Contemporary Art
Clara, 18
New York City, 2028
Clara’s stomach flapped with nerves as she boarded the subway. The first day of anything was terrible. She’d had a lot of therapy and knew how to acknowledge feelings and then let them go. At her stop, Clara shoved out of the train and walked up the stairs. There was always such a wretched smell in the subway stations, especially downtown. As she emerged into the light, a single orange leaf floated down on the pavement in front of her. She wanted it to be a sign. She would take it as a sign.
After walking three blocks, Clara stood at the front wood-panelled door of the art school in Hell’s Kitchen. It had been an arduous application process, and in the end she doubted that she would have succeeded had it not been for a late withdrawal to the class.
She felt a monstrous debt of gratitude to her parents for being able to lend her the tuition fee. She had met people whose parents had mortgaged their houses and taken second jobs to afford to send them to college. She couldn’t imagine it. The guilt. What if they failed? Would they pay the money back? How could they ever earn enough to do so? As an artist?
In the arts there were never any guarantees. Clara knew that her style was conventional and this could work to her advantage or not. She worked hard. But perhaps she didn’t have that thing…that… she didn’t know how to explain it. That glint of artistic brilliance? That vision. That spark of unfiltered genius.
Even before she met the other students, she worried that she wouldn’t be as good as them. She would immediately be labelled as a fraud, an imposter, not brilliant. Clara had attended a good high school and done the right subjects, but in composition she was not brilliant enough.
‘You worry about things that haven’t even happened yet,’ her mother had said to her that morning.
‘But what if it’s already happened?’ Clara asked.
Her mother tilted her head and winced. ‘I had the strangest dream last night,’ she said, touching the máti on her bracelet. ‘A woman was crying, sobbing. She was being attacked by her husband in a kitchen. Oh, it was absolutely horrific.’
‘Sounds awful, Mom,’ Clara said, touching her monther’s arm.
_____
The art school had assigned the great Thierry Rasmussen as Clara’s composition tutor. The New York Times had called him the ‘talent of a generation’. He’d enjoyed a career in Europe and New York. He had that Euro-ness about him, an urbane elegance in his carefully chosen sweaters and jeans. He was occasionally photographed wearing a leather jacket. Every article noted that it was vegan leather.
‘So, here we are,’ he said, looking around the room.
Clara smiled and he frowned back at her.
‘Let’s go around the room and talk a bit about ourselves,’ he suggested. ‘I want to know where your passion as an artist comes from. Why are you here? Why should you be here?’
‘Hello, my name is Roco,’ one of the students said. ‘I’m from North Carolina. I had a pretty rough upbringing. My art channels my pain…I like working with mixed media…I need to work on my technique. I have a vision for my first exhibition. I need to put my vision into a series of steps. A series of steps to achieve that vision. I’m just so pleased to be here.’
‘I’m Kaylee from Texas. I didn’t have the funds to come to art school. I didn’t think I would. But then I painted a mural that’s in my hometown and it got picked up in a story by The New York Times. I got some traction. Here I am,’ she said, throwing up her hands. ‘Fucking New York!’
‘Hello, I’m Clara,’ she said in her clearest voice. ‘I was born in Australia but I grew up in Manhattan. I love figurative painting, the classics. I work mostly with oils.’
The others nodded and stared. She worried that she was dressed too conservatively. She was the only one without ripped clothing, a tattoo or a piercing of any kind. She was the only one from Manhattan. There were a few from Brooklyn. One girl had been raised in an artists’ colony and her parents were performance artists who worked mainly with blood. Two of them had lost parents in the pandemic.
‘Well, Clara,’ Thierry Rasmussen said. ‘Hope you’re ready for this.’
She wasn’t sure what he meant but smiled and looked down at the desk.
After the introductory class, the group met up at the student bar for the welcome night. She was the only one who didn’t smoke. Or take drugs. She felt like she had nothing to contribute to the conversation, that her privilege was on show.
‘Thierry Rasmussen is convinced you can’t be an artist if you’re not damaged in some way,’ Kaylee said. ‘So, what’s your story?’
‘I don’t really have one,’ Clara said.
