In the apartment above the little clothing shop that had fallen by the wayside of time, an old woman with glasses circled amidst her many projects. Her rooms were large, yet they were cramped and almost manic in nostalgia. The place was filled with every kind of concept paper. Ideas sketched in crumpled notebooks and relics of past triumphs she could no longer discern in anything but the very best of lighting.
Lizzie Fritzinger, always aloof yet plagued by chronic pain of all sorts, did not consider herself a conventional woman. Among all the people in her town, she felt close to almost no one. There was just her childhood friend, Meyer Wilke—a practical joker and one so attuned to the measures of Lizzie’s own personality that they’d had the rarest of the rare: a lifelong best friendship.
Now, as she scuttled about amongst her many things, she could not stop herself from hoping that Meyer would come. She removed her glasses and fingered them nervously with a soaked paper towel. Then she left them on the table.
Night fell just outside the window. Slowly, ever so slowly, it crept inside. She switched on the television- an insincere effort to quell her loneliness. With Larry King in the background, Lizzie stepped before an empty canvas and started mixing colors.
Red, blue, green, yellow, orange… a squirt here, a dab there, and soon she dipped her brushes into the thick, oozing fluids. “Now we will see what the night brings.”
Her paintbrush hung off her fingertips. To anyone watching, it would have looked as though it moved independent of her; colors dripped onto the space and coalesced in a mass of lines and figures before she knew what had happened. For Lizzie, shadow had always played a large role in her paintings…
After a few minutes, lost within herself, she stepped back from the easel and focused her eyes on a huddled mass of color in the lower right corner of the canvas. Her hand reached for an exceptionally thin brush, which she then dabbed in blacks and charcoal grays. Wrist flicked several times, making contact with the surface of the space. In her mind’s eye, it was all so clear.
The figure, a hound, had escaped from his owner. Running across an open field, the dog headed toward a clustering of ducks, for he looked intent on creating a disturbance. It was not the beast, however, that so interested Lizzie. It was not the beast she pictured in her mind’s eye at all. Rather, it was the grass and the air in the wake of the animal’s charge toward ephemeral instinct—and away from his owner.
The solemn painter yearned- this was a fact- to capture what is unseen, the openness that exists, sliding in and out like a fluid between things.
A short distance from the animal- at the center clearing, beside a fountain- Lizzie painted the figures of a man and a woman chasing after it. The man was intent in his pursuit- the woman, somewhat half-hearted, barely kept up.
She imagined she had painted this very scene a hundred times before- only to have it end badly at every recurrence. She thought that the man and woman in her painting had failed to grasp its meaning. That they’d not heard her warnings in every brush stroke.
“These ghosts, these half-ingested thoughts are our regrets, warning us to turn back around,” she whispered, staring at the canvas, annoyed she could still see each of her many determinations so clearly.
Awhile later, after Lizzie had collapsed in a chair, Meyer came to the door. With her friend at her side, Lizzie ventured out of the little apartment and away from the pictures that served as her companions in the absence of pulsating flesh and blood.
As her eyes adjusted to the lamplights that dotted the sidewalk along which they trod, Lizzie began to speak of many things, avoiding talk of her paintings or the myriad ideas swirling about in her mind’s eye.
Meyer- well accustomed to such lyric rants- kept a steady stride and peered into store windows as they passed. “What is it you are trying to paint?”
Stopping, she looked down at the sidewalk- the gray, cemented earth laden with cracks, fractures from decades of elemental pressure. The painter’s eyes grew wide. Removing her glasses again, she knelt to pull some weeds from one such crack in the sidewalk. The light melted off the street lamps and the huddled old woman stared as though one looking into the face of a lover. The awed eyes, the concentrated expression of this mostly blind painter might have made her appear to others as though a protégé at the foot of her Muse.
“Between people, Meyer…” Lizzie began, than she stopped and sighed. Standing, she put her glasses back on. “Intent charges out in front of me toward my focus. Vibrations, layers of intentions, all that is never said but always felt- that’s what I try to paint.”
Lizzie Fritzinger, always aloof yet plagued by chronic pain of all sorts, did not consider herself a conventional woman. Among all the people in her town, she felt close to almost no one. There was just her childhood friend, Meyer Wilke—a practical joker and one so attuned to the measures of Lizzie’s own personality that they’d had the rarest of the rare: a lifelong best friendship.
Now, as she scuttled about amongst her many things, she could not stop herself from hoping that Meyer would come. She removed her glasses and fingered them nervously with a soaked paper towel. Then she left them on the table.
Night fell just outside the window. Slowly, ever so slowly, it crept inside. She switched on the television- an insincere effort to quell her loneliness. With Larry King in the background, Lizzie stepped before an empty canvas and started mixing colors.
Red, blue, green, yellow, orange… a squirt here, a dab there, and soon she dipped her brushes into the thick, oozing fluids. “Now we will see what the night brings.”
Her paintbrush hung off her fingertips. To anyone watching, it would have looked as though it moved independent of her; colors dripped onto the space and coalesced in a mass of lines and figures before she knew what had happened. For Lizzie, shadow had always played a large role in her paintings…
After a few minutes, lost within herself, she stepped back from the easel and focused her eyes on a huddled mass of color in the lower right corner of the canvas. Her hand reached for an exceptionally thin brush, which she then dabbed in blacks and charcoal grays. Wrist flicked several times, making contact with the surface of the space. In her mind’s eye, it was all so clear.
The figure, a hound, had escaped from his owner. Running across an open field, the dog headed toward a clustering of ducks, for he looked intent on creating a disturbance. It was not the beast, however, that so interested Lizzie. It was not the beast she pictured in her mind’s eye at all. Rather, it was the grass and the air in the wake of the animal’s charge toward ephemeral instinct—and away from his owner.
The solemn painter yearned- this was a fact- to capture what is unseen, the openness that exists, sliding in and out like a fluid between things.
A short distance from the animal- at the center clearing, beside a fountain- Lizzie painted the figures of a man and a woman chasing after it. The man was intent in his pursuit- the woman, somewhat half-hearted, barely kept up.
She imagined she had painted this very scene a hundred times before- only to have it end badly at every recurrence. She thought that the man and woman in her painting had failed to grasp its meaning. That they’d not heard her warnings in every brush stroke.
“These ghosts, these half-ingested thoughts are our regrets, warning us to turn back around,” she whispered, staring at the canvas, annoyed she could still see each of her many determinations so clearly.
Awhile later, after Lizzie had collapsed in a chair, Meyer came to the door. With her friend at her side, Lizzie ventured out of the little apartment and away from the pictures that served as her companions in the absence of pulsating flesh and blood.
As her eyes adjusted to the lamplights that dotted the sidewalk along which they trod, Lizzie began to speak of many things, avoiding talk of her paintings or the myriad ideas swirling about in her mind’s eye.
Meyer- well accustomed to such lyric rants- kept a steady stride and peered into store windows as they passed. “What is it you are trying to paint?”
Stopping, she looked down at the sidewalk- the gray, cemented earth laden with cracks, fractures from decades of elemental pressure. The painter’s eyes grew wide. Removing her glasses again, she knelt to pull some weeds from one such crack in the sidewalk. The light melted off the street lamps and the huddled old woman stared as though one looking into the face of a lover. The awed eyes, the concentrated expression of this mostly blind painter might have made her appear to others as though a protégé at the foot of her Muse.
“Between people, Meyer…” Lizzie began, than she stopped and sighed. Standing, she put her glasses back on. “Intent charges out in front of me toward my focus. Vibrations, layers of intentions, all that is never said but always felt- that’s what I try to paint.”
