Page 90 of Sawyer
But had he painted? No. All he’d done was stare at it and listen for his phone to signal a return text from Phoebe.Nothing had come. Finally, he’d sunk to the floor and set his tools aside.
Sawyer, I am,he repeated for the hundredth time.
He was not going quietly into the night. His gallery show was still on, and he was so close to having the paintings he needed. Just three more. He was not giving up on himself. He was going to paint.
Somehow.
He turned around to face his unfinished painting of Phoebe and felt his heart give an audible cry somewhere deep inside him. Right now, he couldn’t finish it, which is why he’d prepped a new canvas.
God, why couldn’t he face it with the same passion he’d felt for the others? Sure, it was a difficult subject, but other painters managed to unleash that passion on a canvas and produce truth and great art.
But this? He had nothing to give it. To give himself.
He’d been looking forward to painting all the other new scenes in his head. The ones he’d sketched in the simple black journal he’d brought on his last trip to Charvin when he’d gone to buy their beautiful shade of Provence blue.
He jumped up and raced toward his journal for painting ideas, flipping open the thick black cover. The first page was a drawing of Thea and Madison cooking side by side in the kitchen, Pierre sitting on Madison’s shoulder as she bathed her duck with cherries from a pan. Thea was off to the right, kneading bread, a beautiful smile on her face.
A spark shot through his heart. It might as well have been an old engine firing, but he felt it all the same before it faded. He turned the page to the scene of Kyle and Madison dancing together as they had at Thea’s wedding, their bodies stiff and tense, yet their hands clutching each other as if afraid to touch as much as to let go. Another spark came and went in his heart. Like a shooting star appearing and disappearing in the sky.
But it was there.
Undeniably there.
The epiphany struck out of nowhere. He didn’t want to paint from a place of hurt and pain.
He paused.
Pain.
Pain-ting.
How had he never seen that pain was the root of painting?
Yes, the little boy he’d been deserved to be honored, but Sawyer didn’t need to exorcise his pain through painting. That wasn’t his creative place. He’d tried it, of course—because so many of the greats had painted from such scenes. Wasn’tGuernicaby Picasso one of the most celebrated paintings of all time with its depiction of human suffering and the toils of war? But it had never worked for him. Depictions of pain and hardship crushed his soul.
His teachers had made him paint banal still lifes of fruits or flowers. More Old Masters shit. He’d failed to bring those to life as well. He finally got why. Because he hated painting bowls of apples or vases of tulips. Forget that the Dutch masters had loved tulips since the Netherlands had a thing for their famous flower. Or the British masters had a thing for their apples since the Brits liked their orchards.
It was boring to him.
Another of his old painting teachers had told him that he could never be a great artist if he couldn’t look the horrors of the world in the face and paint them.
Well, fuck you, dude.
He didn’t want to, but he’d given in and tried painting those scenes anyway. No wonder they’d sucked. His genius had only been recognized when he’d painted scenes of lovewithlove. With a tenderness he wasn’t completely comfortable people knowing about yet. But he’d trusted his roommates with it, and Nanine, and here he was. He’d felt it for Phoebe and celebrated it both in his process and on thecanvas. Who wouldn’t feel that kind of tenderness for the woman he loved?
“I’ve got it!” he bellowed.
To an empty space.
Yeah, he was becoming one of the masters. He was talking to himself like a lunatic.Van Gogh, here he we come.Except scratch that. Dude’s life had pretty much sucked from the asylum to the grave.
No way he was going that route.
He swung around, creative oxygen feeding the spark inside him. He could feel the fire growing until it was blazing through his whole middle, warming the coldness of his heart, making him feel like spring had returned to his life. He didn’t care if that sounded corny. He felt it!
Rushing over to his prepared canvases, he selected the smallest size his soul could accept and packed it up in his plein air storage carrier. Striding over to the cabinet that held his oil paints, he pulled the colors he wanted. Grabbing brushes, he shoved everything into the canvas carrier that held his travel easel. Then he picked up his phone. Phoebe still hadn’t answered, but he’d take it with him, hoping she would. Finished packing up, he marched to the elevator. Stupid to take the stairs with this weight.
When he reached the ground floor, he knew Kyle was somewhere close. Dude had patted him on the shoulder when they’d come back home after leaving a worried Brooke, telling him to come and get him if he needed anything. Companionship. A stiff drink.
