Thursday, July 11, 2013

Inspiration

A task set for a June 2013 Leeds Savage Writers meet I did not make .

The bastard motivation of passion and obsession drove Stewart to his canvases.  The early morning had begun to leach a grey dullness from the chill summer night.  A thick palette board he’d left on the chair a few hours ago was taunting him with its gelled pigments smeared and globbed in vibrant discord.   Stained rags lay matted and stiff around the base of the easel and around the studio where they had been dropped onto the colour encrusted floorboards days, weeks and years ago.  The room was a complete chaos encasing another astounding work of focus, depth and clarity on canvas.  Similar pristine images shone from countless abandoned and partially complete canvases laid angularly against the walls, the furniture and nestling on the  piled detritus of the room.
What he called the studio was a front room upstairs, usually the main bedroom.  It was in one of the damp stone terraces crammed into the bleak back streets of Ayreshire, three down from a derelict pub and a bleak co-op.  It was the only room in the socially funded house that glimpsed the southern sky and could steal any benefit from daylight.  It had been Stewart’s retreat and sanctuary for 20 years.  Two decades of chasing perfection in his style of almost transparent oil painting. His works had developed over this time and become fantastical creations of layer upon layer of disparate images all interlinked and visible through each other.  Each layer held a story with related meaning and subtext to the greater story told by the finished work.  Painted transparent images laid one over each other like each were on a gossamer film.  Stewart knew he had developed an exquisite and deceptive technique that took the eye to depths of perspective and wonder.  He knew he had broken new ground, he knew he was doing something the art world would eventually recognise. This canvas, the one he’d titled ‘Inspiration’ was one of four in a series but he knew it would be this one that was going to make his name.
The Scottish Academy submission dates were three days away from closing and this work was complete, along with three lesser but related works.  Stewart cleared a space to prop them.  Working without the uncertainty of previous years he placed one beside the other and finally took the final piece off the easel to take it’s position next to the triptych.  The display was stunning, pleasing, fulfilling, a justification of dedication and a clear reflection of the faith and support Jillie had given him.  The four works were also an acknowledgement to the facility that Glenn had invested in him by providing a stipend, a goal and a contract for publication of his work in limited edition.
One never knows if an artist will become popular but Glenn had a better eye than most dealers when it came to commercialism of contemporary art.  He had a strong gut feel that Stewart’s unique style would tap a niche of collectors to be milked.  There was no way he could have known that six weeks after signing Stewart to his company that the Scottish Academy would award ‘Inspiration’ its highest praise and award.  There was no possible indication that from that endorsement the Savoy in London would offer Stewart the chance to be Artist in Residence for 2013.    Until 2012 The Savoy had not had an artist in residence since Claude Monet so the appointment of Stewart, a little known, no, an unknown Scottish painter had set the art critics into a spin.  Estelle Lovatt on the BBC  has been quoted to say Stewart was the one new artist for speculators to invest in for now and for the aesthetics of the future to marvel and comment on. 
Stewart had always known.

