Art Lessons

by Katherine Koller

  The next day it rained. The green came into the grass, but Louis was gone.

  The grass here is a variation of beige. The wind dries it out and no one waters it. My stunted windswept trees attract the attention of my teachers.

  Intriguing, they say, one by one. Hmm.

  They’re looking for a tendril of growth, a drop of moisture, a bit of grit. A pulse.

  The students are a mix of city and country kids, here to have fun.

  Hey everyone, we’re playing Twister in the lounge tonight!

  I turn my body and braced neck the other way, obviously excluded but pretending not to hear. They have even less interest in me than I have in them. After drawing and painting and sculpting all day, they want pizza parties, reruns of “Candid Camera” and loony board games.

  All I do at night is check my phone. All I want is Hey, Babe.

  I don’t care where the tears fall. I smudge them away. Or not. I let them buckle the paper for texture. Mom and Dad call every day. They go on about the boys’ basketball and track coaching gigs and Stella’s volunteer job at the animal shelter, but I only listen to the bits about Babci, still in the hospital. Weak. Sleeping a lot. Not eating. They don’t say so, but I figure it out. Babci and I, both captive, displaced, lost. I imagine her eyes. Her eyes are open, faded lights in a tunnel. I focus on that flat blue, searching for a flicker. I say nothing. I hang up when they talk about me. They’re also on the phone with Administration. Everyone expresses concern about me. Everyone except Jason.

  Two whole weeks have gone by and Jason has still not phoned. I know he’s out of the hospital because they said he left the next day. More and more, I don’t know what I would say to Jason if he did call. Not: how are you, since he doesn’t seem to care how I am. Not: do you miss me, because it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t. And not: I’m sorry, because what am I apologizing for? For him not calling? For him putting me in a neck brace? For getting me sent away? For ghosting me? For losing the will to draw? For being so lonely I can’t even dream?

  I chuck my baseball cap to the back of my closet.

  I think of Babci, she and I, both stuck. Will she ever be free of her hospital bed? Will I ever float again? Do I want to?

  I picture us out of the tunnel, facing a drape of fabric, the blankness of the page, the white of invisible woods. We hold hands. We wear fleece capes. We walk on top of the snow. It sparkles.

  The trees, encased in snow, are snow ghosts. Like on our family ski trip to Kelowna, the trees reveal no evergreen at all. Instead, they are crystallized with sticky, windblown layers of snow that imprison them. All that is left of the tree is its rudimentary shape; it is a ghost of what it once was.

  Yet my snow ghosts on paper look like creatures, people cloaked and hovering, animals hollowing inward. Frozen in the act of being.

  Babci, bending to pick up a pin.

  Louis, keeled over.

  Stella, on all fours, nose to the ground, teaching her new puppy.

  Me, reaching to the sky but missing, arching over.

  My instructor tacks them to the hallway gallery in a line at eye level on deep green cardstock.

  The third week in the camp cafeteria, watching my food get cold and letting a thin trail of tears slide into my soup, someone stops at my table. A guy in a black T-shirt brings me soft ice cream from the industrial stainless dispenser, loopy and filigreed into one of my snow ghosts, slightly leaning over the edge of the pink melamine bowl. He rubs a spoon on a paper napkin to shine it up and pokes it in the base of the ice cream tree, supporting it now so it stands straight. I don’t look at up his face, but I notice a red stubbly beard. He fills out his T-shirt like a farmer. There’s white writing on his shirt: Eat me. Then he’s gone, and from the back I see he’s solid, stocky, and walks like he’s at home in this place.

  I feel like Alice in Deadland, but I eat the ice cream as instructed. It melts a crust on my scabby heart. Now there’s an open wound.

  The next day, I need a balm. I serve my own ice cream in a discreet simple twist. The black T-shirt guy builds a dramatic triple-decker in diminishing proportions and eats it, across from me, without a word. Except for his shirt: Michelangelo rox. He’s older than the other students. For two more nights, he and I meet at the ice cream machine, addicts, and sit down in collusion, black T-shirts oblivious, silent, pure.

