Blood Water Paint

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Blood Water Paint Page 2

by Joy McCullough


  your story.

  9.

  Linseed oil?

  Adds gloss and transparency to paints.

  Drawbacks?

  Can yellow and become brittle with age.

  Father’s boots clomp

  across the floor

  like elephants in

  our attic studio.

  Each time he barrels past

  I brace the table

  where I grind our pigments,

  prevent them from tumbling

  to the ground.

  Alternatives?

  Poppyseed oil or safflower oil.

  I don’t know how many times

  I have to demonstrate

  my superior

  grasp of our trade.

  (Except I do: as many times as Father asks.)

  I turn my head

  from sour breath

  as he looms over

  my shoulder

  to peer into my mortar

  at the pulverized vermilion.

  Grind that finer.

  Turpentine comes from . . . ?

  I throw my shoulder into it,

  more pressure than I need,

  but the harsh scrape

  of marble on marble

  relieves an itch

  I can’t otherwise reach.

  Turpentine, Artemisia!

  I exhale too hard.

  A bloodred cloud

  of ground vermilion

  balloons into the air.

  Comes from—

  I sneeze

  —pine tree resin.

  But we use . . . ?

  Venice turpentine.

  From the—

  —larch tree.

  I do not wait

  for him to ask

  what’s next.

  The sooner this is over

  the sooner I can return

  my eyes (my heart)

  to the canvas.

  Because it adds

  to the stability

  of the paint surface

  and yellows very little.

  He glares.

  Not because I’ve left something out.

  Because I haven’t.

  10.

  The fumes

  from Tuzia’s onions

  meet me on the stairs

  as I descend, their tendrils

  dancing into my senses,

  catching hold and dragging me down

  to whatever task

  awaits.

  The moment I step foot

  inside the kitchen,

  Tuzia plunks down

  a bowl, skitters a knife

  across the block of wood between us.

  Chop.

  I do not know the difference

  between chop

  slice

  dice.

  I do not care to know

  but take some pleasure

  in the blade I wield.

  The onions needle

  at my eyes, my nerves,

  no matter how many layers peeled back,

  the same relentless stinging.

  (No matter how skillful my painting,

  Father’s incessant nagging.)

  Somehow even more meddlesome:

  my brothers darting

  constantly through.

  Serves Giulio right

  when he burns his tongue

  on a ladleful

  of boiling stew

  (but I’m the one

  who cleans the mess

  that splatters to the tile).

  What they’ve been doing

  all day long

  I couldn’t say.

  They have no aptitude

  for painting, but still

  they could be taught

  the business.

  Father says

  they do not have

  the head for numbers

  charm for clients

  patience

  cunning

  fortitude.

  Here’s what they do have:

  freedom.

  11.

  Once upon a time

  I was a child,

  not the woman

  of the house.

  Not so long ago

  but long enough

  the days of tugging

  on my mother’s skirts

  in hopes of being lifted up

  at every whim

  are hazy round the edges,

  like a shadow bleeding

  into light.

  It’s hazy how,

  her belly round

  with brothers,

  Mother still made room

  for me to crawl

  up on her lap

  to hear a story

  no one else would tell.

  How she’d look down

  and ask me what I thought

  of Father’s paintings,

  listen to my answer.

  It’s hazy how

  she made my father

  laugh.

  How when I’d startle

  in the night she’d soothe me

  with a tune

  to chase away

  the monsters.

  It’s hazy how

  her last few weeks,

  confined to bed,

  the child inside

  a greater weight

  than those who came before,

  and even when the child arrived

  a sister, finally, cold and blue,

  and fever dreams bled

  into pain laced with delirium,

  Prudentia Montone spent

  the last of her strength

  to burn into my mind

  the tales of women

  no one else would

  think to tell.

  Those stories

  of a righteous woman,

  her virtue questioned

  through no fault of her own;

  of a widow

  with nothing left to lose . . .

  No way to tell

  where shadow ends

  and light begins

  but Mother was always

  the light.

  12.

  Light dances on the child’s curls

  and whether Father sees

  or not

  the bond between the baby

  and his mother is

  perfection.

  Twelve years

  with my mother

  were not enough

  but I know how to paint the love,

  the source of light.

