I pick up the box of supplies and Adam carries the panel over to the door. I open it and peer out. The atrium is echoey, and I hear voices coming from a floor above us, but there’s no one on this one. I hold the door for Adam, then we sneak down the hall to the service elevator.
When I press the button, nothing happens. My pulse ticks up. We’re away from the public spaces, deep in a gray cement hall, but I feel like a spotlight’s trained on us.
“Adam, what do we do if we run into security? What do we say?”
His brows are knit and I can tell he’s nervous, too, but he’s trying not to show it, because he says, “I think we’re okay. The service elevator’s so slow, nobody uses it if they can avoid it. And security’s not going to care about a blank panel.”
He’s probably right. Carrying around a blank panel or canvas is nothing. People lug them around CALINVA all the time.
Finally, the elevator wakes up and rumbles down from an upper floor. “You’re sure Krell went home?” I say.
“I checked his parking space before you got here. Empty.”
We’re insane for doing this. I should stop it right now. My mouth fills with saliva as I try out how to tell him. Adam, I’ve changed my mind. I’m not sure I want to do this.
The elevator opens and he steps in. Faded gray moving quilts line the steel walls like it’s a padded cell, and a nervous giggle bubbles out of me.
“What’s so funny?”
I don’t want to admit how anxious I am right now. “Nothing. Just a stupid random thought.”
Adam’s making a big effort to help me, which I’m sure he wouldn’t do if he didn’t like me, and if I’m being honest with myself, if he didn’t believe I’m in real trouble.
We get out on Krell’s floor and I peek around the corner. The hall’s empty and I don’t hear anyone on this floor or the one below. Adam tells me to dig the keys out of his pocket. He tells me which one’s Krell’s and I put it in the lock.
The door swings open. The studio looks like it did the other night. Adam lays my panel on top of the worktable. I reach underneath the table and take out Krell’s electric palette, which is a little like a griddle, and plug it in. My messenger bag is packed with the waxy medium I’ll cut into chunks and melt with the colored pigment in the tuna cans.
Adam carries over the easel with Krell’s painting and sets it upright by the table. One glance, and Krell’s amazing, enigmatic portrait draws me over, hands linked behind my back as I fight the urge to reach out and touch it.
“The painting’s going to Art Basel Miami right after the unveiling,” Adam says. “It’ll only be here for another month.”
“Why is it being sent to an art fair when someone already bought it?”
“Krell’s dealer wants the art world to see it so he can sell the next one Krell paints.”
I can’t stop staring at it. “What do you think is underneath?”
“You mean what do I think he’s obsessed with?”
“Yeah.”
Adam scowls and shakes his head. “Power? Fame? Money? Take your pick.”
The way Krell treats people reminds me of Iona, the total disregard for anyone’s feelings or needs but her own, so I’d have to say power or fame. But the way he paints? I wonder if it isn’t something much deeper, more personal. “I don’t know. Dogs playing poker?”
Adam laughs. “Women’s underwear?”
“Ew.”
“Satanic symbols?”
“More likely.”
Adam adjusts the angle of the easel. “I’ll be back in two hours to help you clean up,” he says.
“You’re not staying?”
“I have my own work to do.”
“Yeah, of course.” I don’t let him see I’m disappointed. Silly to think he’d waste time lounging around here when he’s got his own projects to finish.
“I’d invite you to see what I’m working on,” he says, “but I share the studio with three other grad students and one of them lives there.”
“That’s allowed?”
He shrugs. “No, but I’m not about to kick the guy out. See you later.” He walks out and the door clicks behind him.
I weigh the block of waxy medium in my hand. Am I really doing this?
Inside those layers of paint are secrets Krell won’t share with me, because he’d rather cut me to shreds. My hesitation vanishes.
I dig into my pocket for my magnifying glass. Time to focus on why I’m here.
As the layers of Krell’s painting emerge, I puzzle through how to deconstruct it. I peel the photograph of Duncan off the wall and go back and forth between it and the painting it inspired.
To understand the brilliance of an artist like Krell you need to look at the choices he makes. What he includes and what he ignores. What colors he uses, and how he employs line, light, and shadow. Even things like the length or energy of the brushstrokes, or the thickness of the paint, define his work.
I hold my magnifying glass over the areas where layers of color shine through, revealing more than I first thought.
The feeling that I’m a detective, an archaeologist unearthing buried secrets, makes me almost giddy. Reading his brushstrokes is like learning a new language. I’ve always tried to make mine disappear, but now I see I could use them to add power and depth.
You couldn’t just teach me, could you? You had to tear me down.
Study a painting by an artist whose work you connect with. At least that advice was valuable.
I focus on how to begin the base. Krell’s muted background isn’t eggshell like I first thought. It’s complex, layers of faint pastels that aren’t quite blue or peach or the palest yellow.
I set out cans on the warm palette and drop in chunks of wax. As it melts, I shave in the pigment, and bounce on my tiptoes, seeing the colors on my palette match Krell’s. Yes yes yes.
Unlike acrylics, encaustic takes time. Paint on a layer, wipe it off if it’s not right, or fuse it with a warm blast from a heat gun before you paint the next.
The cloudy background begins to take shape, but I’ve only done one corner when Adam reappears.
“Oh, I thought you’d be further along.”
He sounds disappointed, but I guess he’s never done this kind of painting. Most people haven’t. “Yeah, I hoped so, too, but you know, encaustic takes a while.”
He’s looking doubtful, like he’s realizing he probably shouldn’t have agreed to help me, but he says, “What do you think? You learning anything? You want to come back Monday?”
The thought of not coming back sends me reeling. I’ve only begun to solve the puzzle of Krell’s painting, so—“Yeah, but I don’t want to screw up your schedule.”
“You’re not. But we need to clean up before the night crew comes in.” He picks up Krell’s easel and carries it back to where it was, then unplugs the heat gun and wraps the cord.
I dip Krell’s brushes in melted wax to release the pigment before I rub them with a paper towel. Despite how gently I rub, bristles come off in my hand. Damn. I can’t use these. Krell will see the wear on them. I’ve got to buy matching ones.
I’m running numbers in my head on how much this will cost me when Adam says, “We should go to 365 Mission sometime.”