  The fifth day, ice cream boy wears a red shirt with a stick-on retro nametag lettered in red Sharpie: Hi, my name is Matt.

  I wonder why I never see him in class. Maybe he works in the kitchen. He doesn’t talk to anybody else. His next T-shirt is back to black, with a fresh photo transfer of the white marble David. So that’s his deal. I should have known by his ice cream creations. I didn’t sign up for sculpture.

  Check out the studio?

  I can’t nod my head with my neck brace, but I pick up my sketchbook and follow him to Sculpting. He turns on a battered CD player. It’s Bach. Strings. There’s clarity in it. It stimulates me, finds feeling in my arms, shoulders, neck, where it was numb.

  I slide down the wall, sink to the floor and draw the sculptures in progress around me, simplifying three dimensions to two. The white plasters become organic shapes on my page, like clouds or dandelion puffs, airborne. I feel the contour of the sculptures with my pencil, as if there’s no distance between the plaster model and me. My hand is on the shape, yet the pencil is on the paper. I’m floating again. I’m so grateful.

  The next day, Matt clears off a drafting table, tilts it almost vertical for my arm and eye and finds me a chair. He supports my back with his hoodie folded up into a cushion. Then he sands his plaster. He sands, then feels with his hand, smoothing, touching, feeling the bite of the sandpaper into plaster. It’s white, like our vanilla ice cream without the shine. He’s sculpting a head. It takes me a while to recognize that it’s mine.

  We don’t talk much, but I follow Matt to the sculpting studio each night after supper. Sometimes, random shudders shake out of me. My shoulders ease a little. And then more. After a week, I shove the neck brace in the corner of my closet. I’m breathing deeper, like Matt, who gets a full-body workout every night chiselling and scraping and sanding. That’s after he works the early morning stocking grocery shelves, and sculpting class all day. No wonder he eats so much.

  We adjust the drafting table for standing height. It feels good to stand after sitting in class and in studio all day. It feels good to get closer to the paper, put more pressure into my markings.

  I check out the Bach CDs on my way out one night, and the next day Matt gives me a freshly burned personalized one to keep.

  I draw Matt sculpting. I make him a little more ripped than he really is. I ignore the little beer belly, but I keep the thick neck, hair long to protect against the prairie sun. I emphasize his powerful forearms, his broad hands. I make his beard a little trimmer. Then I write in some hidden messages in my pencil markings. Cool, in his shirt pocket. Hot, in his jeans. I title it, too: Matt-er. He makes me sign it and decides it’s ideal for a T-shirt photo transfer. I make a cardstock frame, the colour of his eyes, a little darker than Babci’s, wishing he could find a T-shirt in that spruce blue. He puts my sketch up in the window by his workstation, which seems to be his and only his. Later I find out he’s the administrator’s nephew. His parents want him to take over the family grain farm.

  I probably will.

  What about art school?

  Can’t afford it.

  What about scholarships?

  I’m a self-taught kind of guy. Besides, I have to be here seeding and harvest. There’s no one else to do it. I’m planted here. But I can make the rock move.

  I think of Freddy in Europe, the art cards he’s sent me, and silently vow to send sculpture photos, exhibition catalogues, books, anything to keep Matt sculpting out on a farm.

  Winters are long here, Matt says. Lots of time fo
r sculpture. And I need to eat.

  In the late July heat wave, I eat salads, but they’re as wilted as I am. Matt confines himself to the fried food selections. We try to outdo each other at the ice cream machine. His grow taller, architectural and turreted. Mine remain bonsai.

  I put on the weight I lost, I say.

  Your jeans fit better.

  It’s all this ice cream.

  Matt licks his spoon. I want to do you nude.

  I laugh. It’s the first time I’ve opened my mouth wide all summer. I laugh loud and long, and everyone in the cafeteria is entertained, giggling. I’m suddenly hilarious. I catch my tears on the back of my hand and whisper to Matt.

  Why not?

  We lock the studio and make sure the windows are completely covered.

