Madlin widened his eyes at her. Although he knew this was a quote and remembered that there was something charmingly mischievous about it, he did not recall that this was how Picasso had impishly insulted a critic, while elevating art to a natural phenomenon. Nobody else knew the quote, and would not have been able to place it, this being before the days of Google and wireless PDAs. They didn't dare actually ask, and since Madlin ran with it, they all nodded knowingly as though they knew it well, too. This marked a turning point in the evening. Madlin would later tell her it cemented his attraction to her, but perhaps it was his slight discomfiture in not knowing the source on the spot that linked him to her so tightly that night.
“Indeed,” Madlin said. “Indeed! âWe love the night and flowers without trying to understand themâ¦' something like that, right? Mmm-hmmm, very good. Tell that to the astronomer and the botanist!”
“I agree,” Rain said, smiling down into her beer, a watery lager in a thick, heavy mug. Madlin poured her some more. “But their equivalent would be the academic critic, wouldn't it? Not the artist?”
“Touché!” Madlin bellowed. “But why, oh, lord, why,” he intoned, very Orson Welles at this point in the evening (it was getting late and there had been a number of pitchers and as many defectors), “why would anyone want to mark canvas without a thought as to why they were doing it? Really, I want to know.”
The most fawning of the students, a guy named Thom who left the program soon after Rain and Karl hooked up, sat forward and continued on that line. “Honestly, the horror of the
everyone can be an artist
,” he sneered. “The disservice it metes on the world. I'd like to take every high school art teacher and force some Derridas down her delicate little throat. Just a taste. One little taste, dearie!” He ground a fist into his other hand sadistically, and Rain noted that he failed to meet her eye every time she spoke.
“I'm not sure what's wrong with that,” Rain said. “Why not let the infinite number of monkeys keep on typing if you might get that one Hamlet?”
“That's what I'm saying! You'll never find it!” he exclaimed, literally hopping in his seat but speaking to Karl rather than to Rain.
“Again, that's
your
problem, isn't it?” Rain asked, also directing her comments to Karl. “That's your job.”
“That makes no sense,” Thom continued, whining now. “No sense at all. You cannot possibly be part of the conversation of art if you have no idea what you're saying.”
Rain plunked her heavy mug down, empty. “Okay there,” she said. She'd been there a long time too. With the bang of the glass, everyone at the table focused on her, and Rain plowed on ahead bravely.
“I mean, yes, I want to join in that conversation, that's who I'm listening to, that's who makes sense to me, it's them, the artists from history that I'm aiming toward in a way. But think about it. There you are at the table with Rembrandt, Titian, line 'em all up, all up through Picasso, there's Pollock, deKooning, Schnabel! for God's sake, whoever, the shark guy, you know, earthworks, all of them, and suddenly it's your turn to speak,” Rain paused dramatically. “All heads turn to you. Burning gazes, the whole thing. But to have it count, to actually make a meaningful contribution at
that
table it would
have
to be original, wouldn't it? And honest? Something you were brave enough to blurt out, all your own, coming from what makes you original and uniqueâ¦and so if you succeed⦠If you succeed, wouldn't it have to make NO sense to them at all? Wouldn't it have to be new in some sense? So it's really not up to them or the people who study them to know if what you're making now has any relevance or matters or
ranks
â¦with them, you know?”
“So, then nothing matters, whatever goes, whatever you want to slap on a canvas⦔ Thom began.
“No, no, no,” Rain was saying, finally having to raise her voice to interrupt him. “NO! Honesty and originality are the most essential qualities a human being can muster! Those qualities make us human, provoke passion and awakening and when they are first articulated, they are invariably⦔ she cast around, sputtering, “
insipid
and
false
to the establishment!” Rain was practically yelling now, the bottomless mug of beer finally having gone to her head. And she couldn't have cared less what these people thought of her, that she was lecturing basics to Ph.D. candidates. “Every loosening in art that we value with millions at auction today was seen as utter dreck when the paint was still wet. It's whoever was honest enough to hear you, it's whether THEY put you at the table or not. Whether anybody then has anything to say to YOU.”
