I was at an exhibition with a friend of mine. We would occasionally go and do the pretentious afternoon thing. This time it was an exhibition of a fairly new artist. The works ranged from simple line drawings in charcoal to big, full canvas paintings, expressions of energy in a variety of media.
He wasn't too impressed, but then he rarely is. I couldn't describe what I was feeling. Just about everything sang to me. It wasn't so much a conscious appreciation than a deep and emotional stirring. The paintings particularly touched so many strings in me that I could feel a whole symphony swell up and rush through my blood in one of the rooms.
As we had already gone around to several other galleries and exhibitions that day, my sudden burst of enthusiasm was too much for my friend to take and he headed home. Well, more likely he headed off to work, but then that is both our curse still.
I wandered through the rooms again and again, ignoring the people who were criticising the artist and her work despite their own complete lack of experience or feeling, and often despite the fact that the artist wasn't anywhere near them. How anyone could try and think about the works with any degree of objectivity was beyond me. I would stand in front of a rich and emotional canvas and before I could even finish trying to work out what the name of the particular painting was I would already be caught by it's passionate expression of something that touched me deep, deep inside.
In between paintings I would try and catch glimpses of the artist. She was generally surrounded, and accosted, by the inevitable journalists and art groupies who make these sort of openings their main parading ground. She was much too irritated by the nerve of the people who would try and understand her personal works however, for the opening night glitzerati to be able to pin her down for even a few minutes of hollow conversation. I was ashamed of my longing, but I had to try and talk to her as well. Her paintings resonated in me, and I couldn't let myself go home without trying to find out why.
"Excuse me, but I wanted to tell you that I find your works absolutely fantastic."
"Thank you." (go away)
"Please, you've opened some emotional gates in me that I didn't know were there. Do you think we could get together and talk sometime?"
"No, I'm sorry. I don't talk about my art."
"Then maybe we could talk about something else. Anything else."
...but she was already gone again, caught up by her agent and someone with a blank wall and a not so blank wallet.
Needless to say, I stayed and let myself drown in the paintings and drawings until the exhibition closed. Having been expertly expelled by the gallery owner, I walked the streets aimlessly, strolling from streetlight to streetlight, from sleepy tree to ice cold pole. I don't know for how long I wandered, but suddenly I saw her walk purposely along a footpath on the other side of the street. She was caught up in a concentration that blocked out all around her, and, I could not help myself, I did not even realize that I did it, I followed.
The door through which she eventually disappeared was narrow and old, just like the town house into which it led. Exactly what I would have expected her to live in. Private, warm, individual. I stood across the road and watched the lights go on and off, upstairs and down. I watched her silhouette dance around the rooms in movements that were, to me, like a ballet in slow motion, set to a music I could not hear but filled with a natural grace and fluidity that could not have been expressed more had she actually been dancing.
It seemed that she was staying up to work. The lights made their way to a room that must have been her studio - large glass doors and windows, their light partially dimmed by paintings leaning alone or in groups wherever they weren't too much in the way. She stood in front of a large canvas supported on an easel, the light behind her illuminating something I couldn't make out. Her tension and frustration carried across to my lonely vigil. I was nervous and excited and when I saw the wind blow aside the curtain of one of the tall glass doors, something purely emotional in me completely overpowered my common sense and I climbed the fence and walked inside.
Her sense of colour and style was evident in everything in her house, from the stacks of magazines, to the bookcases and prints. Everything was as charged as her paintings. Everything made me worked up more and more.
I walked into the next room, the room where she was working so late. This was it. My sensible self made a quick attempt at wresting control and leaving this place, but my heart and my body were burning with a fever that could not be overpowered easily, and it was to no avail.
You saw me as I walked in, but any surprise or shock at so late a visitor was not evident at all. The canvas in front of which you stood was completely blank, and after a short glance towards me you turned back to where your focus was and started to pace. I tried to say something. An apology, an assurance, but you ignored me so completely that I could only feel myself drawn towards you like a moth to a flame. You lifted your brush to start to paint, but then put it down again in frustration. It wasn't right. It wasn't working.