  If you jump me, I’ll stick you with a sharp pencil.

  He pretends he doesn’t hear as I come out of the corner workstation with my sketchbook open lengthwise, its spine hugged in line with my waist, shielding all but my limbs. I didn’t think to bring my bathrobe.

  I have to ask. Have you ever done a nude before?

  Sure.

  When?

  Last summer. There was a girl. Like you. But she was chunky.

  Matt!

  Static. She was static.

  My feet are bare and the studio floor is gritty. I slide one leg against the back of the other, feeling the softness where I’ve shaved. I’ve creamed my skin, too.

  So how long does it take?

  About three weeks.

  Three weeks! How am I going to get my portfolio done?

  I want you drawing.

  Where do I sit?

  You stand at the drawing table. I want you from the right side to start. Put your sketchbook down.

  I forgot my pencil.

  Here’s one.

  That’s not mine.

  Your pencil is part of your hand.

  My pencil is in my bag and I’m not bending over to get it.

  I’ll get it.

  Get the eraser, too. It’s white.

  Get comfortable. I don’t want a pose.

  Can’t you start with the clothed body and do the head?

  Already did the head.

  Can I put my jeans on? Can you do the top half first?

  I need to work with the whole form.

  I need a drink.

  Water. He goes out to the hall. I could run right now, but the tiny muscles of my feet push against the floor to feel my full height. Clunk. The vending machine drops the prize, and my legs settle into my drawing posture, but my sketchbook is still in front of me. Matt comes back in the door, locks it again and twists open the bottle, cold, slippery with condensation.

  Anything else?

  You can’t touch.

  I stay behind the line, he says. Putting his back to me, he comes near and uses his foot to draw a semicircle in the plaster dust on the black floor a leg length away from me.

  Does that work for you?

  I can’t work if you talk to me.

  I can’t either.

  I want the cello prelude in D.

  I was thinking of something slower.

  I want the volume up. Way up.

  What about the fan?

  No.

  It’s sweltering.

  Not when you’re wearing a sketchbook.

  Just put it down and draw, he says.

  I take my time. If we’re doing this, it’s when I’m ready and only then, like Auntie Magda said. This is not like being eleven, being stopped by Mr. Buddy, the creepy elementary school janitor who tried to make every girl stand straighter against the wall to display her developing breasts. This is Matt, already an artist, committed to the plaster block in front of him just as I am to my big, blank page.

  Matt turns the music down. He’s talking, quiet, and slow.

  You’re a deer in the woods, he says. Eating leaves. They’re new green, still unfurling. They’re irresistible. You don’t see me.

  But you’re going to shoot me.

  I’m only a photographer. It’s early morning, misty. I’ve been waiting. I’m doing a photo essay on deer.

  For who?

  Bach.

  Why?

  Because ...deer are full of grace. I bet he was looking at deer when he wrote this. You can hear them. Grazing, but alert. Soft eyes, but solid bodies, springing the world into motion, into grace, with every gesture, every move. He turns the music up again.

  And I put down my book and draw. I don’t look at him. I make him repeat the deer talk every night, and every night I draw the woods the deer knows. My deer is not lost in the woods. She remembers each tree, rock, grass clearing, stream.

  The heat gets worse with the windows sealed tight, and I let him turn on the fan. I feel every floating particle of air, every hair on my arm, every drop of sweat on the back of my neck, under the loose braid of hair, the only part of my costume. I’m excited by my own nakedness, by being shaped into an unknown form by Matt. As he sands his plaster, his hands are nowhere near me, but the air is smoothing, caressing the length of me. My nipples bud in the breezy warmth.

  Like the deer, I’m alert to Matt’s eyes, but I don’t meet them. I’m not interested in him, unless I need to defend myself, but I enjoy the fluid sensations inside and outside me, my stomach digesting, my own wetness, sweat beads trickling down to my waist. On my neck, a fly perches and I blow it away without moving my head. It lands back on my arm and I let it follow the path to my inside wrist. I let myself feel everything, as if I’m the only one in the woods. I keep my pencil moving, and my markings become freer yet sure. I breathe to the music.