  The final touches that remain

  would go unnoticed to an unskilled eye.

  In truth, I could release her now.

  A signature the final touch,

  Orazio Gentileschi,

  (never Artemisia)

  the client would be satisfied,

  and none would be the wiser.

  But I would know

  her arm is

  not quite right.

  It wraps around the baby,

  yet still looks flat.

  Father babbled out

  some useless nonsense

  when I tried to ask him

  how to fix the problem.

  I don’t think

  he understood

  my question.

  If he cannot see

  the problem to begin with,

  how could he ever solve it?

  It’s only a commission,
r />   doesn’t even bear my name.

  But I’m not only painting the Madonna.

  I’m building a ladder,

  each new technique,

  a rung.

  13.

  Every time my father shoos me

  down the stairs

  away from my studio,

  each time he speaks to buyers

  as though I am not there,

  each time they leer at me

  as I descend in seething fury,

  my mother’s stories

  stoke the flames inside.

  We mostly deal in Bible tales,

  some portraits, ancient histories, myths.

  But all the maestros

  sign their names

  to David, Adam, Moses.

  Those who follow strive

  to leave their mark as well.

  I can paint a David—king or upstart boy,

  but when I do

  there’s nothing of me

  on the canvas.

  Susanna, though, is different.

  My mother never held a brush

  but still composed

  the boldest images

  from the brightest colors

  drawing the eye—the mind—

  to what mattered most:

  the young woman

  stealing a moment

  of peace to wash

  away the day

  then her world,

  stained beyond repair.

  Susanna and the Elders.

  Father’s made attempts at Susanna,

  just like the other painters—men—

  who think they have the right

  to tell the story of a woman

  always watched.

  But one can’t truly tell a story

  unless they’ve lived it in their heart.

  The longer I’m shuffled

  in and out of the studio,

  used for what I can offer,

  not what I long to share,

  the more certain I am

  I can do Susanna justice.

  I can do my mother justice.

  I can have justice.

  But I’m holding back

  until I think

  perhaps

  my skills

  can match

  my heart.

  14.

  My arm cradles my palette,

  rounded, three-dimensional.

  I paint alla prima in my mind

  exactly how it should look.

  Why then can I not transpose

  the image in my mind

  the image of my flesh

  onto the canvas?

  I stare at the Madonna’s

  flat, flat arm so long

  my eyes begin to blur.

  I do not notice

  the creak of stairs

  moan of door

  steps that cross

  the studio.

  Or perhaps he does not enter

  like a mortal man

  but appears

  fully formed

  a miraculous apparition.

  Then:

  a breath

  upon my cheek.

  Not Father’s breath.

  I grope for hiked-up skirts,

  fling endless, heavy layers

  of propriety

  toward my ankles.

  I am a model Roman girl

  (or I can play the part at least).

  The man averts his eyes,

  steps back to give me space,

  as though he doesn’t realize

  his mere presence in this room

  drives out all air.

  He may as well

  be pressed against me.

  He did not mean to startle—

  that much is clear.

  And even now as I

  recover

  steady my breath

  check my skirts once more

  his eyes are not on me

  but on the canvas.

  My name is Agostino Tassi.

  And you are Artemisia.

  PART II

  Surrounded

  Forget what you know of the woman in the garden, my darling girl. The woman bathing until two elders of her community happen upon her. Forget the way you’ve heard the story in the scriptures, or seen it on your father’s canvas.

  Listen, instead, to your mother. Listen when I tell you that Susanna did not ask to be given to a wealthy man before her elder sister was married. She did not ask for the beauty that attracted him. She did not ask for gold and jewels. To you these might seem like unimaginable luxuries. But beauty is a heavy crown.

  So is womanhood.

  A servant kneeling at her feet, caressing them with oil, cannot massage away Susanna’s guilt. Those comforts cannot shield her from her sister’s bitterness.

  (I so hope this growing seed I bear will be a sister for you. Sisters share a bond unlike any other—thornier, but also tender, full of possibility.)

  I do not mean to say Susanna’s life is all a trial. She does not toil for her bread. Her husband does not strike her, and while a man should aim higher than that, Joaquim is truly a good man. Susanna loves him—she thinks. As much as any woman barely into womanhood can love the man who married her so long as she brought herds of goats and storehouses of grain to their union.

