world, we are that."

--Rumi

*"Head of a Woman" (La Scapigliata), by Leonardo da Vinci, 1500-1505*

She couldn't get it out of her head. That other head, burning inside of her own, driving her crazy. Maggie just had to see it again, the perfect, unfinished drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, his "Head of a Woman." Somehow, that woman's head now existed within her own imperfect head, in her memory, and so she felt a certain wild possessiveness, a yearning. And perhaps, Maggie mused, she herself existed within the head of some larger, cosmic woman, some unfinished goddess, just like one of those matryoshka dolls.

Maggie's hands trembled as she paid for her bus ticket, pushing the twenty dollar bills through the slot in the plastic window. Settling herself down in the bus seat, she heaved a great sigh. She recalled her first visit to the Met Breuer museum a few months ago, in April, when it was cool and rainy, and the white blossoms had barely opened. That day had been so full of hope, of cherished love, and innocence. Now, the oppressive summer heat dominated the city, along with the guilt which pressed down upon the shambles of her life.

Maggie leaned her cheek against the grimy glass of the bus window, and watched the miles of New Jersey highway roll on by. It was impossible not to think about herself, a failed artist on the edge of turning forty, tormented by inner demons. She bit down hard on the inside of her mouth, a little trick she had, to distract herself from her real pain. Then she opened her small sketchbook, and flipped through a few pages of drawings, until she came to her notes from her last visit. In it she had recorded a review from The New Yorker:

"The show is a non-stop sequence of arousals and exhilarations."

Yes. That was exactly it. Arousals and exhilarations. Unending waves of them...

Below that, in her sketchbook, she had written a fragment of a Rumi poem:

God picks up the reed-flute world and blows.

Each note is a need coming through one of us,

a passion, a longing pain.

When the bus arrived at Port Authority, Maggie nearly ran all the way up Madison Avenue, desperate to enter the museum, that holy sanctuary, where she could escape the tortures of her own mind, if only for an hour. The exhibition, Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible, was a collection of works left incomplete by their makers, beginning with Renaissance masters. The rooms were filled with intimate glimpses into the creative process, like windows in an obscene peep show, as she had fancied back in April. She had imagined how horrified these artists might be, if they were still alive, to know that their work was visible to everyone...

Upon entering the room, memories came rushing back with such force, she could hardly breathe. Today, she looked at the artwork with something approaching envy. If only things could remain unfinished, she thought. There was a perfection to this unfinished state, still alive with potential and hope, which, once lost, could never be regained. When you finish something, you kill it, she thought grimly.

But then, unbidden, words from her college painting teacher came into her mind. If you think you have overworked a painting, it's really just the opposite. You haven't done enough work to it. More needs to be done. She blinked back tears, remembering how kind he had been, almost twenty years ago. It only made her feel more miserable and undeserving.

Heart in her throat, Maggie walked straight ahead to the da Vinci drawing. Unlike her last visit, when she had to stand tip-toe to see over the crowd of tourists, today the room was nearly empty. Only one man stood near the "Head of a Woman." Maggie barely looked at him: a short, homely, unshaven man in a baseball cap. She got as close to the drawing as she dared, and gazed.

Oil, earth, and white lead pigments on poplar, the sign read. She thought of the poplar trees of her childhood, tall as ship-masts, linking heaven and earth, the wind tossing their leaves...

She looked again at the "Head of a Woman," wondering what she wanted from it. The beautiful face, illuminated with white lead, looked downward with modestly lowered eyelids. What emotions was she hiding? Could it be regret, or guilt? Or just the cool humility of a virtuous woman, humble and submissive? And yet, the woman's hair writhed around her face like clumsily drawn snakes, making her think of Medusa...

Suddenly, unbelievably, the man beside her began to speak in a voice that was soft and clear.

"We take long trips.

We puzzle over the meaning of a painting or a book,

when what we are wanting to see and understand in this world,

we are that."

That's Rumi! Maggie realized, jolted out of her melancholy. She waited for the man to continue speaking, but he was silent now. She looked at him more intently, wondering. Although he was not looking at her, and in fact appeared to be unaware of her existence, she could see that his eyes were kind and compassionate. He could have been a saint in a Renaissance painting, were it not for his modern clothes.

The more she looked at him, the more she understood that he wasn't homely after all, as she first thought. Far from it. In fact, he was perhaps the most deeply beautiful man she had ever seen. Tears came into her eyes, and the Rumi poem echoed in her mind, soothing it like a salve.

...what we are wanting to see and understand in this world,

we are that.

Maggie could hardly breathe. Was it really herself she had been longing for? Longing to see and understand? She gripped the wall for support, hardly able to bear her own emotions. She gazed rapturously at the man, this stranger with whom she had fallen in love. Even though she knew she would never speak to him, never know his name, never touch his body.

It was enough. What she had now, it was enough.

The Met Breuer, photo by Ed Lederman, courtesy of the Met

We Work Beside the Wind

July 14, 2020

a short story by Lauren Kindle

“Nature only wants to be loved. She gives herself only to her true lovers.” --Corot

*The Gardens of the Villa d'Este at Tivoli, oil painting by Corot*

Berthe steadied her easel in the tall grass by the river’s edge. She pressed the thin wooden legs firmly into the earth, and then paused to wipe the sweat from her brow with the hem of her heavy skirt. She pulled a strand of damp hair off her cheek and shook her head as if to clear her mind. It was terribly hot for an April day, and there was hardly any shade along this section of the Oise River. But there was a cool breeze that came now and then, to bring some small relief.

Berthe’s sister Edma, painting a few yards away, gave a little shriek as the wind took the pages of her sketchbook and tossed them into the swiftly flowing water. The girls’ teacher looked up from his own easel farther down the bank and laughed softly to see the two Morisot sisters racing through the grass to salvage Edma’s remaining drawings.

“Ah, it is good to be young,” he said, walking slowly towards them. Old Corot, as his students fondly called him, was tall and strong, with a large build and a craggy, rugged face. He was an old man of sixty years, but still handsome.

“Mademoiselles, you must return to your work,” he said kindly. “You wanted to work out of doors, yes?”

“Oh, yes!” Berthe gasped, trying to catch her breath. Edma was laughing giddily beside her, face flushed.

“And so,” Corot gestured to the landscape. “We have the wind! And even so, we work, we work beside the wind. We do not give up.”

Chastened, Edma gathered up her sketches and returned to her easel. Berthe did the same, holding her brush out in front of her. She took a deep breath and narrowed her eyes to simplify the values of the landscape before her: the river, the trees, the distant hills, and the faraway rooftops of Auvers. She painted the sky a pale cobalt blue, wielding her brush ferociously, stabbing at her canvas in an aggressive manner.

Suddenly, Berthe stiffened; the back of her neck prickled. It was just a feeling of heat in the air behind her, and she knew Corot was very close, although he made no sound. He was so close she could smell him, a pleasant, familiar smell of leather and tobacco. Her heart beat faster as he gently took the paintbrush out of her hand and began to paint as he talked, masterfully laying one block of color beside another on her canvas.

“Non, ma chérie,” he murmured. “You must slow down. Now, first we paint the clouds, and then, see, we bring the sky in around them. And this verte éméraude, she irritates me, she is so harsh. You must subdue her just so.”

Corot deftly mixed the ready-made green with the burnt sienna on Berthe’s palette; his large hands moved confidently, with practiced sureness. The movement caused the translucent, glistening walnut oil to slide across the palette, surrounding the pools of dark green oil paint with a new wetness. Berthe bit her lip.

“When you are twenty, mademoiselle, you are so young,” Corot said as he painted. “You think you are running a race. But when you are old like me, you can savor each moment. You have time, you have all the time you need.”

Berthe clenched her teeth and watched her teacher paint. She didn’t feel like she had all the time she needed. She was impatient, uneasy… There was a pain in her heart, and she felt suddenly heated and constricted; her very clothes confined her. Had her corset always felt this tight? Had it always encircled her ribs so cruelly?

There was something fiercely burning inside of her, something sharp within the softness of her breasts, that womanly weak flesh. It was like a point of steel, the dagger of a murderess, unyielding, ruthless. It was her will, Berthe realized. It was her desire, and she thrilled silently at the newness of her discovery.

I want to be a painter, Berthe told herself, finally understanding. She hungrily licked the back of her teeth, and narrowed her eyes at the landscape before her. A smile played at the corner of her mouth. It was intoxicating, this new will, this splendid realization. She cherished it like a forbidden secret.

I want to be a painter. I want it more than anything…

Later, as they prepared to return home, Old Corot called Berthe over to him. Out of his traveling box he carefully took a painting, wrapped in a blanket.

“Sometimes I loan my students one of my paintings to take home and copy,” he said, handing it to her. “I think this one will have something to teach you. It is a view of Tivoli, in Italy. Take your time with it, mademoiselle. Take your time.”

Berthe slowly unwrapped the painting to reveal a scene: a boy sitting on a garden wall in the slanting afternoon sunlight, and beyond that, a rolling Italian landscape. Speechless, Berthe simply held the painting tightly to her chest and closed her eyes.

That night, Berthe couldn’t sleep. The painting was there, on the desk next to her bed, seeming to glow where the moonlight touched it. She lay in bed and tried to relax, but the knowledge of the painting being so near made her hot and restless. Berthe tossed her blankets off; she felt sweaty in her white nightdress. She got up and paced the room, then turned and looked at the painting.

Standing before Corot’s painting, she felt her body occupy a sacred space, that area where the artist himself had once been. Berthe thought about how Corot must have been standing in front of this very canvas when he was painting it. His body had been in front of it, the way her body was now. In this way, without ever really touching, they could experience a sort of intimacy, an intimacy of soft darkness, on the brink of unfathomable misery.

Berthe shivered and sighed, exhausted. She lay back down in bed and slowly drifted into that dark realm of sleep, where the barriers of life fade into insubstantial shadows.

Berthe's copy of Corot's painting (See more paintings from Berthe's long career as a painter)

More Creative Writing (by me)

The Seductive Muse

July 11, 2020

“Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story…”

--Homer, The Odyssey

"The Kiss of the Muse" by Paul Cezanne 66x82 cm

The first time he saw her, it was like a dream, out of the corner of his eye.

He was mowing the small, scrappy patch of yard behind his house, and when he bent down to pick up a fallen branch lying in his path, he noticed movement: a white, ghostly flickering behind the shed. He stood up, and let the old mower sputter and die. In the silence and the heat that followed, he stood there, wondering if it was his imagination. Then, as if in a trance, he walked towards the shed to investigate. Nothing.

Pierus rubbed his head, wondering if he was losing his mind. These days, he often got lost in his thoughts, his long, melancholy daydreams. He forgot what he was doing, and why; he dwelt in a mental world of anguish, a world without time or meaning. After all, he was still reeling from his ugly breakup with Fidel, his partner of seven years. He still felt nauseated every time he remembered walking in on that scene of betrayal two years ago…

Pierus opened the door to the shed. Actually it was more of a small building in its own right, spacious and well-insulated. He had once used it as a painting studio. Once...but that was before, when things were good, before his heart had been ripped out of his chest, and with it, his ability to paint. Now his easel was in pieces in the corner, beneath a heap of old canvases and dusty, unused art supplies. I’ll never paint again, he thought, bitterly.

