Nearly an hour passed before I was finally satisfied and done. Then came the last item: my artist’s statement.
I was no creative writer. The four-paragraph essay on my project had been one of the hardest parts (and thus the one I saved until yesterday), but it detailed why I’d been drawn to the Tarot, what the cards meant to me, what I hoped the audience would gain. It was hard not to feel like the entire project was masturbatory in some way, but then again, I guess that’s kind of art.
I didn’t leave right away, though. Not for a while. The more I looked at the paintings, the more exposed I felt. Kids walked through and some glanced at what I’d done. Some lingered. I wanted to stand in front of them, hide the paintings from view, keep them from discussing it with their friends. It was the part of being an artist I hated the most—inviting judgment for something most people wouldn’t be comfortable sharing themselves. This was a deeper part of me than my skin or makeup or clothes; this was my core. But it was also just paint on paper, and I needed to keep that in mind, especially when I got my faculty critique.
You are not the art you create. You are the life lived outside of it.
Thankfully, those who lingered were few; for the most part, my classmates kept their eyes averted as they headed toward whatever studio they would be spending the next few hours in. I wanted to give them all candy for playing coy, just as I wanted to jump up and down and tell them to look.
Man, being an artist brought out a lot of crazy.
Before I could get too self-conscious, I turned down the hall and headed to the painting studio. Chris might not be done with his work and I might not have been ready for more ice cream, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to bug him. I needed someone to distract me from what I’d just done.
I hummed to myself as I trudged up the stairs to the second-floor studio, feeling lighter by the second and also strangely heavy. I was finished with my thesis. Islington would teach me no more. From here on out it was smooth sailing. Just a few more months of class and then finals and then I’d be done. Graduated. Soon I’d hear back from colleges and the rest of my life would kick into gear. The idea ripped my heart in two just as much as it excited me. My thesis was the turning point. Everything at Islington had been building up to this one showcase. Now, everything was building up to the end. It felt like I should do something big to celebrate, like there should have been fireworks the moment I’d hung up my statement. But no, just a stupid song in my head and the lingering notion that I still had a folklore essay to write by Wednesday.
The joys of being trained to feel there was always work to be done. This place was turning me into Sisyphus—the rock just never reached the top of that damned hill. That’s why I had to find the minor victories and celebrations.
I was just turning the corner to the studio when I heard the scream. My heart thudded to a halt and my legs kicked into gear. I ran around the corner to find Helen kneeling outside of the studio with her phone shaking in one hand and coffee from a shattered mug forming a halo around her.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. I skidded beside her and put my hand on the studio door, but she yanked it away.
“Don’t go in there. Just don’t.”
She focused back on her phone, her words barely discernible through the tears clawing their way to the surface.
“Yes, the arts building at Islington,” she said. “There’s been another suicide.”
I gasped. No, no. Chris was supposed to be in there. I fell to my knees, bits of ceramics digging numbly through my jeans.
“You should go,” Helen said. “Before the cops get here. They’d want to question you.”
“Who?” I asked. I couldn’t get Chris’s face out of my mind. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t have.
Helen’s answer was a stake to the heart.
“Jane.”