ITS A SECRET


Leeds Savage Writing task 10/7/13  ‘Secret’.  Each attendee was asked to write a real or fictional secret and swap it for someone else's secret.  I got the following one.
‘I am the only person in the world (as far as I know) who knows that another person is not as happy as they appear.  In fact they are very unhappy.  Telling anyone would hurt many.  So I keep it to myself and offer counsel.’
So my story went;
ITS A SECRET
‘I am the only person in the world (as far as I know) who knows that another person is not as happy as they appear.  In fact they are very unhappy.  Telling anyone would hurt many.  So I keep it to myself and offer counsel.’
Vicky cut and pasted it to a word document, saved it to her desktop and grouped it with her selection from the raft of ‘Dear Dorothy’ letters and emails.  The magazine sucked out hundreds of notes to Dorothy from the angry, defeated, forlorn, lonely and heart-smashed members of its reader base.  Every week from now on a flood of painful confessions, ignorant questions, life-worn vitriol, adolescent whining and general moaning was going to land in Vicky’s inbox. Being Dorothy for one day a fortnight was just part of her loosely described journalist’s job.  She had to select five bits of correspondence that she thought would make fuel for interesting replies.
 The last Dorothy, her predecessor, Steve, a bald, fat 40-something Glaswegian used to carp on endlessly to her about the archaic tradition of magazine agony aunt columns.  Unlike Vicky who was on the celebrity watch team, he was the magazine’s sports reporter.  His Dorothy responses were in thinly veiled condescension or gave incongruous advice bordering on the incredulous.  The Dorothy column was becoming a parody under his hand.  Vicky couldn’t stand to think people might actually take Dear Dorothy’s advice and she had eventually summoned the courage to suggest that Phil have a word to Steve about CitiLife magazine’s long tradition of the Dear Dorothy column and the depth of its reader loyalty and trust.
Phil had smiled patronisingly at her saying Steve was the only schmuck he could get to write the shit and unless she wanted to take it from him she’d best shut the fuck up and get back to digging up celebrity gossip. 
That was a month ago, two issues of bile drenched Dorothy advices to the love-struck and life-wary readers of Citilife magazine.  Then, last Monday, Steve simply stopped coming to work, no phone call no letter of resignation, he just didn’t come in.  Phil had tried to contact him but no one knew where he’d gone.  Anyway that’s a police matter now, as far as Vicky knew Steve could have fallen in a canal or been shot by an enraged reader.  She didn’t much care, the Dorothy role had immediately fallen to her with Phil’s blessing of ‘Congratulations Dorothy, don’t let it distract you from your real job here.’    
And Vicky had taken to the fortnightly task with her usual commitment.  New Dorothy intended to become once again a voice of reason and comfort.  It was proving a good balance for Vicky, to escape the vapid world of celebrity and sit for a few hours with the thoughts and fears of real people with real problems.  Although this one was tempting her to do a ‘Dear Steve’-style reply.
For shit sake, who in this world thinks they have the sole right to solve global happiness?  Or.  What sort of person thinks they are responsible for judging the sincerity of happiness.  And.  Who the fuck said it was wrong for someone to project a happy demeanour?  Then again, Vicky considered, was this letter a diagnosis of self-depression?  Was it a deluded pre-suicide note?  Bugger it. Five muniutes. She had been thinking about this bloody letter for too long already. Pulling off her ‘Steve’ hat and slipping into ‘Dorothy’ she started to draft a response.
Dearest  Secret,
I know you are wanting to do the right thing. However, in this modern and fast paced world people develop their own methods to cope with life’s demands.  Projecting a pleasant persona is an effective and practical protection of self.  There is a benefit to acting happy in as much as it is a preferable state in society and one can achieve much with a pleasant demeanour.   There is also the happiness theory that you can make it if you fake it.  Every one of us faces challenges that others could see as either inconsequential or insurmountable.  We all have our own perspective.  I am sure the person you are offering counsel to values your relationship and I can only presume from your note that they have actually confessed their unhappiness to you.  People do rise and fall in contentment at times in their life due to events or bio-chemical changes.  You do sound like a caring person and if you do have the person’s confidence I suggest you keep your counsel, do not discuss this person’s emotive state with others and direct the person to seek professional advisors.  It does not fall to you to resolve the happiness of others.  You can be happy in yourself and you can care for others but we are each responsible for our own wellspring of contentment and the actions we need to drive our happiness must come from within.
Vicky was satisfied this was a pertinent Dorothy-like response, formatted it for edit and sent it through to publication.
The day before the print run Phil did his edit and published the following;
Dearest Secret,
I can only presume from your note that the person to whom you refer has actually confessed their unhappiness to you.  If not, then butt out.  I can tell you, people are more perceptive than you give them credit for, fake happiness sticks out like the proverbial. .  Have you not considered everyone pretends to be happier than they are?   It does not fall to you to resolve the happiness of others.  I agree with you on one thing you say, you shouldn’t discuss this person’s happiness with others and if you are intent on doing anything, you may suggest to the person they should seek professional help. Be prepared though, they may be told to stop talking to you.
Citi Life hits the streets every Monday, Vicky receives her copy via email 3 hours before the print run. 
Vicky didn’t go to work on Monday, when the police gained access later that week her phone was found on her bedside table.