Wildflowers
2019-2020
by: Michaela Burton
T
he studio was always freezing early in the morning. The hard wooden floor chilled my feet through my wool socks, making me shudder as I shuffled to the thermostat and quickly turned it up to a durable setting. Knowing it would take a while yet for the studio to warm up, I set off to make myself a pot of coffee. My hands moved sluggishly as I poured the ground up beans into the filter, watching the white paper disappear under a dark pile of caffeinated blessings. As the studio warmed up and the coffee brewed, I looked around the large room and held back a disappointed sigh. Strewn about every nook and cranny of the place were mediocre
the gray, numerous birds. I didn’t object, or really care as to why he was buying it. I was just happy to have made something that someone thought was worth a few bucks. Now, a year later, and no further paintings sold, the studio was becoming crowded with my failure. I had to wade through an ocean of city skylines and shove aside mountainous paintings of abstract geometric shapes to find a fresh, blank canvas. It seemed to mock me as I placed it on the easel, saying, What kind of useless crap are you going to paint today? I grimaced and turned away to get my coffee, hoping that the caffeine would help lift my spirits. When I returned, sipping on the dark, hot drink, I began to scan the
paintings, some so ‘meh’ that they were barely fit to hang on the walls of cheap cafes. It had been nearly a full year since I sold my last piece. Even that one had been only moderately better than my usual work though. It was a photorealistic depiction of the pigeons that liked to roost on my balcony, a dozen of them perched on the iron railing as the morning sun rose up behind them, catching the blues and greens hidden amongst their chalky feathers. The man that bought it said it was a gift for his young son, who was for some reason obsessed with
studio for some kind of inspiration. I had already painted almost everything inside the place. My piece of the bathroom toilet had been particularly inspired, I thought. The porcelain really captured the light in a special way. You can only paint a toilet once before having to turn in your artistic badge though. As I was contemplating doing yet another Jackson Pollock mimicry, there was a loud knock on the door. The harsh rapping echoed through the studio, startling the pigeons nesting outside, causing them to take off in a tornado of ashy feathers.
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