Portrait of An Artist At The End of Her Rope
Jackie contemplated the paper in front of them. Victoria stared through the edges of her shaggy hair, seemingly trying to grasp the meaning of the expanse of canvas.
"I ..don't know what to put there," She finally admitted.
Jackie smiled, "What do you feel?"
"All..squirmy."
"Nervous," Jackie noticed aloud. "Well, maybe this can be a drawing for your papa. Maybe, you could draw whatever you think of when you think of your papa."
Victoria hesitated for a moment. Nervously swallowing, she tentatively dipped her paintbrush in a pool of red pigment and began to draw.
It was the way Jackie always began her lessons; by letting budding artists develop a taste for their own style. Her techniques could be applied, to mold the girl later. For the moment, she focused on the still life that sat arranged on a small table in the distance. She sketched out the round form of bowl, pear and scarf before highlighting with shadows.
An hour later, the kitchen timer rang. Jackie abandoned her work, wiping the charcoal she had used for shadowing on her apron, leaving smudges. She tapped Victoria on her shoulder, and the girl started.
"You have the true concentration of an artist," She said admiringly, "But our session is almost up. Your Papa should be here for you soon." Victoria sighed regretfully. "Come, I'll teach you how to clean your paintbrushes. But you must be very careful." She said, kneeling to untie Victoria's apron.
"I know how to clean up," Victoria said. "You use water and.."
"Not with paint that isn't water-based," Jackie explained, lugging out a can of paint thinner and pouring a puddle into a tin can that was about a quarter of an inch thick. "You see, you dip your brush into this can and swirl it, sort of like with watercolors. Then you take the brush out of the can and blot it," Jackie demonstrated with the red paintbrush on a rag on it's way to the garbage.
Victoria smiled, adding that knowledge to what she had learned this day, "Will I get to finish my painting next week?"
"Oh yes, and maybe I'll help you a bit more." Jackie smiled to the girl. "Now, come to the sink and wash your hands." She set the girl on a stepladder and handed her a cake of soap. By the time her hands were spotlessly clean, a fist pounded at her door, and she answered, raking her thick hair back.
Mister Manna rushed past her, "Did the lesson go as planned?"
"Why yes, your daughter's a natural.."
"Fine, fine, fine," Mister Manna replied, scooping Victoria up in mid-stride, "Same time next week. Thank you for your troubles." He turned and exited Jackie's apartment, even as she began to praise Victoria and her young abilities.
Jackie heaved a sigh for the poor girl. He seemed concerned enough a parent. But there was something distant about the man that she couldn't pick up on or penetrate yet.
She tucked away Victoria's paints and brushes, pouring the thinner away to be safely disposed of. It was then that her eyes trained on Victoria's work. Her hands went lip, and her apron drifted to the floor, feather-like.
The girl's work was not a parade of daisies, or a dog, or a kitten; nothing childlike was reflected in the bold red image Jackie saw before her.
Victoria had drawn a heart, but not a cute cartoon heart, literally, the shape of a real heart with veins and tubes, being split into two. A robin pecked at a ventricle, seeming maliciously intent on eating away at the pulpy red mass. And all of it in a deviltrious red.
Horror warred with admiration and respect. Either this young one was a future superstar of the minimalist set, or this relationship to her father relationship was truly conflicted.
Either way, she wanted to continue on with this young one.