He decided he had imagined the ghostly figure, but later that evening, eating his microwave dinner alone on the couch, Pierus saw her again. This time, she was unmistakable: a voluptuous woman in a diaphanous, flowing toga was standing on his front porch, looking in through the window. Startled, Pierus dropped his plastic bowl, spilling mac and cheese on the shag carpet. The woman smiled at him, and leaned partially through the open window. He could see through her filmy garment; her firm, white breasts rested on the window frame like pieces of fruit.

“Hello, Pierus,” she said, in a lovely, low voice. As she spoke, he swore he could hear faint music, like the slow, sensual plucking of a harp.

“H-hello,” Pierus said. He licked his lips nervously; they had gone very dry. He felt strangely aroused and excited, yet unable to move.

“May I come in, Pierus?” the woman asked again. He couldn’t speak, but nodded his head.

The woman glowed with pleasure, and she brought her glow into his squalid, dark little house, illuminating the room with a warm, golden light. She sat down beside him on the couch and the touch of her hip against his felt like a burst of sudden fire, a match striking against the side of his body! And still, he couldn't move.

“H-how do you know my name?” Pierus asked weakly, as the woman began to run her hands along his thigh. The hot, tingling sensation was unlike anything he had ever experienced, and he knew at once she wasn’t human.

“I’m your muse,” she said. “You can call me Clio. I think you already know me.”

Her voice was so low and soft, he had to lean towards her to hear it. She continued to lightly stroke his body, his thigh, his torso, his shoulders, his neck…

“I do know you,” gasped Pierus, remembering in a flash something familiar, perhaps a time when he was painting, long ago, when he was really inspired in his studio…

“But…" he rambled on. "You...you were just something in my mind. Not…not a real body.”

There was no denying her substance and reality now. She was so very close to him.

“Will you let me love you?” she asked, her breath was hot in his ear, her lips nearly touching his. His whole body wanted to say yes. He trembled with excitement.

“Clio,” he said, feeling a little awkward. “I’ve never…well… I’m gay.”

“That doesn’t mean anything to me,” Clio said. Her voice was even lower now, changed, in fact, to a man’s voice, just as her body changed, as smoothly and naturally as a river flowing, into that of a young man, glowing with strength and virility.

“Answer me,” Clio said, insistently. It was a command, the sort uttered by divine beings to mortals since ancient days:

“Will you let me love you?”

“Yes,” Pierus said. He couldn’t say anything else.

Over the weeks that followed, Pierus’s life completely transformed. Clio visited him every day, sometimes several times a day, sometimes as a man, sometimes as a woman, awakening in him a passion that he never knew existed. This passion transcended the sexual, and like a tremendous dam breaking, it spilled over into his creative life. He wrote poetry in the mornings while he made his coffee, he started playing the saxophone again (something he had abandoned in high school) and he even began writing songs for it, jazz music that just started coming into his head as frequently as daydreams. In the evenings, he wrote erotic short stories, and he even began to work in earnest on a serious novel, an historical fiction piece about the fall of Troy. On Saturday nights, he started going dancing at El Fuego, a gay dance club not too far away, where he invented some pretty smooth dance moves, impressing even the younger, hipper guys. He also poured his creative energy into cooking exotic meals and delicate French pastries, singing and dancing in the kitchen with his apron covered in flour. And Clio was there, always, glowing and smiling, sitting on the kitchen counter, dangling long, lovely, bare legs.

But most of all, more than anything else, Pierus painted. He was on fire! He felt like his veins ran with liquid fire; beneath his breast he felt flames of creativity, unquenchable flames, burning night and day, a continual, fierce burning that brought more pleasure than pain. He wondered if his skin felt hot to the touch, or if smoke might be rising from his body. He was constantly amazed to find himself still alive. How could any mortal live with such a flame inside him? It must be a miracle.

He cleaned and dusted out his old shed, fixed up the easel, and stretched a dozen large canvases. All day long, he painted, and Clio was there. She brought him cool glasses of water and ideas for paintings, which she would whisper softly into his ear, describing images in his mind that were so tantalizing and fresh, they just had to be made manifest!

To hell with Fidel, Pierus thought. I can’t let him stop me from making art! His joy was almost too intense to bear, and yet he kept on painting! A lot of his paintings were fresh interpretations of old, historical paintings, European battle scenes with rearing stallions and men with long swords. But there was a twist to them: the men wore contemporary clothes, and the battle scenes were riddled with anachronisms: assault rifles, bombs, and modern refugees. Dark with political commentary, the paintings were immediately popular on social media. The owner of Illiad, a local art gallery, sent Pierus a message on Facebook, asking if he would consider having a solo show. Of course! Pierus was giddy with success.

And he was giddy with Love. For a mythological being, Clio was so real, he was just like a real person. Pierus’s friends were beyond jealous of this new, golden, translucent-toga-wearing boyfriend. One night, his friends Jeff and Dante were visiting, drinking wine on the couch of his studio while he painted. It was a warm summer night, and fireflies flew in and out through the windows. Dante played gentle chords on an old guitar. Everyone was tipsy and laughing, and Clio went into the house to get another bottle of wine.

“This is amazing,” Dante said. His eyes flashed enviously in his dark, handsome face. He set down the guitar and stretched out his long, muscular legs with careless elegance, resting his feet on the coffee table. “I’m jealous, but of course, I’m happy for you. We were so worried about you after you split with You Know Who.”

“We really were!” said Jeff, who was short and a little chubby, but very sweet. “And when you gave up painting, it was just awful! It’s great you’re doing it again.”

“But, is Clio…is he really a muse?” Dante asked. “Like, from ancient times?”

“Yes,” said Pierus, not setting down his paintbrush, but painting the sky with bold, fluid strokes. The canvas revealed a sky of penetrating dawn light and dramatic, stormy shadows. “She…er…he…brings me ideas. Paintings, poems, songs, stories… I can’t explain it. It’s just…well…it’s hot.”

Pierus himself was looking sexier than ever: rugged, lean, and muscular, with a new, fierce confidence. His black eyes shone with passion as he parried with the canvas, holding his brush out like a fencing sword.

“I can’t believe it,” Jeff gushed. “Your art--- what you are doing is amazing. And a real live muse? That is just too dreamy!” He sighed, gazing wistfully at Pierus’s painting. Jeff was a painter, too, and once he had had a crush on Pierus, long ago, back in art school. But poor Jeff had been artistically “blocked” for years. His eyes filled with tears of self-pity when he saw his friend’s masterpieces lying in unashamed, wanton splendor all over the studio.

“Yeah, it’s dreamy all right,” said Dante, grinning lustfully. He picked up the guitar again, thoughtfully searching for a new melody. “I wish I had a muse. You’re a lucky devil, Pierus.”

Later that evening, when his friends had gone home, Pierus lay in bed with Clio, humming a tune to himself. Such an enchanting new melody…

“Oh God, I’ve got to write this song down!” he cried. He jumped up and grabbed some composition paper and a pencil, and started to compose the song. “What key should it be in, Clio?”

Clio was a woman tonight, stroking his back lightly while he composed.

“E flat,” she whispered in his ear.

It went on like that for a few more moments, with Pierus humming, and jotting down notes and chords, while Clio stroked him all over his body, slowly building up that familiar sensation of tingling and heat. Pierus almost couldn’t concentrate, he felt so good.

"Wait, wait--" he pleaded. She stopped, then spoke.

“I’ve been wanting to ask you something, Pierus,” Clio said.

“What?” he asked, still concentrating on the song. Maybe he would call it Clio’s Song.

“I have some friends who are…like me,” she said. She paused, considering, then continued. “Would you feel comfortable letting them love you, too?”

Pierus turned around in bed to face her, propped on his elbow. His whole body was electric with the sensations from Clio’s touch, or perhaps it was the melody of the new song growing inside of him, he didn’t know or care.

“What do you mean?”

Clio seemed shy for some reason, a strange emotion to see on such a divine, illuminated face.

“Well, I told my friends about you,” she said, “And they want to meet you.”

“Oh?”

“I told them how easy it was for me to love you, how good it was…” she was touching him again, lightly, down his chest. “And, they want to love you, too. They need to.” She looked at him, and when he looked into her eyes, he realized how very ancient she was, thousands of years…He was dizzy with awe.

“Well, sure,” Pierus said. “I mean, of course! I’m in your debt, you’ve given me so much. If you want me to meet your friends—“

“I want you to love my friends,” she said.

“And by love you mean—“

And she showed him what she meant.

Summer was ending, and Pierus bought an electric heater for his studio. He was just setting it up when Clio knocked lightly on the door. Clio was a man today, and beside him was another beautiful, radiant being, of ambiguous gender.

“This is my friend, Erato,” Clio said. Pierus stood up and held out his hand. Erato shook it, gently, but firmly, and the touch sent an electric current of pleasure all down Pierus’s body. And with the handshake, an idea for a love poem came violently into his head; it was almost as forceful as a physical blow! He staggered back.

“Excuse me,” Pierus said, breathing hard. “I need to write this down, just a moment…” Now that he was getting creative ideas all the time, he had pens and notebooks lying about everywhere, so he could capture inspiration at a moment’s notice. He began to write….

I think sleep is upon us. Shall we kiss? –

And just then, Erato stepped forward and embraced him, kissing him lightly on his lips, and sending a thousand more lines of poetry into his mind like electric sparks. Pierus didn’t know whether to yield to this kiss, or struggle against it. He wanted, he needed, to write down more of the poetry, before it slipped away forever…

“Oh, you are fun,” Erato said, and chuckled, a throaty, sexy chuckle as Pierus struggled. “Clio, you were telling the truth about this man! He’s so receptive! And I'm glad...it’s been so long…”

“I know,” Clio said, smiling contentedly, yet a little sadly. He gave Erato a knowing look. “It’s been far too long for all of us…”

“I should let him write his precious poem,” Erato said, releasing Pierus with an impish grin. “I am the muse of love poetry, after all.”

That night, exhausted and spent, Pierus lay in bed, reading his poem aloud to the two muses who lay naked on either side of him. He realized his poem was somewhat like a Roethke poem, mirroring its form and cadence. But so much of creativity is like that, he thought. This endless flowing together of ideas, inspiration bleeding into other inspiration, and the debt is endless, sweet and endless...

And still, the muses waited, quietly listening.

I think sleep is upon us. Shall we kiss? –

My lover turns and draws the evening close.

If he but sighs, a river changes course.

He makes the water lonely for the moon.

He murmurs of the moonlight on the rocks

Through banks of high grass, running like a fox.

“There’s more,” he sighed. “But I’m too tired now.”

Erato rubbed Pierus’s feet, and Clio stroked his brow.

“Sleep,” they said to him, lovingly, with real tenderness.

“Sleep, mortal.”

The weeks went on, and Clio brought more friends, more muses. Eventually, there were nine of them, just as Pierus had suspected: Melponene, the muse of tragedy, Euterpe, the muse of music, and all the rest. Pierus passively welcomed their love and attention and creative inspiration. They mostly appeared in female bodies, but weren’t particularly attached to these. They were used to being spirits, not bodies, and they all had a very playful attitude towards matters of the flesh. It was all a game to them, and the purpose of the game was art. The muses continued to bring him gifts of inspiration: Pierus had more ideas than he could have ever believed was possible: paintings, novels, stories, poems, songs… on and on…

He awoke in bed each morning surrounded by the nine muses, all stroking him lightly all over his body, causing him to be in a constant state of tingling sensations: excitement and pleasure and inspiration. He loved them, all nine of them, and they loved him. They loved him. He could hardly bear the intensity of their love.