  There are also the servants. It might seem odd to complain about those who bear the weight of a household. My back aches not only from the weight of the child I bear, but from all I must carry as a woman.

  But Susanna is surrounded. Her ladies-in-waiting hang on every word, every breath, and her patience wears thin.

  Even as she prepares to bathe, they are there. Watching, waiting. The walled garden is not so private with four other people testing the water, fussing over her robe, setting loose her hair.

  Susanna has lived in her husband’s home for months now. She has been patient. But there are many parts of her life in which she has no say, and this is one small hill on which she might take a stand. She decides that even if she causes offense, it will be worth the momentary peace she’ll gain.

  (If you remember nothing else of Susanna, remember how she speaks her truth. She knows it will cost her something. She’s not aware yet quite how steep the cost will be, but still, she speaks her truth.)

  She shrugs off the lady trying to remove her robe and says to her attendants, “I’d like to be alone, if you don’t mind.”

  They mind. They will not say so, but their eyes betray a shock as deep as if she’d slit a throat before them.

  From the corner, Susanna’s sister huffs. “They’re your servants,” she sneers. “They’re meant to be on hand if you need anything.”

  They are not precisely servants, though. If they were, Susanna could bid them come and go as she pleased. No, these are ladies of a certain station, always groveling, hoping their proximity to a woman like Susanna will help them ascend.

  They’re not to be faulted for it, either. They simply wish to survive.

  Susanna understands this. But still, she stands her ground. “Thank you, Rebecca, ladies. But I’m more than capable of bathing myself.”

  The women go, horrified, muttering among themselves as they file into the house.

  Rebecca stays, imagining herself in a different category from the women Susanna just dismissed. And she is. But that doesn’t mean Susanna wants her there, peering across the garden wall at the village beyond the olive grove.

  “You should take more advantage of your station,” Rebecca says. “When I have my own rich husband . . .”

  And there it is, the root of all the tension since Susanna married J
oaquim: it should have been Rebecca.

  There is no satisfactory way for Susanna to respond. She’ll only be stepping into Rebecca’s trap. She decides she can bear Rebecca’s presence, but she will not lower herself to argue.

  Instead, she lowers herself to the flat, black rock by the shimmering water and dips her hand in. The temperature is perfect. From here, she can no longer see over the garden wall. No other world exists.

  Except Rebecca is still there.

  “You’re so ungrateful,” she persists. “Everything is always handed to beautiful, righteous Susanna. Imagine if you were living at home at my age. Then you’d see!”

  Susanna has compassion for her sister, but they have had this conversation one too many times.

  “I see I’ll never be at peace unless I’m completely alone. You may go, too.”

  The hurt that flashes across Rebecca’s face is real. But it’s also a performance—for Susanna, for the ladies watching from the window, for Rebecca herself. She’s always aware of the audience. (So is Susanna—the difference is, Susanna would rather not have an audience.)

  “Are you dismissing your own sister like a common servant?” Rebecca doesn’t wait for a response. She stalks toward the door, performing the dramatic exit she craved. She’ll be happier there anyway, where she can play lady of the house and contemplate new reasons to complain.

  But for now, my darling, Susanna bathes alone.

  15.

  My studio

  has always been

  the place I am

  hands and heart,

  eyes and mind.

  Nothing else.

  But now,

  a stranger in my studio,

  a man,

  and I am more aware

  of every inch of skin

  than inch of canvas.

  He doesn’t look at me

  but at my work,

  my heart outside my body.

  That look,

  it’s what I long for, fight for—

  an audience,

  and not just eyes,

  but a mind that understands

  the skill required—

  and yet somehow

  a surge of envy

  grips my soul.

  Envy! Of the Holy Mother!

  Rendered by my own brush!

  Surely I commit several damnable

  sins even as I stand here, immobile.

  He shifts his weight.

  The moment he’s poised

  to turn his gaze on me,

  my most fervent wish

  is that he’ll never stop

  examining the Mother and Child

  because I am not prepared

  for what’s to come.

  My neck has flushed, I feel it;

  that color travels down

 

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