‘Everyone has a story,’ Kaylee said. ‘Pain, somewhere. Are your parents assholes?’
‘Well, I only met my biological father once,’ she said.
‘Asshole,’ Kaylee said. ‘And what about your mother?’
‘Well, she married again and he’s my father. I was very young when that happened. He’s always been really nice to me,’ Clara said.
‘Nice, like – come into your bedroom late at night, nice?’
‘Of course not,’ said Clara, putting her drink down with a thud. ‘Not all men are like that, you know.’
‘Okay, if you say so,’ Kaylee said, sculling her beer. ‘I can’t wait to get started. I’ve wanted to be here my whole life. I would’ve done anything to escape my hometown.’
Clara nodded.
‘I just love art. I just want to be an artist and create,’ Clara said.
‘Fair enough,’ said Kaylee. She started talking to someone else. Clara stood around for a while, then left them in the bar and took the subway back uptown.
_____
For the first assignment, they needed to write an essay on whether art has to emanate from pain and suffering, and how it impacts on your creative expression. Clara knew that Thierry wanted the students to discuss Picasso’s blue period, because he was that kind of teacher. And van Gogh would definitely be in there. But Clara disagreed. Look at Monet. He did his best work when he was happy. And Goya. And Clara could only create when she was feeling well.
_____
‘So, it appears that everyone is using their pain to work, but not you, Clara,’ Thierry said to the class.
‘Well, I’m not that kind of artist.’
‘How do you express your pain if not through your work? Look, there is no right or wrong answer.’
‘Well, there clearly is a wrong answer,’ said Clara, looking around. Those with pain and those without.
‘You are the only person who has ever answered the question that way,’ Thierry said. ‘Which is interesting.’
Clara began to feel ill. Everyone stared at her. All their eyes and tattoos and darkness and pierced skin in her direction. The walls of the studio closed in. But she took a deep breath and exhaled. She thought of what her therapist said.
‘Do you want to see me after class?’ asked Thierry. ‘I don’t want you starting on the wrong track.’
Clara did not want to see him after class, but she sat when everyone else had left. She thought about the trees in the park. The leaves, tinting copper, glittering with rain.
‘I’m not sure this is going to work,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t think you appreciate what I’m trying to do here.’
‘What am I meant to appreciate?’
‘You need to work from your pain, Clara. If you don’t have pain or refuse to acknowledge it, then I’m not sure you can be in this program.’
‘What? I already got accepted, so I don’t think it’s up to you. And I’m leaving now.’
She walked out of the classroom and felt sick. What was going on here? Why did he hate her? She wouldn’t be alone in the classroom with him again. She would ask Kaylee to stay next time.
_____
The problem was that once someone like that had suggested that she wasn’t good at it, that she wasn’t meant to be there, it was as though everything she drew, every paintbrush she picked up believed it too. Here she was, anthropomorphising her art equipment, staring at pages and pages of blank white paper.
‘This is ridiculous!’ she yelled out loud. She phoned her therapist. There had been a last-minute cancellation so she had a slot free in ten minutes. Clara slipped on her ballet flats and coat and ran the three blocks.
Rosa opened the door to her brownstone. She always wore woollen cardigans in pastel colours with buttons. She especially liked baby blue. Her glasses were oversized and her forehead permanently creasing. Clara followed her into the room that she used for therapy. The rest of her house was her actual home, with a partner and children and all that entailed.
‘So, Clara. How are you today? How’s college going? It’s so nice of you to stay and live with your parents. So much nicer than those awful dorms.’
‘Yeah, I guess,’ she said.
‘So, tell me.’
‘It’s awful,’ she said, and began to cry.
‘Oh, sweetie. Here, have a Kleenex,’ Rosa said, offering one to Clara.
‘I just don’t feel good enough to be there,’ Clara said, and explained what had happened in composition class.
Rosa nodded and took down notes.
‘Oh dear, what an asshole,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said Clara, ‘but he’s right. The others have faced immense challenges to get there. And, I – I just filled out the application form and my parents paid the fees.’
‘Well, that’s what parents do for their children when they can afford it.’