“Relativist bullshit,” Thom was muttering, but Karl was smiling at her charmingly.
It was just the three of them left at the table now and Karl turned to Thom pointedly and said, “Well, I'll be seeing you tomorrow, then,” and just waited for him to leave. His leaving, of course, being a little more thorough than Karl meant it to be, but no less than he intended right at that moment.
It wasn't long after that night that Rain dropped out of art school and moved in with Karl. She'd found all she needed in terms of art instruction and support from him. His fierce narcissism and self-centeredness widened to include her for many of their years together, so she mistook his self-regard for support and his snobbiness for belief in her. He made her dizzy with his attention and his passion, but in front of her friends and other people who loved her, he was always a bit strange and jealous.
The very fact that Rain rented a studio outside her home was an enormous luxury. Even its marginal neighborhood and ugly five-story walk-up couldn't mar the over-indulgence it represented. Most artists in the city lived in their studios, with the more successful ones perhaps earning walls between the bed and the easel, sometimes only a few more feet of space.
That she had one was enviable enough, but that her father paid for it was something that Rain would never admit, even to her closest friends, though most of those who knew about her studio suspected it. Few of her friends even knew about the place since she never brought people there. It wasn't that Rain was shy to show her work; in fact, she brought most finished pieces back to the apartment she shared with Karl and even hung some of them there. It had nothing to do with the state she kept the studio in or the unfinished works. It was simply a sense of proportion. To most of her friends, it would be have been like screeching to a stop in a Lamborghini right in front of their lopsided old ten-speeds. They would have been impressed and complimentary, but some part of her suspected they might wonder if she deserved it.
The studio rental was a wedding present from her father, arranged by Gwendolyn, who could always perfectly carry out whatever her husband conceived. John Morton knew Rain's fiercest wishes. Though Gwen disliked Karl from the very beginning and held dark and pessimistic ideas about pursuing any aspect of art as a careerâart-making darkest of allâshe dutifully found and stocked Rain's first studio magnificently. She thought it would provide a soon-to-be, much-needed escape from the controlling and small-minded man Rain insisted upon marrying so young.
Though Gwen had told Karl that the gift was really just for Rain, he was emphatic about coming along to see it. The appointment at the courthouse was still days away, but Karl and Rain had both taken time off from work to get ready and have a few small gatherings in preparation for the big day.
John's heart condition counter-indicated the five-floor walk up, so he waited for them in the car while Gwen led them to the over-painted glossy black door. It and the jamb were bejeweled with odd buzzers, locks, a tiny camera lens and a peephole.
As Gwen pulled open the door to the tune of its soon-familiar metallic sigh, Rain took close note of the air. It was a smell she would come to associate with working there. A fragrance that would unknot her stomach and loosen her shoulders. It was clean and faintly aromatic and yet had a kind of fresh antiquity to it. Like an opened pyramid, the small entry and stairwell suggested untold riches inside maybe this chamber, maybe that one.
Gwen pointed out a mailbox.
“Why would she need that?” Karl asked.
“I'm sure it just comes with the place,” Rain said.
“That's right,” Gwen said, heading up the stairs at her usual quick clip.
It was the first door on the fifth floor. The flight above was just a small landing and a door onto the rooftop. Gwen worked her way through the array of keys and pushed in the door to the freshly painted space. It smelled of spackle and latex and looked like a miniature of a Hitchcock set. One of those north-facing, slanted walls of paned windows with a narrow balcony outside it. The view of the airshaft was nothing to speak of, but the wall of windows itself was breathtaking. The interior space was tiny. About ten by twelve feet. There was running water, a small counter over a cabinet, and a bar-sized refrigerator.
“Gwen!” Rain breathed as she walked into it.
Karl followed silently.
“Gwen, it's so beautiful!” Rain exclaimed.
