I can’t believe it’s Julie, because it feels like a weird coincidence that she’s all the way down in South Pasadena, but then again I don’t know where she sleeps. I turn to go back to the house, and I hear Mom’s voice in my head. It’s not a coincidence, it’s a sign.
I roll my eyes at the heavens. Seriously, Mom? But a half block later I dig out my phone and pull up the pic of Julie. Her smile arrests me. What is it about her?
God bless you! I’m Julie. I have cancer. Please help.
I stare at her sign and her smile and the way she stands so straight, her head held high, and I can’t make all the pieces work. I know without question she’s sick, and probably in pain, so how is it possible that this woman who lives on the street exudes a presence in this shot I can only describe as radiant?
I feel a stirring in my gut. I need to paint her.
The feeling floods me, but I fight it off. Bring a portrait into Krell’s class? Collin Krell who just sold a portrait for over a million dollars sight unseen?
Yeah, right. Not unless I want my ass handed to me.
I keep scrolling as I trudge back up the steps of the house and find a shot of the electric plant. Benita Newsom assigned us a study on color schemes for Color & Theory, so even though a part of me thinks that bringing Krell an urban landscape isn’t a great idea, the painting could satisfy both him and Newsom, and I can’t show up tomorrow with nothing.
Back inside, I start to sketch the pipes and cables and decide to play with a tetrad color scheme, using orange as the dominant color with accents of red and purple. The muscles in my shoulders tighten as I prep my palette and mix the paint, and even though I try stretching and windmilling my arms, they won’t loosen up.
The official title of Krell’s class is Painting Strategies 101, but every few weeks he likes to borrow a practice from the upper-level classes—group critique.
I’m in my usual Monday-morning stupor, but it only takes a few seconds after I see the chairs rearranged into a circle for me to realize I totally forgot group crit is today.
Please, please, please do not call on me, I think as I rush for the empty seat next to Kevin.
“Ready to examine your peers’ work formally, philosophically, and historically?”
Kevin’s so chipper, I feel like smacking him with my travel mug. “I’m ready as long as someone else’s painting is picked apart,” I say.
“The point is not to pick a painting apart, but to conduct a deep inquiry that unearths a dialectic.”
I glare at him.
The chairs are in a circle, because we, the students, are supposed to do all the talking. Still, Krell’s seated at the front of the room like he’s the king or the head inquisitor.
He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a crumpled piece of paper. “Tito and Reyes.”
My stomach does a death spiral. Eighteen other people Krell could have chosen today, but he had to pick me.
“Stay cool,” Kevin whispers.
Across from me, Bryian sits next to Bernadette, combing his fingers through the leather fringe hanging off the sleeve of her jacket.
“Our mandate in group critique is to understand a person’s work as deeply as possible,” Krell reminds us. “Mr. Tito will begin by describing the piece he’s showing us today.”
David Tito puts a shimmery gray abstract up on the easel. “I was inspired by Thomas Nagel’s essay on consciousness ‘What Is It Like to Be a Bat?’ The painting is my attempt to express what I can never experience: the world through sonar or echolocation.”
The painting is layers of almost invisible shadows and zigzag lines, pockets of dark, and pinpricks of light.
My skin feels like pinpricks of light are boring through my sweater. Holy…I can’t believe I have to follow this.
Bernadette throws up her hand, shaking Bryian’s off. “The artist’s color palette of gray, black, silver, and white reduces the world to shadow and bursts of light.”
She goes to take a breath, and Bryian leaps in. “Yes, and by negating our color experience, the artist challenges us to visually experience the unknowable.”
Several people nod in agreement, but Bernadette scowls at Bryian. Hmm. Trouble in paradise.
I flip through my portfolio case in my head. The way to nail group crit is to show a piece with lots of detail or symbolism or a political stance so everyone can find at least one thing to say about it in the forty minutes it’s under discussion.
Now Kevin joins the conversation about David Tito’s canvas with a riff on the physics of echolocation, which I can’t even begin to understand. Then the rest of the class adds comments about bats and sonar and how humans can or cannot grasp the experience of bat-ness and the limits of human sensory experience.
And the whole time, Krell sketches quietly in a notebook, looking up every so often to see who’s speaking.
Shit, shit, shit, I think, watching the minutes tick by. I haven’t brought anything good enough to show. I’ve got the painting I did last night, and some charcoal sketches, but nothing as polished or provocative as what they’re discussing now.
Finally, Krell thanks David for creating a rich opportunity for discourse. David removes his painting from the easel, and Krell says, “Ms. Reyes, you’re up.”
I pull the canvas out of my portfolio, and as soon as I set the painting of the power plant on the easel up front, I know I’m in trouble, because the room is absolutely silent.
“I, um, am exploring the interplay of color, shadow, and texture.” I babble on about repeating shapes, flat surfaces, and the texture of decay, wishing I could shut up, but I can’t until at least one person says something.
I glance at Krell, and from the way his mouth puckers, things are going downhill fast.
Then Kevin raises his hand, and I’m so grateful I silently vow to be his friend forever.
“Mr. Walker. Does Ms. Reyes’s canvas remind you of a notable American author, perhaps not Edgar Allan Poe, but John Dos Passos or Upton Sinclair?”
I suck in a breath and dig my fists into my pockets.
“No, can’t say that it does.” Kevin says it so lightly it’s as if Krell’s sarcasm went completely over his head. “I was going to say that the tetrad color scheme prompts the viewer to reconsider the aesthetics of the rusted pipes.”
Krell sits back in his chair and drags a hand through his hair. “Yes, it’s pretty, isn’t it?”
My knees lock. “Pretty” is the ultimate condemnation. It means pastel landscapes sold at craft fairs to women who want to match the color of their guest bedroom.
“Pretty” is so mediocre it’s worse than bad.
Bernadette and Bryian exchange a smile, and clearly the rest of my classmates are embarrassed for me, because Kevin’s the only one looking up. His lips move. It will be okay.
Then, just when I think it can’t get any worse, Krell stands and begins to circle the room. “Questioning. Provoking. Agitating. CALINVA’s mission is carved into its very walls.”
I know that what comes out of his mouth next will eviscerate me, and I grip the easel as the blood drains from my head.
“This piece, this pretty little craft project, is insignificant and utterly forgettable. ART should never be insignificant. It should never be forgettable!”