It turned out there were more than nine muses.

“Oh that’s just a myth,” said Thalia, a plump, sassy little muse whose kisses inspired belly-laughs. Pierus was sitting beside her on the couch, writing a script for a one-man comedy show.

“I thought you were a myth,” Pierus said, pinching her gently on her belly. She roared with laughter, and tickled him under his arms.

“I am a myth,” she said, “But that’s changing the subject. What I mean is, there aren’t only nine muses. There aren’t ninety-nine muses. Nor nine thousand and ninety nine muses….”

“Oh…” Pierus sobered up. “You mean---“

“There are so many of us,” Thalia said, tickling him lightly again, this time on his thigh, getting saucier with each word. “And we all want you. We all want you to love us, to listen to our ideas, and to make them real.”

“But,” Pierus said, “I’m only mortal. I can’t possibly make any more art… can I?”

Thalia stopped and grabbed his face, pinching his cheeks with her soft hands.

“You decide when to stop letting more muses into the house,” she said. “But just make sure you keep me!” And she bit him lightly on the ear.

“Oh!” Pierus gasped in surprise as an idea for a series of hilarious cartoons popped into his mind.

“Did you like that?” Thalia purred.

But Pierus was already scribbling down his cartoon on an old receipt, oblivious to Thalia’s gaze of adoration.

Despite the cool, autumn air, Pierus was feverish, tossing about in bed. The sheets that bound him were all sweaty. The muses watched him with concern as he cried out in his sleep.

“I can’t!” he cried. “No more! It hurts!”

“Wake up,” Clio said, pushing him gently. “What’s wrong?”

Pierus opened his eyes, looking haunted. “I have to write it down…another idea…a painting…a poem…my screenplay! Wait--where's my easel?!” He started to cry. The nine muses instantly surrounded him, stroking his feet. Euterpe played her flute, and Melponene brought a cool glass of water from the kitchen.

“I knew this would end badly,” Melponene sighed happily as she handed Pierus the water. She loved tragic scenes. Clio shot her a severe look.

“Knock it off, Melponene,” Clio said. “Now Pierus, what happened? Are you ill?”

Clio was wiping away his tears, stroking his back. Pierus sat up in bed, drank the water, and looked at the nine beautiful, glowing faces around him. They all looked sad and concerned.

“It hurts,” he said finally. “All of these ideas. The pressure of them, pulsating inside of me, building and building. It never ends! The feeling is strong. It feels like my soul is on fire, like my skin is filled with sparks. I can’t rest, I can’t sleep. I have so many ideas. I…I’m just exhausted. I don’t think I can live like this!” He was about to cry again. He shook uncontrollably, his teeth rattled.

“Hush, hush mortal,” Clio said, stroking his hot brow. “You should have told us sooner! We’ll protect you. No more muses, we won’t allow any more. And we won’t bring you more ideas than you can bear…just tell us, we’ll listen! And, and---stop playing that flute, Euterpe! It’s not the right moment.”

“Sorry,” Euterpe said sheepishly, putting the flute down on the nightstand. All the muses then stood in a circle around their beloved artist, holding hands and looking worried.

“What do you want us to do?” asked Clio, finally. “Should we leave?”

“No!” cried Pierus. “No! God, no! Just give me the strength to bear it…all this…this pressure…” He was shaking again, and sweating.

“I can give you strength,” Clio said, climbing into bed beside him. “It’s going to be all right, more than all right. It’s going to be indescribable.”

“And the pressure?” Pierus asked, as Clio kissed his neck, his collarbone...

“Let me handle it,” she murmured.

The other eight muses blushed and turned aside.

The night before the opening reception at Illiad, Pierus had a small party at his house for intimate friends and muses.

“A toast!” cried Dante, raising his champagne glass. “To celebrate our friend’s good fortune! To Pierus!”

“To Pierus!” everyone cried, raising their glasses enthusiastically. Everyone was having a wonderful time. Some of Pierus’s jazz friends were playing music in the corner, the song he had written in E flat: Clio’s song. Dante was dancing with Erato, and Pierus felt happy about that. He knew it wouldn’t be long before Dante started writing poetry, maybe love poetry, something epic…

Then he noticed Jeff. Jeff was miserable in the corner, sulking in the shadows. Pierus approached him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“It’s not fair!” sniveled Jeff. He’d been crying and drinking. “You have all these muses! And what do I have? Nothing. Why do you need all these muses? I don’t even have one. I haven’t been able to paint for years!”

“Oh, is that all?” asked Pierus. He handed his friend a tissue. “Don’t you fret. I’m sure I can fix this. Why…the muses love artists. They just love us. I’m sure they’ll love you, too.”

Later, he went over to Clio, who was managing the bar.

“Do you think one of the muses could give some attention, er, some love, to Jeff?” he asked. “He’s an artist, too. He could use a muse.”

Clio stopped making mojitos, and set a bunch of fresh mint down on the bar counter. He turned to look Pierus directly in his eyes. Clio’s eyes were serious, beautiful, and intense. Once again, Pierus had that realization that he was looking at something much, much older than he could understand. Something truly ancient and noble.

“Pierus,” said Clio, reaching out his hand, and drawing him close. The millimeter of air between their bodies sizzled with desire. “Pierus, I have been trying to get Jeff to love me his whole life. All my friends have. We have tried and tried. He wouldn’t welcome us. He wouldn’t even acknowledge us! That’s why we love you so much. You let me in, remember? When I asked you, leaning in your window, you let me in!”

“Oh, but…that was nothing—“ Pierus began. But Clio stopped him with a light kiss on the lips.

“It was everything.”

This time the kiss was longer, and more intimate.

Pierus woke at dawn, after the party, excited for the opening reception that night. Yet, even as he anticipated it, he was forming ideas for a whole new body of work for his next show. And a song was coming...No stop, he told himself. First, he wanted to write the rest of the love poem….

Clio was lying beside him in bed, just starting to open his eyes, his body glowing, adding to the light of dawn, to the holiness of the bedroom.

Pierus took out his pen and notebook and began to write:

We wake together; we wake hip to hip.

He searches and he finds a parted lip.

He cries out like the wind across the grass;

He presses down, the earth will let him pass.

He knows the only truth, and makes it known:

The artist never finds himself alone.

I feel his presence in my daily breath

In the slow-filling forces of the earth.

He moves as water moves and comes to me,

Pulled by the currents, leading to the sea.

Gustave Moreau, Hesiod and the Muse (1891) - Musée d'Orsay, Paris

The End

If you've enjoyed this story, you can read some other art-related short stories that I've written:

Head of a Woman: a desperate woman has an intense experience with a da Vinci drawing at the Met Breuer

Echo and Narcissus: inspired by a Poussin painting; a myth retold

Boticelli's Weird Party: inspired by Boticelli's Primavera, a woman confronts the idea of Beauty

Breaking Up With Chagall: I've met someone else...his name is Rembrandt...but I can't leave you...

The Conversation: an artist awakens, within the context of a Matisse painting and a marriage

Echo and Narcissus

July 11, 2020

"She long'd her hidden passion to reveal,

And tell her pains, but had not words to tell:

She can't begin, but waits for the rebound,

To catch his voice, and to return the sound..."

--Ovid

("Narcissus and Echo" Book III of Metamorphoses)

*Poussin "Echo and Narcissus" 1625-1630*

“Lie down, on your side,” she said. “Spread your legs apart… yes, that’s right.”

Erica adjusted the lighting in her studio, dipped her paintbrush into some raw umber mixed with turpentine, and began to sketch her model on the huge canvas. Nate was her favorite model, the most beautiful man she had ever painted. The shadow shapes on his body emphasized his muscular torso, as exquisite as a statue from Ancient Greece. Nate was a famous underwear model; his perfect ass, barely concealed on billboards around the city, helped to sell millions of pairs of underwear. Recently, Nate and Erica had become a “thing.”

Nate reclined on the dais, holding very still, and sweating under the hot studio lights. He knew that sweat only enhanced his physical appeal, and he smiled inwardly, enjoying Erica’s attentions. He was used to being adored, of course, but it was something else entirely to have a woman paint him, especially a woman as famous and talented as Erica. The only person he had ever really loved was himself, but he had to admit, dating the artist who was painting him was almost as good as dating himself.

*Lauren Kindle "The Model" oil on canvas, 24x36"*

Erica knew she didn’t really love him. He had an underwhelming personality and the spiritual depth of a paperclip. But she did love his body. And he loved his body, too. So, at least they had that in common…

Erica had a weakness for beautiful men. She especially liked men who were almost too beautiful, with high cheekbones and sensual lips, and long, lean, muscular bodies. Erica herself was not beautiful. Occasionally, when she was looking in the mirror, and if she tilted her head at a certain angle, she thought maybe she could be considered to have a certain kind of beauty, something understated and not easily discerned. But more often, she observed her face and body with ruthless judgement, seeing plain, bony, even masculine features, drooping breasts, and cellulite. She shrugged; it didn’t matter what she looked like. She rarely even thought about herself.

Only her work was important.

Years ago, Erica had endured a brief and miserable marriage, which resulted in a son named Cutie. After the divorce, she put Cutie into daycare and threw herself into her work, painting gorgeous nude men with a ferocious intensity, as if her very existence depended on it. She burned with an incredible passion which manifested itself on her canvases, and her career soared. Her paintings, sought after internationally, sold for tens of thousands of dollars. She was easily able to support both herself and Cutie, who was now three years old. And she also financially supported Nate, who had moved in after a few months, making himself comfortable in her spacious Brooklyn apartment.

The first time Nate dumped Erica, it was at the Family Diner.

“Do you believe in fate?” Nate asked, taking a large bite out of his rare hamburger. A dribble of greasy blood ran out of the corner of his mouth.

“…believe in fate?” Erica mused.

She sipped her diet Coke. She wasn’t sure if she believed in fate. That would imply a certain amount of meaning in the universe. Or a terrifying lack of personal control…

“You should. I do, I totally do,” Nate rattled on. He finished the hamburger off in a few bites, and then continued, his mouth still full of meat. “It’s fate. I can’t choose who I love, and I’m in love with someone else.”

Erica gazed up at the ceiling of the diner. The ceiling was actually a large, grimy mirror, and it made her a little dizzy to watch herself having this conversation, as if from a perch high above the table, remote and unaffected.

“Someone else?” she sighed. She wasn’t surprised; she always knew it would happen. In a way, it was a relief. She was aware that her paintings were beginning to get stale, ever since she and Nate had gotten together.

Beauty wasn’t enough.

But Nate couldn’t bear to be separated from Erica for long. He needed her to paint him, he craved her particular artistic devotion, and so he persuaded her to take him back. But, as time went on, Nate would habitually dump Erica for other lovers, both men and women. Then, like an addict, he would crawl back to her, winning forgiveness with his godlike physique.

“Paint me,” he would say, arranging himself dramatically on her doorstep.

Erica could hardly resist, after all, Nate was her Muse. The instability and drama became a huge distraction from what was really important to her, namely, her work as an artist. The quality of her paintings continued to decline, although they still fetched the same high prices. It was as though she no longer had anything to say, no opinions or ideas of her own. All she had was the ability to reproduce masculine beauty with technical, yet lifeless, virtuosity.

She tried to end the relationship. As a last-ditch effort, Nate proposed a camping trip. They would rent a car, drive into the mountains, and roast marshmallows. Cutie would come too, of course.