Gwen walked over to the easel that Rain hadn't even noticed yet. It reached right up almost to the top of the ten-foot ceiling. Well oiled and substantial, it had a metal rack arching overhead with three spotlights fixed on it. A high tripod with a board atop it and an adjustable padded stool stood with it. “It's used,” Gwen said, smiling. “That's good luck.”
“Oh, my⦔ Rain stammered, struck speechless as she examined the complicated workings of the easel, taking in the impossible perfection of this little space. A tall set of shelves stood by the door on a short expanse of wal , but the other two wal s were left bare. Another bank of spotlights dropped down on wires from the ceiling in front of the easel, which could be swiveled in any direction. Rain tried the light switches. “Gwen!” Rain said again.
Karl shook his head.
Gwen opened the little refrigerator and retrieved a half bottle of Veuve Cliquot from it. The little fridge was stacked tight with water bottles, this thoroughness being a Gwen trademark. Two plastic champagne flutes stood on the counter. “You two can share one,” Gwen said, working the wires on the top.
Karl let out a little laugh. He sat on the stool, swiveling back and forth. “Don't you think she should be sure this was what she wants first?”
“I have no idea what you mean, Karl,” Gwen said dryly as she handed Rain a glass of champagne.
“I mean, she quit art school to work for you and suddenly a studio? Studios don't make the work, artists do.”
“Karl⦔ Rain said.
“No, Karl,” Gwen said. “Artists who are more than just conceptualists, and even sometimes those, need space in which to work. They are, after all, dealing with the corporeal. Objects take up space.”
Rain interrupted them. “It's more than I ever dreamed of, Gwen. Thank you so much!”
Gwen didn't look at Rain and said, “You do good work in here,” with a pleased smile on her face.
“Is there a bathroom?” Karl asked.
“In the hall,” Gwen replied.
“I just hope it doesn't jinx her,” Karl said.
“The bathroom?” Rain asked.
“The big, intimidating studio,” Karl said, mock innocently. “It's like the prize before the work has begun.”
“These are tools⦔ Gwen began, in a tired voice.
“I'll be fine, Karl,” Rain interrupted her. “You'll see.”
Much to Karl's pressed-mouth surprise, Rain worked long hours in her studio. In a strange way that she didn't like to acknowledge to herself, Karl's disapproval fueled her focus and perseverance. It provided something her father's uncritical and constant approval didn't; motivation and a desire to prove herself. Really, she thought she was trying to prove herself to her father who so unwaveringly approved of everything about her, that she almost felt selfish in her push to achieve this.
Karl's charms were reserved for Rain alone. He was abrasive and contrary with other people, but could be quite unabashedly loving and worshipful when they were alone. Their intimate life was a lazy game for her, Karl's passionate enthusiasm doing the work for both of them. The fact that her friends found Karl prickly and uncomfortable provided Rain with the perfect barrier between herself and the entertaining assortment of good friends she adored. It was a way to separate herself and give herself the time and devotion her art demanded, without having actually to make those claims about her time's value herself.
Rain found Karl's irritability merely curmudgeonly and amusing and only very occasionally did his condescension touch her at all. Sometimes she wondered if this meant she was hugely egotistical, but she knew that her friends (and probably most strangers who encountered them together), saw her as a victim to his superiority and control.
Years of work had left Rain's studio filled up and richly messy. The shelves were piled high with supplies, the fridge held a more motley assortment of food and drink and the walls were covered with images ripped from magazines, postcards collected from museums, her own sketches, fields of color taped up next to each other.
Though she'd known about it for several months, the reality of the end of this studio was fast approaching. The building had been sold and was slated for destruction. The entire block had finally been purchased by a single developer who had patiently fought years of rent-stabilized apartment dwellers and a little old tiny sliver of a building whose owner wouldn't budge for decades, leading him to consider incorporating the little shoe repair shop's building into the plans for his high-rise. The old man had finally died heirless, and the plans fell into place quickly afterward. It was part of the reason Rain had so readily agreed to go to England with Karl for the fall. She would move out of the studio, take the few months in England and then deal with finding a new space when she got back.