‘But I haven’t struggled with anything. They’ve all put themselves and their families in enormous debt to come here. And I – I just waltz in from my apartment uptown.’
Clara loved Rosa’s sympathetic eyes, on the other side of her glasses. She would love to paint them. But she would do it all wrong, she knew she would.
‘We’ve talked before about people’s opinions and your view of yourself,’ she said.
‘Yes, but he’s the art professor and The New York Times called him “irrepressible”. And he hates me. For whatever reason, he’s decided to hate me. It’s only the first week. It’s like he thinks my parents paid and got me into the school and I don’t deserve to be there. That I lied about my SAT score or something. That my work isn’t good enough. I mean, I only got in because someone had to pull out. I was on the waiting list. And then I got in,’ she said. ‘So, I guess he’s right about that.’
The words seared her throat as she said them.
‘Clara, you need to believe in your work. If you don’t believe in it, nobody else will.’
‘I just feel so guilty for being there when other people in this country, in this city, don’t have the money to pursue their dreams. And, let’s be honest, I’m an okay painter but, what – why am I doing this? I don’t know,’ she said.
Clara drank the glass of water in front of her and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
‘Do you think that what he’s doing is right? Do you think that maybe if you spoke to someone else in the university you could get advice about the procedures for bullying? You can’t single out someone like that. What he’s said to you is not appropriate,’ Rosa said, putting down her pen.
‘I can’t be the girl who complains,’ she said. ‘I just – can’t.’
‘So, what do you feel like you should do?’
‘I want to be in that class,’ Clara said.
‘Okay, well maybe you can find a way to deal with your feelings about this,’ said Rosa.
‘And complain to the dean,’ said Clara.
‘Good for you. How do you feel, having decided to take that action?’
‘Better,’ Clara said, nodding.
Rosa clicked her pen and put down her notebook.
Clara walked through the park on her way home under the bronze leaves swirling to the ground.
_____
‘He’s an asshole,’ called out Sam from the kitchen.
‘I know, but—’
‘No, he’s awful. You have to report him to the dean ASAP. Hell, I’ll report him. There is no place for that kind of behaviour anymore.’
‘Don’t you ever feel guilty?’ Clara asked.
‘About what?’
‘About living here. About not having to struggle like everyone else.’
Sam shook his head. ‘Clara, you’re thinking about it the wrong way.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t feel guilty because we live in this apartment and have money for school. We’re just trying to do our best and make the world a better place, right?’
‘I guess so.’
‘I mean, it’s not like we’re out buying expensive clothes and shoes and bags and lamenting that we’re not going to the Hamptons or anything. We’re both just trying to get an education, have a job, be independent, help others who haven’t had this,’ he said, waving at the walls. ‘Right?’
Clara nodded.
‘Look,’ said Sam. ‘Sometimes I do feel a bit guilty, but you can’t change any of it. You can just try and do the next right thing.’
‘What? Is that Jung or Disney?’
‘Whatever,’ said Sam. ‘Just get on with it. Don’t guilt yourself over everything.’
The buzzer zapped.
Sam bolted to the door and opened it.
‘Hello, Mr Sam,’ said their favourite doorman.
‘Hi, Brian!’ called out Clara.
‘Your yoghurt is here,’ he said. ‘From Australia.’
‘Hey, Brian, why don’t you take the yoghurt home this month. We’ll get it again next month,’ Sam said, patting him on the arm.
‘You sure?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Sam, smiling.
‘Thanks, Mr Sam. Thanks, Miss Clara,’ he looked up at them. ‘I love this yoghurt.’
Sam closed the door and turned to Clara.
‘You just gave Mom’s yoghurt away,’ said Clara.
‘She won’t mind,’ Sam said, shrugging. ‘It never stops coming. Aren’t you sick of yoghurt? I’m always trying to be vegan and then the yoghurt arrives. Do you think if we still lived in Australia, we’d have this much yoghurt?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Clara, flopping on to the couch.
‘Don’t worry about everything so much,’ Sam said. ‘Do you want to come out with me and Charlie and co?’
‘Not tonight,’ said Clara.
‘Suit yourself.’
Clara looked out of the window to the park below as the afternoon faded into evening.