  My trees become taller, fuller, less raggedy. They have delicate, individual leaves. The leaves grow in proportion and number, to feed my deer. An expanding canopy of branches and foliage fills the paper. Each shape reveals another.

  I don’t look at the rough plaster column, either. I stay with my trees while Matt makes dust with his tools and his steady strokes. When the music stops, the sound of his hand sanding, sanding, sanding blends with the motion of the fan. At the end of each session, he coughs and wipes and drapes the sculpture with a damp drop sheet.

  It’s about a quarter of my size, but its mass is startling.

  One night, after pulling on my bathrobe, I ask, does it have a title?

  No answer. I always feel ripped off when pieces don’t have a title.

  Or, I say, is this Nude Two?

  Nude Two.

  On my birthday, Mom and Dad call. We talk longer than usual. It’s been a long summer for all of us. They ask what I want for my birthday present.

  Would it be okay to move down to the basement room?

  Are you sure? The light’s not as good down there, says Mom.

  We can amp it up, says Dad. It will give you more space to spread out your work.

  We all want to get back to some kind of normal. But I want more privacy, distance. Solitude. I’ve gotten used to it here. Even my nightly sessions with Matt are on another, uninhabited plane.

  A week later, after I’m dressed, Matt pops a mini-champagne that his boss, who’s in AA, slipped to him in the caddy cart at a weekend golf tournament. The boss also won a bird carving by Matt, which he kept for his wife.

  Matt pulls away the dropsheet and we drink, from clear plastic cups, to Nude Two. She doesn’t look a lot like me, or anybody. Yet her form is female. Her hip, a shoulder, a breast and one arm. I make out the braid, but she’s faceless, all smooth muscle, fired and working, culminating in the tip of the pencil in her single hand.

  How was Nude One like me?

  She was sad.

  Did she get happier?

  That was Bach.

  You’re going to be great, Matt.

  Bach is great
.

  So are you.

  I hug him, my head nuzzled to his heart. He’s surprised, but he moves his hand up my back, under my shirt. I let him feel my arms, my neck, and beneath my unbraided hair. To measure. To remember. To compare to Nude Three.

  Then I take his hands in mine. He wants to kiss me. He’s murmuring his way down my face.

  Don’t you want to? I’ve been waiting for this.

  But that’s not why I held him and imprinted my belly with his cowboy belt buckle. I need to tell him, because I’ll never see him again. I step back.

  You melted away my frozen layers so I could find what I need. I’ll never forget.

  Neither will I.

  You will. When you find Nude Three. And she’s going to be right for you.

  I let go of his hands, and we sip our bubbly like it’s 7-Up. I hold my glass up to him.

  To you.

  To deer.

  To her.

  To you.

  I get his address, slide it in my back jeans pocket and then kiss him on the cheek, goodbye, Matt. Then I kiss Nude Two, on top of her intent little head. I recognize the tilt of it.

  She’s alive, I say.

  But I’m thinking of Babci.

  Matt watches me gather. I move like a deer in the rainy woods, softly yet sure-footed.

  My water.

  My sketchbook.

  My robe.

  My pencils.

  My eraser.

  My key.

  I go to my room to pack. The show is tomorrow. Charlie and Tom are coming with Mom and Dad and Stella and Auntie Magda and then I’m going home.

  Heartwood

  I’m drawing her hands.

  Hands sewing invisible stitches to hem a dress.

  Steadily cutting fabric with heavy shears rocking on the dining room table. Kneading delicate stretchy dough for pyrogi.

  Quick sketches. Lots of restarting. I’m searching for a pose that can say what I feel. And, I need figure drawings for my portfolio. I’ve got lots of trees: apple boughs, the dancer tree, the grandmother spruce, the lemon tree, the exposed roots, the cemetery sentinels, the snow ghosts. But I also need portraits of people. I wish I had the basketball dudes. I’ve got Stella and her bugs, an easy subject because she sits still easily, and that one of Babci’s face, but now I want a series of her hands.