Page 38 - WTP Vol. X #2

Dark Passage (continued from preceding page)
tian’s, long before any other critic, Alfred had high hopes. And now a solo show for her; that was third. Her hand rubbed her tight shoulders. She was flat- tered by Alfred’s interest in her art, yet a dark shad- ow bent and curved in her brain. She was third and always would be in his mind. She had no illusions; she was a means to an end.
Vic combed her fingers through her hair.
Alfred kept on. “After Christian left us, I love how you invited Matisse back into your life. Such abstract yellows, reds, and greens—a renewal that no one expected so soon.”
“He is an influence,” Vic answered in a dry firm tone. “As are Hans Hoffman and Christian. I’m not wedded to anyone now.”
Vic had created these works in the city. She had fled her farmstead, eager to free herself from Christian’s lingering ghost. In a small Manhattan studio, she painted Sun Spinner. The figure swayed in big swollen shapes of yellow and pink. Two faces loomed over one exposed breast. A red twirl defined her mouth. Vic had cried inside while she painted it. This “renewal,” this attempt to heal through light and bright color, was a mask—short-lived at best. Deep down, a consuming darkness stirred that she was facing alone now.
Alfred stared at the side door. “Show me your art?”
Whatever he wanted. Vic slid on Christian’s old sneakers. “Come with me.” She lit a cigarette for Al- fred and then one for herself. “Before it gets too late.”
She flicked on the barn lights. Five canvases were laid out on huge tables.
Alfred circled them. He held his cigarette close be- tween his lips, sucking it hard, and squinted with one eye. She pulled the sash of her shirt dress tighter.
“What a turn you’ve taken.”
“All that I couldn’t process before—It’s a dark passage.” “Very dark.”
She felt the flatness in his tone. He poked his long fin- ger in the fold of fat beneath his chin. “Where are your magnificent colors, Vic? Why this sinking downward?”
Vic’s mouth shut hard. Just like the King of Art to make such a pronouncement. A semester of studio art classes in college, long ago, and he became an expert.
“Vic,” Alfred stepped closer to her. “Listen to me. You’re looking backward instead of forward.”
She pressed her dark eyebrow and exhaled sharply. “No, I’m not. I’m pushing forward.”
“Your work is coming straight out of Christian’s.”
“I resent that, Alfred.” Vic felt stung and defiant. Her long arm flew out. “See the arcs, the feathery whites. Can you hear the bass sound of the umbers? You know I love jazz. My mind is a drum sometimes, a bass, a sax. I’m not sinking into Christian’s crazy tight tangle of lines. My arc of motion is bigger and looser. Take a good look.”
Alfred raised his chin so his eyes, those big gelatinous orbs so capable of judgment, penetrated hers. He couldn’t see that she was finally letting grief guide her work. Like a snake, she had to ingest Christian, take in what she wanted, and void the rest. Her can- vases’ dark shades of umber soaked up the sadness inside her.
“Vic, say what you want. Christian is what people will see.”
“Let them.”
Vic glared at her husband’s tools against the wall. Sharp sticks, broken trowels, and paint brushes with beat-up bristles. She too felt bent. Bent from trying to stop Christian’s downward slide that had dominated her mind. He exercised a supreme freedom, not car- ing what people might see. Why couldn’t she?
“Alfred!” Vic slapped the table. “I may not come close to Christian’s level of innovation but I’m not copying him. That’s what you want to say. Right?”
He stepped back. She had got him. Vic felt charred bits burn her eyes. Alfred had no right to check her creativity. The big man had stretched his arm flat across Christian’s canvas once, without asking, and pointed his meaty forefinger into one corner. “Kill the agitation there. Block it out so we get calm.” Christian had fumed and Vic felt his anger now. “You don’t know fuck about art,” he’d yelled at Alfred. She’d
be damned if she’d paint the way Alfred wanted. So many painters had drawn from Christian. But when she—the wife—showed any trace of his style, she was the crass imitator. She had influenced Christian too. He respected her mean eye and judgment. Only she could stand on a ladder and look down at his vast unrolled canvas on the floor. “Cut it here,” she said. And he listened.
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