_____
Clara was practising her affirmations in the mirror the next day. She had decided to face Thierry Rasmussen. To put up a wall and get on with it.
Sam was right. She had worked too hard to let him ruin it for her because he had made unfair judgements about her capacity to do the work. It was just about the work.
She took the subway downtown, and as she arrived at the station she held her breath for as long as she could. She bought a coffee in her reusable cup from a street vendor and then kept going to the art school.
She was ready.
‘So, Miss Clara, you came back, I see,’ Thierry said from his desk at the front of the room.
‘Of course I’ve come back,’ she said, shrugging and returning to her canvas.
He came and stood behind her as she drew, and her pencil wobbled. She ignored him and kept drawing. He did this often. Stood behind her, watching her. It made her feel sick.
At the end of class, they handed in their written compositions and their drawings. She had done her best.
‘Clara, can I see you, please?’
‘No, actually I’d prefer someone else to be present,’ she said in a strong voice so everyone could hear. ‘Kaylee, can you stay?’
‘Clara, I think you should go to the dean. I can’t stuff up my chances here. I have nothing to fall back on,’ Kaylee whispered, as Thierry turned red.
‘How dare you infer that it’s not safe to be alone with me,’ he said to her. ‘That’s not how we operate here.’
Clara picked up her bag and walked out, without looking at anyone.
She marched straight to the dean’s office, told her everything and changed her major. That afternoon as she walked home, she realised that this was that moment. This was her pain. She would never create something remarkable and dark; something cutting at one’s soul. She would be confined to the list of mediocrity. She would never join the walls of the museums she loved so much, or challenge the status quo in some powerful, disruptive way.
In her apartment, Clara took down a self-portrait she had painted and that her mother liked. She stabbed it to pieces. This was what they wanted. And in her face, with its knife-slit markings, there was the pain. This was the pain.
She would not be a creator; she would study those with greater creative genius than her.
She could hear her mother arriving home.
‘Clara, are you home?’
Her mother knocked on her door. She knocked. She always knocked.
Clara cried, an awful cry, that she had never wanted her mother to hear. Her mom pushed the door open and saw all the destruction.
‘Oh, Clara,’ she said, as she lunged towards Clara to embrace her. ‘It’s okay, darling.’
‘I just can’t do this. It’s over.’
She told her mother what had happened.
‘I’m so sorry, Clara,’ her mother said. ‘Don’t worry at all. You’ve done the right thing. But it must be hard for you. It’s not easy when a dream doesn’t work out the way you want it to.’
Clara wiped the tears from her face.
‘I worked so hard to get in there,’ Clara said.
‘I know,’ said her mother. ‘I’m so sorry. There must be a way we can sort this out—’
‘But the damage has been done, right? He’s the great Thierry Rasmussen and I am me.’
‘You’re the wonderful, amazing, talented Clara,’ her mother said. ‘That guy is such a jerk.’
‘He’s sued people for defamation before. There’s only so much I can do,’ Clara said, rubbing her eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ said her mother. ‘I know it’s the most trite thing to say, but sometimes these experiences make you stronger.’
‘What’s a dream that you had that didn’t work out? Be honest.’
Her mother took some time before replying.
‘My first marriage,’ she said, squeezing Clara’s hand. ‘I was convinced that I would irreparably damage you and Sam if we didn’t stay together. I loved your father, but he – it was just too hard and it took me a long time to accept that it was broken. But look, everything worked out for all of us way better than I could have imagined at the time.’
‘Except for Yiayia Koula,’ Clara said, sniffing. ‘Well, according to Yiayia Koula anyway.’
‘Oh yes, except for her,’ her mother said, rubbing her eyes.
‘Maybe I should have been more damaged,’ Clara said. ‘Then this wouldn’t be happening.’
‘You don’t have to be damaged to produce fine art,’ her mother said. ‘I think they’re wrong.’
Clara lifted her bracelet-clad arm and her mother’s right arm and looked at the three mátia in a line next to each other. Hers, her mother’s and her great-grandmother’s.
And together they watched the light fade over the park. Blue to gold to orange to purple to black.