On Divorce Audrey Adams

Portrait with Imaginary Brother, Willem De Kooning, 1938

Dear Ben,

Our project haunts me.

Our collaboration paralleled that of George and Martha in the film ‘Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf’. The U house felt like their imaginary child.

George and Martha turned their bitterness into a source of diversion.

We were inevitably exposed to the failure of our week three project. I remember constantly expressing that: “I hate this project, I never want to see it again.”

But this became the point of our enquiry after our initial presentation. Similar to when George pushes Martha to hysteria in the final act by exclaiming their son is dead, I was no longer able to cling to the fabrication of having created a successful project.

Perhaps you could draw a connection between this feeling of exhaustion and that of Michael receiving yet another box of his late brother’s belongings. He is constantly pointing to the thing that is lost, yet that also does not exist for us as students, a phantom brother.

As I reflect, our original project exhibits a sense of failure, uncovering … regret. I can fain blissful ignorance, but you would catch me lying in the final act.

Through our confessions we were finally content. We closed the cabinet on the project and rebuilt our failure. Like George, you pushed me to confront the ‘lie’ that was so integral to my identity and the studio.

See here Ben, it was worth it, for this moment here …

And with that, I am divorcing you, Ben Bartlett.