“We need to get out of the city,” Nate said. “Out into nature. You’re an artist, so, don’t you love nature?”

“Nature?“ Erica scowled, unconvinced.

“You’ll love it,” Nate said with a smile. It was an irresistible smile, and he knew it.

When they finally arrived at the campground, it was completely deserted. The clean, quiet smell of trees and mountain air was new to Erica, and refreshing. She thought, maybe Nate was right, this was just what they all needed. Cutie, of course, was overjoyed. He took off his clothes and went romping naked among the trees, picking up sticks and shouting happily. Nate and Erica spent a long time trying to set up the tent. When they succeeded, the sun was low in the sky, and the slanting angle of the sunlight caught the leaves of the beech trees, making them shine like gold.

“I want to make a campfire,” said Nate. “Let’s go look for some firewood.”

Erica followed Nate into the forest. She could hear Cutie shouting happily and playing, just out of sight. She walked slowly, perceiving her surroundings with an artist’s eye. She admired the graceful forms of the trees, as they curved upwards into the blue sky, and the forest floor which was patterned with deep shadows and spots of light. Each individual leaf was a universe of beauty, of light and shadow, calling to her to get out her paints. Could this be the new inspiration that she needed?

When she looked up, she couldn’t see Nate or Cutie. It was strangely quiet. Even her own footsteps were muffled on the soft moss and pine needles. The sun was still setting, in fact, it seemed as if it hadn’t moved for hours. Time had utterly stopped, but she wasn’t afraid. She found herself in a quiet glade, beneath a large beech tree, not far from a small, slow-moving stream. The sky was still blue, but there were dark storm clouds gathering towards the horizon. She was tired, and unsure of the direction of the campsite. At last, she found a large rock formation with a comfortable looking ledge, and she sat down on it, waiting. She had a strong sense that she was forgetting something important.

Another figure came into the glade; a child, yet not a child, bearing a flaming torch. At first she thought it was Cutie, but she knew it couldn’t be. Or, maybe… The small child smiled, and looked at her with wise, ancient, cruel eyes.

“Now do you believe in fate?” He laughed, wickedly, and flew away on tiny wings.

“Fate?” she asked, weakly, watching him ascend into the blue sky. But she couldn’t move, nor did she desire to. She merely waited, curious. She wondered why she wasn’t disturbed or shocked. It all felt so real, like she had always been here, or perhaps this experience had always been here, waiting for her.

Fate.

After a while, a handsome man came wandering into the glade. He was completely naked, except for some cloths draped tastefully over his private parts.

“Hello,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Name?” she asked. She wasn’t sure. What was her name?

“I’m lost,” the man said. “Do you know the way out of the woods?

“Out of the woods?” she was confused. Why would anyone want to leave this golden glade? It was part of her, and she was part of it. She knew she could never leave it. She looked down at her hands and she could see the rock formation right through her skin, the bits of moss, and a tiny snail crawling slowly.

“Yes,” the man stomped his foot impatiently. It was a beautiful foot, and a beautiful leg. In fact, his whole body was just so beautiful. She gazed at him as if in a trance.

“Don’t you ever say anything helpful?” the man demanded. “You’re just repeating me! Are you lost in the woods?”

“Lost in the woods?” was all she could say. She knew she should say something else, anything, but she couldn't. She just got more and more invisible, fading into the rock formation.

“I’m so beautiful,” the man said to himself. He was looking at his reflection in the stream, with reverence, as if seeing it for the first time.

“…so beautiful,” she sighed, full of longing.

The man lay down on the forest floor, stretching his body artfully on the soft moss. The broad shoulders, the strong thigh muscles, the fullness of his lips…. She could remember, barely, that all this had once been important to her. As she stared at him, he began to fade into the ground. His muscles hardened into rocks, his long legs into tree roots, spreading out towards the flowing stream. The form of him faded, the beauty that she had long worshiped, slowly disappearing into the greater beauty of Nature itself.

At last, all that remained was a long, erect green stem, growing there between the rocks, quivering in the slight breeze, its fragile blossom bobbing up and down:

a daffodil.

It wasn’t a waste.

He made a better flower than a lover, anyway.

And as for herself… she had always been an echo.

The End

Lauren Kindle "Daffodils" oil on canvas, 9x12"

_______________________________________________________

Thanks for reading my short story! If you have enjoyed it, you might want to read some of my other stories.

They are all art-inspired:

Boticelli's Weird Party
Breaking Up With Chagall
The Conversation (based on the Matisse painting by that name)

And if the idea of objectifying male bodies offends or delights you, here's another blog post:

Men: Beautiful Objects, or Humans With Feelings?

"Primavera" by Sandro Botticelli, 6' 8" x 10'4" tempera on panel (1477-1482)

Botticelli's Weird Party

July 11, 2020

a short story by Lauren Kindle

I was late for the party, damn it! My GPS failed me a few blocks from the address, and I got lost in a maze of small, quiet streets in a glitzy housing development in southern California. My hands shook at the wheel of my car, as I drove in circles around elegant mansions and empty, pristine lawns fringed by orange and pomegranate trees. Was I shaking from nerves? Or all the coffee I had drunk? I wasn’t sure, but I certainly was nervous about going to this party. I hardly knew anyone; I’d rather stay home and read a book. Maybe an art history book: my secret, nerdy passion...

My boss, Grace, had invited me that morning, and I knew it would be "social suicide" to refuse. Grace couldn’t be refused anyway, I was beginning to learn. She was absolutely ruthless. That’s what made her such a great editor. I had moved out here from Deluth two months ago, when I got this highly coveted job, a staff writer for a national fashion magazine, dispensing witty relationship advice. Pretty ironic, considering that I hadn’t had a relationship in years. Homesick, lonely, and eager to make some friends, I hoped that I would find some kindred spirits at this party. If only the damn GPS would work!

Orange trees planted all around a glamorous housing development outside of L.A.

It was growing dark, and I saw a few fireflies dancing in the shadows of the orange trees. I was starving! I hadn’t eaten all day. I’d been too stressed about this party: having to talk to people, knowing I would have to act confident... Hopefully there would be food…Frustrated, I parked the car, and got out to ask for directions. A swarthy Italian gardener was bent over in the shadows, tending a lush bed of flowers.

“Excuse me, sir,” I called out, trying not to crush flowers as I walked across the lawn. They were blooming everywhere, exquisite, rare blossoms. I made my way near the gardener. “Do you know where I can find 64 Spring Lane?”

“Is a strange party, yes?” the gardener chuckled, standing up. His Italian accent was very thick. His dark eyes glittered beneath a balding head, and he looked at me in an intense way, that made me squirm with discomfort. He leaned casually on the shaft of his shovel, wiping his forehead carelessly with a hairy, sunburned arm.

“Well, it’s a party…” I said, weakly. He pointed slowly behind the mansion closest to him, where I could see a thick grove of orange trees had been planted, sort of a mini-orchard. I could hear, barely, music and laughter and the tinkling of wine glasses coming from that direction.

“The party, she is back in the trees,” he said, not taking his eyes off of me.

“Thank you,” I said politely, and I started to go where he pointed.

“Have a good a-time, Signorina,” he called after me.

I wandered into the orange grove and found myself in the midst of a thriving party. People were dancing to haunting, ethereal music, which swelled up from the foliage, as if tiny speakers had been installed in each of the thousands of flowers and leaves all around. A small naked child came up to me and gave me a glass of champagne, which I drained. I wondered what a child was doing at a party like this, but he was already gone.

I immediately realized I was overdressed. There were several gorgeous women wearing filmy, transparent, diaphanous gowns. My own dress was elegant, but all-too-opaque. Another woman wore a fantastic gown covered in real, living flowers. She wore a crown of flowers on her head, like some Spring Goddess. She looked familiar…

I recognized Grace, my boss, but she was busy dancing with two other women. I didn’t know anyone else and hung back, shyly. Grace noticed me, however, and called me over.

“Simona! You finally got here! Great. You have got to meet my friends,” she gushed, dragging me over to her group. I could tell she was drunk. “Girls, this is Simona. She’s the new writer at the magazine. So talented! You must read her stuff.”

I found myself in a circle of women, doing some kind of rhythmic dance, swaying our bodies, and lightly, playfully, touching our fingertips together. Grace passed around a vape, and I gratefully took a hit. I felt myself relax, and began to enjoy this strange dance, and the general atmosphere of the party: a pagan, Ancient Greece sort of vibe. Yeah…. I could get into it….

Grace and Gracie, dancing intimately....

Grace and another woman, Gracie, soon got very involved with each other, and as their dancing became more intimate, they disappeared behind some trees, leaving me alone with the third woman.

“What’s your name?” I asked, feeling a little foolish and awkward, trying to mirror her dance. She was very graceful, constantly drawing my fingers up to hers, pulling them as if by a magnetic force. I couldn’t resist dancing, or looking into her eyes. She had braided her blonde hair and joined it in front of her neck, like a necklace made of hair. I couldn't stop staring: something about her face was familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite pin-point it.

“You don’t remember me?” she asked. “I work in reception. I’m Grace.”

“Oh…what?” I felt confused, light-headed. “But, my friend is Grace….”

“I know, isn’t it crazy?” she pressed her body up close to mine, and the music got louder. “We’re all Grace. All three of us. But I’m called Smitty, because, you know, my last name is Smith. And my girlfriend goes by Gracie. But don’t worry…” she lightly ran the tips of her fingers down the side of my body. “She and I have an open relationship.”

I recoiled with a gasp. I couldn’t believe she was hitting on me! I mumbled some excuse and stumbled into another part of the grove.

I heard people talking behind some bushes. It was the woman in the dress covered in real flowers. She was crying in a most unattractive way, with snot and tears running down her cheeks. I couldn’t see the man’s face, but he had a large, muscular build and a balding head. He caressed the woman’s breast with a large, hairy hand. I saw that his arm was splattered with spots of paint. An artist?

“Flora,” he said tenderly, "There's no need to cry. Your face is a mess, now, you silly fool.”

"Just go away, Sandro," she wailed. "What do you care? You won't ever paint me like this! I'm so tired of it! I can’t take the pressure. I’m not, I’m just not…I’m not beautiful now!!"

“I paint you the way I see you in my dreams," he murmured. "The way I want you to be. What I love about you is eternal. It will never change.”

They began to kiss so ferociously, that I became embarrassed and tiptoed away, deeper into the cluster of orange trees. I wanted to be alone, to clear my mind.

I thought I was alone, when I almost tripped over a handsome man who was sitting beneath a tree with a bottle of wine.

“Hi there,” he said, offering me a seat on some moss beside him. He was wearing a red toga and smiling impishly.

The figure of Mercury may have been modeled after Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici's cousin, Giuliano.

“Hi! Sorry I almost stepped on you,” I said, taking a seat and drinking the wine he offered. It was much sweeter than I would have liked.

“I’m Giuliano,” the man held out his hand. I shook it. “Have we met? You look familiar…”

“No," I said. "I just moved to L.A. from Minnesota two months ago. I’m Simona.”

I could feel myself blushing beneath his frank gaze. It was just as if he saw right through me, my pretentiousness, my silly story about my life. I didn't belong at this party, and I was sure he knew it! I drank more wine and my head spun pleasantly.

Me, Simona(The model for this figure may have been Simonetta Vespucci, Giuliano's mistress, and the wife of Marco Vespucci.) — Me, Simona
(The model for this figure may have been Simonetta Vespucci, Giuliano's mistress, and the wife of Marco Vespucci.)

“Do you work for the magazine too?” I asked.

“No, I’m a stockbroker,” Giuliano said. “But I’m friends with the Graces. I’ve known them for a long time; they’re wonderful people, just wonderful. I always go to their parties. Want a brownie?” He produced a plate piled with delicious looking brownies.

“Thanks, I’m starved,” I said, and I ate about seven of them at once.

I lay down on the cool, soft carpet of moss, gazing up at the canopy of leaves above us, twinkling with fireflies. I noticed there were strange, beautiful clouds hanging between the leaves, building like a small storm, pulsating to the rhythm of the music. The leaves and the clouds vibrated, swelling and shrinking in turns, in a most enchanting way, so that I could hardly bear to be separated from them. I felt a great yearning to have the clouds come down to me, to envelope me in their dark, wet mistiness. I could smell the luscious, sexy smell of a storm brewing.

“Do you see those clouds?” I asked Giuliano. My voice sounded thick and low to my ears.

“Yes,” he said. “Those are storm clouds. But don’t worry, I’m keeping them away with my magic powers.” He stretched out his long legs in the soft grass, and I laughed to see little tiny wings fluttering on the sides of his sandals. He turned over on his side, facing me; he had a very large, unusual-looking staff in his hands.

“Wow!” I gasped. I wondered if there was something in the brownies I had eaten…

“Want to see my caduceus?” Giuliano asked, smiling with dimples. “It keeps the garden safe from threatening clouds.”

Giuliano showed me his staff. It was large, with intricate carvings of two snakes on it, twining, writhing together. They seemed so real, I swear I could hear them hiss.

“It’s magic!” I gasped, and reached my hand out towards it.

“It is magic,” he said. “Go ahead and touch it.”

At some point I must have fallen asleep, and when I awoke, the full moon was high overhead, and the party had taken a nasty, angry turn. Some people were quarreling. Smitty was standing near me, yelling at her girlfriend Gracie, calling out drunken, profane insults.

“Well, you know he’s just a friend,” Gracie kept saying in a slurred voice, but I could see she was looking at Giuliano with lust. Giuliano, on the other hand, was completely oblivious, just waving his caduceus around, enjoying the party.

My head hurt. I sat up, painfully. Nearby, another angry scene was developing. A man jumped out from behind a tree. He had blue skin? I rubbed my eyes. Blue-skin-guy grabbed a girl from behind, and pushed himself onto her roughly.

“Please stop!” the girl cried out. Who was she? She looked familiar too, trembling beneath her transparent gown. Everything about her seemed perfect, fragile, and tempting. I stood up indignantly, swayed, and fell over again.

The girl tried to get away from the blue man, struggling with all of her might, but he wouldn’t release her, and kept kissing her aggressively on her neck. It made me sick. I got up on my knees.

“Hey!” I cried out, to anyone who would listen. “That man is attacking that girl over there! We should stop him!”

Suddenly, Smitty was beside me, her smooth hands lightly resting on my shoulder.

“Relax,” she said. She put her arm around me gently, and pressed herself close. “It’s not what it looks like,” she said. “It’s just Zee and Chloe. They do this at every party. She likes it. He fecundates her with his breath.”

“Huh?” I looked at Smitty, then at the scene before me. What the hell was going on? It looked like Zee was trying to rape Chloe, and my stomach turned inside of me.

“I want to leave,” I said, standing up gracelessly, shaking off Smitty's hand. I took a lurching step backwards.

Just then, Chloe bent over suddenly and threw up. Zee, the blue man, grabbed her around the waist and held her hair back with unexpected tenderness. I imagined that her vomit was a stream of flowers. In fact it was: I could see it clearly. I could see the individual flowers pouring out of Chloe’s shapely lips.

And then I knew something was very, very wrong with this party. Why did all of these women look so familiar to me? Chloe, Flora, all three of the Graces… I had a very odd feeling. I opened my purse, took out my compact mirror, and gazed at my face.

And then I knew: we were all the same. It was the same face, the same body. All lovely, slender, feminine figures, with the same soft curves, perfectly formed hands and feet, white skin, and long-flowing hair. We all looked out at the world in the same way: passive, longing, and ready to be adored.

My face wasn’t my face at all, but just an ideal of what a woman’s face should be. Every imperfection was smoothed out, every freckle erased. My eyes were perfect and symmetrical, my lips… My face was a design, an illustration, a caricature…. I stood up. Enough was enough! My head hurt like crazy, and I wanted to go home. Everyone else was preoccupied with their internal dramas and sensual theatrics, so nobody noticed when I turned and ran.

I ran out of the orchard and across the front lawn, all silver in the bright moonlight. There was my car, nice and normal and reassuring, waiting for me. I hadn’t quite reached it when I heard a man’s voice call out:

“Signorina! Wait!”

It was the gardener, but as he stood there, tall in the moonlight, he looked like a Greek god. And then I recognized him from the party. Sandro, the painter.

“You like-a my crazy party?” he asked in his thick Italian accent. Was he mocking me?

I stopped, and went towards him. His eyes glittered beneath his balding head, and again I had a strong feeling of discomfort. The way he looked at me...

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Signorina, don’t you know?” he asked, smiling sensually. “I make-a all of this. All women, I make. All beautiful things! You must-a know me: Sandro Botticelli.”

Of course I knew him. Art history was my passion! I took another step towards him, and he embraced me with his muscular, hairy, paint-spattered arms. Still, I resisted.

“But why? Why do you make us all the same?” I felt indignant.

“Yes.” Botticelli wasn’t ashamed of it. He smiled smugly. “I’m an artist. I do what I want.” His accent had disappeared. I realized he had been faking it all along, for my benefit.

“But why?” I insisted, and I softened a little in his embrace, allowing him to hold me. Something about his certainty made me feel secure, even cared for.

“Your particular beauty fades,” he said. “Your particular qualities will wither and die. But the eternal remains. That is what I paint. The eternal idea. The Universal Beauty.”

I tried to pull away from him.

“I hate that!” I nearly shouted. “I don’t want a lecture on Neo-platonic love! I just want to be me… Simona. I’m not me…I’m not…,” I felt confused. Botticelli kissed my neck, my arms, and I felt my reserve melting. “I’m just…we’re just… who am I?”

Standing there with him, bathed in moonlight, I saw in his eyes a longing for something which I could never give him, and so he had created it for himself. He saw me, and all beautiful women, as a symbol of something eternal; he had made it up in his mind to do so, and no amount of protest could change it. Repelled as I was, I couldn’t help but be impressed by his vision, by all the work he had done to turn normal women into something Universal, something greater than themselves. In a way, it was a relief not to be my small, imperfect, mortal self, struggling with my insecurities, my bills and debts, my pathetic career dreams…

I completely submitted to his embrace, and to his vision of who I was.

“Who am I?” I gasped again, between kisses, realizing that I would never make it to my car, never escape from this weird party, nor did I desire to.

“You’re Venus,” Botticelli murmured in my ear. “The goddess of love.”

And I had to be satisfied with that.

Thanks for reading my short story! Comments are working again, so please leave one! Doing so will enter you in a raffle to win a free print of any painting on my website. Deadline is 9 pm, Tuesday, April 12th, 2016.

The Conversation

July 11, 2020

“From the moment I held the box of colors in my hands, I knew this was my life. I threw myself into it like a beast that plunges towards the thing it loves.”

--Henri Matisse

The Conversation

a short story by Lauren Kindle

Three months after he got laid off at the diaper factory, Michael painted all of the rooms of his house a deep, Ultramarine blue. He was going for something divine: the blue of the ceiling and walls of the Arena Chapel in Padua. He wanted to paint little angels, peeking out of the blue, just like Giotto, the fourteenth century Florentine painter. Michael wondered how one might go about painting little angels. After all, he wasn’t an artist…

Angels got Michael to thinking about babies, and babies made him think about diapers. Thirteen years working for Luvvy’s Diapers, and for what? Fantastic health benefits, certainly, and a bloated IRA, a nice house, and a garage filled with thousands of free diaper samples, enough to protect the butts of half a dozen babies. But there were no babies; Julia was adamant. She wasn’t the mothering-type.

“Hey, honey, what if I tried to paint a little cherub right here, where--” Michael began.

“Don’t even think about it,” Julia cut him off. She found the blue walls to be dark and oppressive, like her husband’s restless presence. All day long, he moped about in his pajamas, watching art documentaries on you-tube, or eating cereal straight out of the box, just shaking the dry flakes straight into his mouth.

“It’s not your fault you got laid-off,” she told him, trying to be sympathetic. “I know you’re bummed about it. But you really should be sending out your resume to some new places.” She wrote out a schedule for him, with daily and weekly goals. Julia excelled in time management, or, as she called it, “time-domination.” She tied up the hours into neat little knots of anxiety.

“I think I want to be an artist,” Michael said dreamily, picking a flake of cereal out of his beard, and popping it in his mouth.

“You’re ridiculous,” Julia snapped. She couldn’t understand why he continued to stare off into space, when he could be applying for more jobs. It drove her crazy to see his days being wasted away. And most of all, she missed her solitude, the long hours when Michael had been away at work. “You’re almost forty,” she continued in a venomous burst of sarcasm, “and suddenly you decide you want to be an artist?”

The next day, Michael bought a set of oil paints and brushes and a large wooden easel. He set it up with great satisfaction; he loved being laid-off. Back when he was a shift manager at Luvvy’s Diapers, commuting two hours each way, there had never been a moment to just be. Now, time expanded before him, all around him, with a fullness, a blue-ness. He was in a wide meadow of time…

“At least go outside and cut the grass or something!” Julia said. So Michael went outside, in his pajamas, and spent the day digging holes in the lawn.

“What on earth did you do?” Julia nearly screamed, when she looked out the window and saw three large holes in her perfect lawn. Her face was white with rage.

“They’re going to be fishponds,” Michael smiled sheepishly. “I’ll fill them with water, and gold-fish, and water lilies. Then I’ll paint them, like Monet did with his garden at Argenteuil.” He felt pretty knowledgeable about Monet after watching another you-tube video the night before, and he was brimming with self-satisfaction.

Julia fumed. She stormed out into the garage, and nearly tripped on a box of Luvvy’s diapers. She gave the box a sharp, angry kick, and then spent the rest of the day feeling guilty, without really knowing why. Later, when Michael was busy fussing with his newly dug holes, she crept back into the garage and rearranged the diaper boxes into neatly organized stacks.

As the summer weeks passed, Michael did indeed turn the holes into real fish ponds which rivaled Monet’s. He spent his days outside in the yard, painting terrible impressionistic paintings. He knew they were terrible, but he couldn’t stop painting them, nor could he suppress his joy in them. He loved everything about them: the hedonistic excess of his brush strokes, the garishly overworked colors, the sensual pleasure of mixing paints. He was so happy, he forgot to shower for days at a time.

One day, he came in to get some more cereal, and Julia was waiting for him, sitting rigidly in her chair, ready to have a Conversation.

"I regret marrying you," Julia said, instantly. "I don't love you. Maybe I did once, but I don't anymore. Also, you smell bad.”

It was too late to hold back her words; even as they came out, she felt the meanness of them, like a bitter taste on her tongue: earthy and intoxicating. But it was pleasurable to speak this way, and she couldn't stop. He stood dumbly before her, in his filthy pajamas, his large hands shoved into the pockets. His thick neck, thrusting out of his collar, reminded Julia of a bull’s neck: a stupid bull.

"You don't even care," Julia continued. She couldn't stop talking. "Nothing I say bothers you, because you don't care." Even as she said it, she felt ashamed. She knew he did care, and she knew she was hurting him. She imagined her shame like a great darkness in her mind, or even a birthmark on her forehead, visible to the world.

"Why are you saying these things?” Michael demanded, angrily. “You’re so selfish! You won’t say anything encouraging to me. Can’t you see that I’ve fallen in love with painting?” He flushed red to the roots of his dark hair.

Julia got a strange thrill in her chest when she saw her husband's look of anger. Look, I have finally aroused something from him, some emotion from that cold statue.... Her thrill was like a bird, trapped and fluttering in a box. The taste of meanness on her tongue had become precious to her; she treasured it. It was a kind of power.

Julia prepared herself to say even more. She opened her mouth to say something, but then a movement outside the window distracted her. Perhaps it was a flash of sunlight on the surface of one of the fishponds… What had she been about to say? The black iron railings outside the window danced before her eyes, suddenly wet with tears. The curlicues moved to spell Non. No. She must not continue her tirade. She must find a way to stop herself.

Non. This conversation was a waste. Nothing about it had really been true, it was all just an experience of power. Her words, and even her emotions, merely floated on the surface of what was true. The deep, true, unspoken part of the conversation was love: her love, and her passion, her desire to control everything, and, deeper still, her even greater desire to have the control taken away from her. To be free…

She looked again at his neck coming out from the collar of his pajamas. Was it really so offensive? She saw his neck tense with emotion, and she admired the muscularity of it. Again, she was reminded of a bull, but this time, its virility. She thought about all of the diapers in the garage, and blushed. Now that was real waste….all those diapers, just sitting there…

"I'm sorry." She said. And then again, with a little more sincerity, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean those things. I’m so emotional…”

The softness of her tone eased Michael’s mind, like a light slowly spreading in the darkness. The blue walls of the room opened up, swelling like a balloon. It was the sky after all, the divine blue light of northern Italy, pregnant with meaning.

“I changed my mind,” Julia said, after a pause.

“About being sorry?” Michael frowned and looked down at her again, thinking maybe he would like to paint her, sitting in that chair. She smiled and caught his eye.

“No…about the all those little angels. I do want them, after all.”

And she rose to kiss him.

A Dancer in Isolation

May 15, 2020

“I am drawn deeper down into what is most essential.”

—Terre Vandale

a guest blog post by Terre Parker Vandale

It is so exciting to see so many free opportunities to see work in museums, hear free concerts, attend free workshops, and take lessons, all via Zoom. The pull to partake in everything is palpable. But…it isn’t for me.

I am teaching and working remotely and homeschooling a preschooler and I am the only adult in my household. (Deep breath)

Before coronavirus I was in deep developing a new dance work with three incredible collaborators. My studio building is now closed. We are now sending each other drawings and poems as we develop our roles independently…when we have time.

I tried making a dance video with my son the other day. I set up a beautiful shot, walked in the frame, had four seconds to consider what I would do, and then I was warming hands, wiping a scrape, and building with rocks. It became another “Four Minutes of Mothering” (a duet we performed when my kid was two, which consisted of me attempting to dance responsiveness in the midst of more than a dozen stuffed animals). The next take, days later, was more “successful,” but it taught me less.

I am a teaching artist by training and so I am living arts integration. I am in a 24 hour collaborative improvisation, keeping an eye out for teachable moments and responding with love at every turn (whenever humanly possible). We are creating found object mobiles, countless collages, life size self-portraits, and brush forts wrapped in yarn. We are painting with trucks/balls/brushes. We are dancing in the living room, me doing Zumba for a hot second (there! online content I’m ingesting!) while my kid taps or “clacks” as he says. We are singing. I am sharing more of what I know in between cooking, cleaning, working, despairing, fearing, and celebrating the precious moment. I am witnessing him play - more solo play than he’s ever experienced - and getting to know him, and wiping cuts, and affirming him, and explaining the “bad flu” and explaining how his grandmothers can send him love through the air. This is art. It is messy and non-consumable. It sure as hell doesn’t fit in a Zoom session (and I use all my screen time for work anyway.)

*Beach experiment. Photo: Terre Vandale*

I am in such a privileged position. I am beyond grateful to have health and my job. And yet, this situation is still incredibly hard. My art right now cannot be for anyone else. It is for my life. I need all my resources just to weather this time and to keep steady as I steer my family’s ship. Right now, when my art can be gifted to someone else, it is for an audience of one - my kid. (Gratitude to my dear teacher Anna Halprin for a way to understand this LifeArt Process.)

In the second week of isolation, my FOMO blossomed, but then I saw capitalism trying to talk to me through my desire. The idea that any of us should be able to continue business as usual while being primary caregivers and trying to interrupt contagion at every inroad is simply ludicrous. Now, in week seven of isolation, with talk of reopening circling and people around me appearing to function near to normal, I am drawn deeper down into what is most essential.

*Journal excerpt. "For Her" self portrait series. Terre Vandale*

I claim this space for non-production. For retreat. For compassion. For caregiving. I claim this space and time for being good enough as I am, for small “a” art, for trusting that something inside of me is growing, is becoming, something that I need to be for what will come later.

I was looking for a way to bridge the parts of me that are artist, professional, and mother and look, here it is (a bit more dramatic than I’d hoped). My mother, a wiser feminist than me, recently revealed she is playing with thinking of this time as a workshop she signed up for to learn, what? That is to be discovered. We are thinking of this as an initiation. Into the next versions of ourselves.

I imagine when this is all over my dancing will be richer, my professional work will be more compassionate, I will be smarter and see the connections between things more clearly. I don’t need to watch anything or do anything to make that happen, just live through this. Keep making art. Small art that no one sees, or maybe just one small person.

I hope that when you see me perform, finally whenever we get to share that piece, you’ll know there is something under the surface, some lived experience that you cannot share, but you feel it vibrating. So, I won’t offer any Zoom workshops while I’m teaching/mothering/working/living in isolation, but I have a gift for you…later. I look forward to receiving the gift you are becoming in secret, too.

*“Simply Be” watercolor on paper, 5x7 inches, painting by Lauren Kindle, Words by Terre Parker Vandale*

Terre Parker Vandale lives in Western Massachusetts where she directs Mae/Movement Arts Ensemble and serves as Program Coordinator for the UMass Arts Extension Service. A former principal member of Anna Halprin’s Dance Company, Terre has presented choreographic and video work nationally and internationally since 2005. Terre’s artistic practice encompasses environmental and stage performance, video, visual scores, installation, participatory ritual, arts integrated curriculum, and teaching in a wide range of settings from museums to community centers to universities. Her current research, Evolving Identities, emerges from the experience of motherhood to explore the interaction of literal and figurative social identities during life transitions through movement and writing.

Terre’s newest site-specific performance, For Her, is slated to premiere in October 2020. For Her awakens the body’s kinship with the living land through archetypal exploration in a garden of elder trees. You can support For Her production costs and dance studio rent by sending a gift to @TerreVandale via Venmo.

“Clementines on a Plate” painting by Irene Tatariw Trindle, gouache on paper, 5x5 inches

My Mom's Beautiful Art

April 22, 2020

I’m SO PROUD of my mom! For the last few weeks, I have been meeting my mom on “Zoom” to give her private art lessons. We have been working one-on-one with gouache paints and paper. (Gouache is an opaque water color paint.)

I’m really so impressed and proud of my mom! Her work is stunning.

Here’s a picture my mom took of me from her dining room table while I was teaching:

I gave her a simple template for a limited palette that she could fill in as a way to understand her paints.

In preparation for the paintings, I gave my mom an assignment to do a series of pencil sketches of small bouquets of flowers. I showed her some of Bonnard’s pencil sketches as inspiration.

My mom turned out a series of the most gorgeous little pencil drawings! She has true natural talent! These drawings are so expressive, so intimate, and so full of life. I especially love the variation in line and the different values and energies she conveys by changing the pressure of her pencil on the paper. They are tender, delicate, bold, and vivacious!

“Bowl of Blueberries” by Irene Tatariw Trindle, gouache on paper, 5x5 inches

My mom bravely jumped right into painting with gouache without much hesitation. Soon she was painting with confidence and trying new things. She was the best student I could have imagined; it was a delight to teach her!

“Grapefruit” work-in-progress by Irene Tatariw Trindle, gouache on paper 5x5 inches

I’ll leave you with this glorious painting of wildflowers in a small round vase. It makes my heart sing!

“Small bouquet of wildflowers” painting by Irene Tatariw Trindle, gouache on paper, 7x5 inches

Interested in Art Lessons?

Working with my mom on “Zoom” has given me the confidence to offer Private Virtual Art Lessons to students of all levels. Gift Cards are also available. Mother’s Day is coming up…maybe an art class would be a nice gift….?

You've Got the Moon

March 25, 2020

“And here I am holding on to you , and you've got the moon.”

—Josh Ritter

“You’ve Got the Moon” acrylic on canvas, 16x20 inches, March 2010 — *“You’ve Got the Moon”* *acrylic on canvas, 16x20 inches, March 2010*

My son Morgan turns ten years old today! I’ve been reading my old diaries from the week leading up to his birth. He was ten days “late” coming into the world, and that period of waiting felt dream-like. Time took on a different meaning.

“All around me I feel very relaxed and content, and maybe a shade melancholy,” I wrote in my diary, the day before Morgan finally came into the world. “I don’t know why. The end of something old, the start of something new. A big transition is about to take place…I hope I can handle all that comes my way. I know that my body knows how to birth this baby…I must wait for the right time…”

I remembering listening to the Josh Ritter song, “You’ve Got the Moon,” over and over again, while I worked on this painting of a big full moon and a big full belly.

We ate May down to the rind
Asked the moon for another helping
It's getting on past suppertime
Lights are low and it was evening
Pull your dress up to your knees
Out in the fields we'll go walking
Just the tall grass and the trees
Silhouettes and crickets singing

And here I am holding on to you
And you've got the moon

See the leaves fall as they turn
Green into a golden evening
Slowly, so there is no change
It does not feel like the end of something

And here I am holding on to you
And you've got the moon

Stars and satellites and clouds
Everything tonight is floating
And I am too so I hold your hand
And up above the moon is rowing

And here I am holding on to you
And you've got the moon.

—by Josh Ritter: “You’ve Got the Moon”

*Sketch of my son when he was 8 days old…*

Related Blog Posts…

* Baby Sketches… (I made many sketches of my children when they were babies)

* Paintings of Mothers (paintings by other artists)

* My Son (a poem I wrote, and a portrait of my son)

Ian's Journal

February 26, 2020

A note from Lauren: My husband Ian has been keeping a regular journal on his computer for a couple of years now. Recently, he was reading aloud to me some passages he had written a year ago, last February. (We sometimes re-read our old journals to each other, and it helps to put things in perspective.) I thought it would be nice to publish some excerpts here, along with pencil drawings from my sketchbook.

Ian in profile.

Ian Kindle at 2/17/2019 11:08 AM

Another one of those instances when life gets in the way… not in a negative way, but the past few days have been busy and wonderful. On Valentine's Day I made dinner and got the kids to bed and then spent time making crème brulee for Lauren and getting her valentine's present together…

On Friday I worked on cleaning to get ready for our trip to visit Kat and Jen in Massachusetts…Travelling took longer than expected. Bad traffic on 84 near Danbury and Hartford. Took us almost 6 hours to get up here. We were pretty tired and hungry by the time we got here. Jen's been under the weather and rested most of Saturday. Kat had a class and Lauren and I took the kids to the Smith College Art Museum in the afternoon. Grace met us there and we had a nice time looking at art and talking a bit…

Today Kat and Jen have taken the kids to Berkshire East for Snow Tubing.

*A kid on a snow tube. (Photo credit: Kat Good-schiff)*

Lauren and I had a very nice time reconnecting... Right now she's sketching pets. She is so beautiful with her long hair pulled back, braided in a loose rope down her back. Dangly red carnelian and crystal earrings that I bought her for an anniversary several years ago and a light rose colored blouse that looks like linen but is likely cotton. She gazes down at Rosie, eyes darting back and forth from the old golden retriever sleeping in the sun and the sketch book front of her. She glances up at me…

Then she returns her attention to her sleeping model. Rosie sniffs and stretches and readjusts her legs before going back to sleep. "Rosie," Lauren says fondly, "now you're in a totally different pose." She starts a new sketch.

"Quantity not quality is my new motto. In writing too. It's easier to edit crap than a blank page. Ego gets in the way and prevents you from doing good work. It's impossible to do good work when you're trying to do good work. It's like trying to walk but stepping on your own feet."

*Sketches of Hadley, finding a comfortable spot on the floor.*

*Cat and dog napping in a sunny window.*

Finally found out yesterday that I tied for third place in the romantic essay contest [at the National Hotel in Frenchtown, NJ]…

I think Lauren and I will have a nice date night there sometime soon.

*Sketches of Ian, while he writes his journal…*

Related Reading: Love, Art, Diaries, Letters, Poetry, and Pie (not in that order)

Smith College Art Museum: paintings we saw that day

Strange Love Letters: letters I wrote to Ian, once upon a time

Lovesick Teenage Diary: some embarrassing excerpts from when I was 17…

Solace: our wedding vows

Kat and Picasso: a trip to the MoMA with Kat in 2016

Pie: a guest blog post by Grace LeClair

Dragon’s Meow: Kat’s poetry blog

"Barb Mowery is afraid of her studio."

January 29, 2020

A guest blog post by Barb Mowery.

www.barbmowery.com

I’m so grateful to Barb Mowery for sharing this tender, funny, and honest cartoon with the world! I’m sure it will resonate with my fellow artists. Please do yourself a favor and take a look at Barb’s beautiful paintings on Instagram. She also has a Blog and an online Shop.

“Good Day Sunshine” painting by Barb MoweryAcrylic and collage on paper, 12 x 15 inches, 2019. — **“Good Day Sunshine” painting by Barb Mowery**
**Acrylic and collage on paper, 12 x 15 inches, 2019.**

Where St. Francis Walked 2006, oil/canvas, 30x40", by Ying Li — ***Where St. Francis Walked***
2006, oil/canvas, 30x40", by Ying Li

In the Jungle with Ying Li

December 18, 2019

It’s a dream I keep having, where I’m stepping through the thick jungle, brushing vines out of my way, thigh-deep in lush foliage. I’m following her voice, a wordless cry. I feel the heat and the murmur of living creatures all around me, half hidden behind vines and tree trunks. The jungle resonates with the many-layered voices of invisible birds.

Scorched Valley 2006, oil/linen, 20x24" by Ying Li — ***Scorched Valley***
2006, oil/linen, 20x24" by Ying Li

As I round the bend of the overgrown path, I see a figure before me, a ferocious trailblazer swinging her palette knife like a machete.

She turns back to me, sweat dripping from her radiant face, paint in her hair, she smiles at me…

and reaches out her hand…

I take it gratefully and follow.

Valley in Moonlight 2007, oil/linen, 20x24" by Ying Li — ***Valley in Moonlight***
2007, oil/linen, 20x24" by Ying Li

Related reading: I first learned about Ying Li from art professor Ed Kerns, in my blog post “Secrets to Happiness.”

In Plain Sight

December 11, 2019

“But when I can begin to experience this very moment, the true teacher—when I can honestly be each moment of my life, what I think, feel—this experiencing will settle itself into ‘just this,’ the joyful samadhi of life…”

—Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen

*Artists Abigail Synnestvedt and Lauren Kindle, posing in front of their paintings in Lauren’s studio. Photo credit: Lillian June Robinson.*

On Friday, November 29th, we had our opening reception for “In Plain Sight,” a two person show featuring the work of artist Abigail Synnestvedt and myself. It was a very exciting night; I decorated the outside of my studio-gallery with holiday lights and evergreens. So many people attended the opening; the little gallery was packed!

It always feels so exciting for me to open my space up, a space that I usually keep private as a working studio throughout the year. Suddenly, it blazes out of the darkness with light, music, and chatter. The community gathers to interact with each other, and with the art itself. I glow with inner pride; I have created a moment in time. It is an event that is special and singular, that shines in my memory, and hopefully, in the memory of those who participate.

I am thrilled to be part of a two-person show with Abigail, an accomplished painter whom I have long admired. Abigail talks more about choosing the artist’s life in an older blog post, in which she describes her teachers and her path to become an artist. She is an inspiration to me; she models a sincere dedication to her craft. She encourages me to paint for myself, and to set aside the opinions of others, which might pull me astray from my own search for authenticity.

I truly adore Abigail’s paintings. Her thoughtful, intentional colors have been placed beside each other with great care; the relationships between the colors are subtle and infinitely interesting. The more I stare at one of Abigail’s paintings, the more I get from it. Her subject matter is unpretentious: domestic scenes from an ordinary, simple life. She paints the world around her, the interior of her home, her beautiful little dog, Piper, her kitchen sink. She paints humble objects that are commonly found lying about: dishes on a table, for instance, scissors, silverware, a cell phone…

We noticed in the paintings we chose for this show that we shared this ordinary subject matter of the everyday world around us. We chose the title “In Plain Sight” for this show because our paintings elevate these commonplace motifs into something holy or worthy of reverence. Abigail has compared her painting practice to a form of meditation, and that spirit of concentrated awareness, of deep attention, is the spirit of our show.

To pay attention to something is to honor it, and this show is our attempt to honor that which is in plain sight.

“Daffodils, Scissors, Dog” painting by Abigail Synnestvedt, oil on linen, 22x30 inches. — *“Daffodils, Scissors, Dog” painting by* *Abigail Synnestvedt, oil on linen, 22x30 inches.*

“Etude in D Major” painting by Lauren Kindle, oil on linen mounted on board, 7x10.5 inches — “*Etude in D Major” painting by Lauren Kindle, oil on linen mounted on board, 7x10.5 inches*

“In Plain Sight” is open to the public Saturdays in December, 10am- 3 pm.

Lauren Kindle Studio, 7B North Bank Street, Easton, PA.

Also open by appointment: 267-247-6364

The Dust Bowl of My Elbow

December 4, 2019

“The canvas I now inhabit is blank, healed.”

a poem by Margaret Campbell

*Mildred Yockey and Claire Campbell, two sisters, 1975.*

Like the p’s in psoriasis and pneumonia,

I was a silent child.

Like the exhausted Oklahoma topsoil,

always under foot.

Like my smooth alabaster elbow,

unnoticed till I came unhinged.

The unpronounced, the downtrodden, the ignored

rise up eventually.

The p’s migrate to parched, pain, peril, and peace.

A scorched earth catches the wind.

A drought comes to a woman’s elbow.

“The surface of the earth crusted,”

Steinbeck wrote, “a thin hard crust”;

and the soil cried out for rain.

Once your skin becomes your enemy,

it is like the dust you will return to,

storming up from your bones

to bury your breath.

A small patch of foe skin

spreads everywhere.

I scratched until I bled.

It felt good to bleed,

to break through thirsty skin

to the olecranon process,

a half-moon of pain.

Forty years of scales and scabs,

my dust bowl lasted.

John Updike went to war with his skin.

I yearned to molt, to be a snake, to flay myself.

The canvas I now inhabit is blank, healed.

At your beautifully set table, on heirloom white linen,

I lean my polished elbows, a perfect W,

not to be rude or ungrateful,

not to take up more space

than I deserve,

but to ask why

I have suffered so.

*old charcoal drawing by Lauren Kindle, c. 2014*

The Dust Bowl of My Elbow

Margaret A. Campbell

Published originally in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) January 2014

More poems by Margaret Campbell:

Abigail Synnestvedt

November 20, 2019

Choosing Life as an Artist: a Guest Blog Post by Abigail Synnestvedt

*Table with Dog, Oil on Board, 12 and 1/2 inches x 16 and 5/8 inches. Painting by Abigail Synnestvedt.*

Art was always in the background for me growing up. My mom was an art teacher, and there were always pencils, markers, and large rolls of white paper in the house. She also had a decent amount of art books that I looked through often. I didn't take the interest seriously until I was a junior in high school.

In my junior year, I had an incredibly passionate, serious, and generous painting and drawing instructor, Keith Gruber. He modeled that life as an artist was an option, and I fell head over heels for it ever since. My most profound experience was working on a take-home painting project for our final assignment. I chose to copy the painting "Apple Blossom Time" by George Inness. (Years later, when I went to school at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, I found out that this painting is in their permanent collection). While I was working on this project, I experienced what psychologists identify as a flow state, where one is completely absorbed and focused on an activity, losing all sense of time. This mental state brought such comfort, purpose, and peace to my teenage self. Experiencing the state of flow through painting is why I got completely hooked on making art, I think.

*"Window with Flowers," Oil on Paper, 30x22 inches. Painting by Abigail Synnestvedt.*

I knew from then on I wanted to study drawing and painting. At the time, my mom was taking classes at the Barnstone Studios in Allentown run by Myron Barnstone, and I knew I wanted to go there after high school to build an art portfolio and my skills. Myron was an influential and charismatic teacher. Although I no longer consider myself to work in the method he taught, I owe much of my drawing background to him. I learned the value of persistence, showing up when you don't want to, and work ethic from him. He exposed his students to a wide variety of art and loved to exclaim the Chuck Close quote: "Inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work." His mantra was that anyone could learn how to make art; they just needed helpful instruction and hard work. He was one of the first people that opened my eyes to the beauty and magic of art.

*“Tulips and Sink,” Acrylic on Board, 16 inches x 15 and 3/4 inches. Painting by Abigail Synnestvedt.*

After spending three years at the Barnstone Studios, I went onto the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). At PAFA, the instructors blew the roof off of my carefully constructed ideological view of art and my place in the art world. I made friendships there with students and faculty that molded me into who I am today. The instructors at PAFA addressed the technical skills of art-making, but they also wove helpful mentalities into their teaching about how to approach life as an artist. One particular example of a mindset that was communicated by Carolyn Pyfrom is that we need to ask questions in our work and not look for answers. I primarily studied drawing and painting while I was there, but dabbled in printmaking and sculpture a bit. In my dream life, I would keep going back to PAFA, but each time studying one of the four disciplines they offered when I was there - drawing, painting, sculpture, and printmaking.

*The artist in her Souderton, PA studio with Piper, her faithful canine muse!*

Note from Lauren: I was lucky enough to meet Abigail Synnestvedt last year at the local figure drawing group that I run through Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. Impressed by her drawings in that group, I jumped at the chance to take a Figure Drawing Class that Abigail taught in June, and I gained so much from that class. I continued to follow her work throughout the summer, delighted by the freshness of her vision and her loose, thoughtful handling of paint. This fall, I asked if Abigail would be willing to participate in a two-person show with me in my studio-gallery, and she agreed! In Plain Sight opens November 29th, 6-9 pm in my studio gallery in Easton, PA.

*Georges Braque, The Black Fish. 1942, oil on canvas, 13 x 21 5/8 in. Musee d' Art Moderne, Paris*

Still Life Within the Painter's Heart

November 13, 2019

Within the painter's heart, the doctor finds

the sky, a pink tablecloth draped over a

tiny Tuileries garden chair. Tucked within

the folds of the sky, the sun, the size of a child's marble,

still hot from centuries of radiance.

In the right ventricle, all the phases of the moon

stacked like 45 rpm records, each playing a different mandolin tune.

In the left ventricle, the stars of the universe, their shimmering points filed

to the roundness of a baby's knuckle, dart in a sea of crimson.

There are fish–black fish–in the painter's heart.

There are pitchers, teapots, pears and apples, and dark ceramic bowls

brimming with lemons, figs, and the unexpected banana.

There is a crooked ruler that the nurse uses

to measure the moments of happiness—

many moments—she discerns.

Out of the cathedral of the left atrium,

glorious music rises from the white pipe of the aorta.

A complete orchestra the size of an eardrum announces

that the still life within the painter's heart moves.

—poem by Margaret Campbell

*Georges Braque, Le moulin à café. 1942, oil and sand on canvas, 34 1/2 x 42 in. (87.6 x 106.7 cm)*

Still Life Within the Painter's Heart

Margaret A. Campbell

Published originally in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) July 2012

This is the second time I have had the honor to publish a poem by Margaret Campbell.

You may also read “Virgil’s Muse” which I published three years ago. Margaret is a kindred spirit; her creative work includes poems, short stories and essays. She is also my neighbor and friend.

A Letter from my Daughter

November 6, 2019

“…remember that you are loved…”

I recently got this note from my 12-year-old daughter. She slipped it under my door when I was having a hard day, and boy, did I need it. I thought it was so beautiful, and worthy of its own blog post. Enjoy!

Dear Mom,

I love you a lot and I hope you feel better. Here is some advice: Whenever you are going hard on yourself, and thinking negative things, think about all the good things you have, Love yourself and believe in yourself and your art. Even when you don’t make money you are still a great person and artist, and remember that you are loved, amazing, worthwhile, and an incredible person. I love you sooo much.

Love,

Nell

Here we are four years ago, looking at a Bonnard book together when she was only eight years old. Sharing Wonder: Looking at Art Books With My Daughter was the second blog post I ever wrote!

And finally, here is a more recent picture from a couple weeks ago, having a coffee date! I don’t know what I did to deserve such a great kid, but I feel very blessed. I love being a mom and it’s delightful to watch this beautiful person grow and bl… — And finally, here is a more recent picture from a couple weeks ago, having a coffee date! I don’t know what I did to deserve such a great kid, but I feel very blessed. I love being a mom and it’s delightful to watch this beautiful person grow and blossom.

Further Reading: “Having an Artist Mom” an essay by Nell Kindle (when she was 9)

Flowers on a Rainy Morning

October 30, 2019

“Your real work is play.”

—Austin Kleon, Keep Going

Gouache painting by Carmine, father of a Lafayette student.

On Sunday I taught a painting class at Lafayette College. This class was for college students and their visiting parents, because it was Parents Weekend, and also it was to be the biggest class I ever taught, about sixteen students. I woke up to a gray, chilly day of pouring rain, and drove the Hunter Hill CSA, a local farm. The farmer, my friend Katy, was waiting for me with glorious bouquets of flowers which she had made, especially for this class.

I set up the classroom and students began to arrive, despite the rain, and I set everyone up at tables with flowers and paper and paints. (We were using gouache, an opaque watercolor that I favor.) Many of the students had never painted before! It was truly heartwarming for me to watch people experience the joys of painting for the first time.

One man, a father of one of the Lafayette students, kept saying, “I’m just an accountant,” and, “I suppose this is ok for an accountant,” in such a humble, sweet, rather woeful way. But I encouraged him to keep going, and at the end of the class he produced this delightful painting:

Gouache painting by “Anonymous Accountant,” father of a Lafayette student.

Here are a few more samples of work that was produced on Sunday. There were many more paintings than this, but I couldn’t fit them all in. I’m really pleased to see how the students made use of negative space, and paid attention to color relationships.

Gouache Painting by Jen, a Lafayette student.

Gouache painting by Kathy, mother of a Lafayette student.

Gouache painting by Tedi Beemer, Lafayette College student

A few students holding their finished paintings:

So, all in all, it was a successful morning. Plus, Lafayette College made me this name tag, so it’s official:

I’m a real artist.

Me and my new name tag. It says it right here. Artist. (Woo hoo!)

Further Resources:

Other Workshops I have taught:

If you would like to try your hand at painting, sign up for a Private Painting Lesson!

Or, explore gouache on your own! To get inspired, read my blog post: 10 Ways to Play with Gouache.

Monotypes and Wise Words

October 23, 2019

“How do you learn a language before you can hear? How can you make a painting before you can see?”

—JD Wissler

On Saturday, I took a monotype workshop led by the artist JD Wissler. The workshop took place at Kings Oaks in Newtown, PA. I had taken the same workshop last year (read about it here: Monotype Workshop) and my memories from that day were so wonderful that I was eager to do it again.

It was as lovely as I had hoped, and we made monotypes for hours! It was a glorious autumn day, the wide green fields stretched out beneath the pale blue sky. I lay down in the warm grass for a long time and watched the thin, wispy white clouds floating above me. In the surrounding distance were stands of trees, glowing like jewels with their new autumn colors: reds, oranges, and bright yellows.

Inspired by these autumn colors, I decided to try my hand at something new: monotypes using colors instead of my usual black ink. The images in this blog post are monotypes I made during the workshop.

And now… here are some things JD said that sounded wise, so I wrote them in my sketchbook. Enjoy!

Wise words from JD Wissler:

“You will learn something with every mark you make. It will lead you somewhere.”
“I don’t know how it’s going to turn out. That’s what’s so exciting at times.”
“I can’t wait to get ink on my fingers and wind in my hair!”

“It’s a process. It’s about learning. It’s about exploring. It’s about constantly questioning.”
“I happen to be one of those people that enjoys seeing the struggle, the decisions…”
“Enjoy what you’re doing.”

Further reading (poems by JD Wissler):

Stars Make Their Own Space

Light of the Firefly

“Edge” and other poems by JD Wissler

Pie Painting Class

October 16, 2019

“Once I started painting, it all seemed to come together. I was stunned and surprised at what I accomplished.”

—Irene Tatariw Trindle

A guest blog-post by my mom, Irene Tatariw Trindle.

I love my artist daughter’s pie paintings.
I love them so much that I want to buy one.
My daughter does not know this but one day I drove one hour north to Easton to look at her pie paintings.

I got to view, in unhurried luxury, several of her pie paintings that were hung in a bakery on Northampton Street in Easton, PA called Pie + Tart. The paintings were hung in the front display facing the street. I could not decide which painting I liked best. I casually walked inside the bakery hoping to see if there were more paintings inside.

So I said: “I really like those pie paintings.”

The ladies exclaimed: “The artist is local!” And, then they started talking about how wonderful the artist was, etc. I wanted to say: “I know her. She’s my daughter.” So, I just said: “How much is that cherry pie, the pie missing a slice?” So, I bought the pie with the missing slice. The price was adjusted because of the missing slice. I did not buy a pie painting. I have not bought a pie painting...yet.

I look at Facebook occasionally . My artist daughter posted “Pie Painting Class! Sunday afternoon, learn the delights of gouache painting and feast on delicious pie from Pie + Tart.” I clicked and reserved a spot for myself.

*“Apple Pie Slice” gouache on paper, 5x5 inches, by Laurie Latner*

The class was on Sunday, October 13, 2019. It was Lauren’s first class in her studio. She planned on having four students. There was a waiting list but this time I was an Early Bird. Each of us was given a 5 page syllabus with an inspirational quotation from Charles Hawthorne:

“Beauty in art is the delicious notes of color one against the other.”

*“Apple pie on a blue-patterned plate” gouache on paper, 5x5 inches, by Rachel Engh.*

Lauren said she wanted us to think about three things: colors & shapes, continue painting well after the class ends, and to have fun. She showed us examples from her favorite books of how artists successfully used colors and shapes. She talked about Value, Composition, Color, and Shapes. She showed us Ken Kewley’s simplified pencil sketches. She said that getting the relationships of colors right is more important than the “real color” that you see. And, sometimes colors “sing” together. She said that we should look for color and shape combinations that make us happy. That’s one of the reasons that I like Lauren’s pie paintings; they make me happy.

Lauren did a quick demonstration of using gouache paints with a limited palette. Then, she said she wanted us to start with just a few colors such as red, yellow, and blue. They were paired as warm and cool colors. For example the red that had a little orange in it was the warm red and the red that had a little blue in it was the cool red. So we worked with warm and cool colors in red, yellow, and blue. We also got burnt umber, yellow ochre, and a dollop of white. I swiped a bit of a green that caught my eye. Paints were put in clean clear recycled plastic egg cartons. The lid of the egg carton was removed and we mixed colors on that.

*Students painting in Lauren’s studio during her first pie-painting class.*

Lauren gave us strips of paper. She wanted us to paint our own sample palette to refer to in the future. We were to have four dime sized colors on this paper strip from left to right: black, dark grey, light grey, and white. We were not given black but we were told to make our own black from mixing ultramarine blue and burnt umber. It was important to keep our brushes clean and maintain a clean jar of water. She said it was ok to see the brushstrokes.

We had a choice for the pie. Everyone picked the lattice apple pie so I picked the pumpkin with a couple candied cranberries on top. We also selected the plate that the pie would sit on!
There was one light source on each pie and we were told to look at where the light fell, what was in the shadow, what had light on it, what were the colors in the light and shadow, what did we see...

Lauren said that gouache was fun and easy to work with. She said it dried quickly and there were no mistakes. Things can be painted over! She said that gouache can be layered so it’s hard to “ruin” anything. So, I quietly listened. But when it was time to paint, I just stared. Everyone was busy painting. I just had a painted triangle and a lopsided circle. (Pie and saucer.) I would move from area to area and it wasn’t happening. Others were moving right along. Finally, after about 90 minutes, I started painting and I just kept going. It gave me a big appreciation for my daughter’s pie paintings.

Once I started painting, it all seemed to come together. I was stunned and surprised at what I accomplished. I think I am going to Michael’s to buy a frame so I can hang my pie painting in my home. So, it looks like I won’t be buying one of Lauren’s pie paintings...this week!

*“Apple pie and apple slice” gouache on paper, 5x5 inches, by Deb Boyer.*

Lauren chimes in: Thanks Mom for the guest blog post! Here’s an email I got from another student:

Hi Lauren,

Thanks for a great class today! It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon, and I really enjoyed experimenting with the paints with someone there to guide me…

My son and I painted our vase of flowers with the leftover paint and he loved it. He tried smushing it all around like he does with watercolor and was very excited when he figured out "oh! you have to go gentle with these paints!"

Thanks again,

Deb