standing, leaning, he contorts into some of the most uncomfortable-looking postures, but I remain quiet. I see the intrigue twinkling in his eyes. He sees something he likes, and his mind is processing how to capture it.
We stand there for an unseemly amount of time, Ferry working the shots through in his mind while I critique my work, wondering if I should kill Nate now or wait until the witnesses have vacated the premises. This nerve-wracking inspection is about to send me into a full-blown anxiety attack.
“I gotta tell you, Bastian. When I found out you were working again, I expected some caliginous pieces. I never thought you would recover the vibrancy you captured when you were with Sylvie. You’re the only man I’ve ever seen that could depict love, admiration, and sheer devotion with a paintbrush, and do it with elegance. I assumed anything you ever did going forward would be dark and somehow demonstrate your torment. I wasn’t expecting this. The way the shadows undulate across the piece creates a different work of art at every angle, and all of them are bright, illuminated in some strange way, refulgent. Seriously, Bastian, this is your best work yet. The textures, the colors you achieved—what the hell is it?”
I clear my throat, hoping to extract the nerves that have my muscles coiled tight. “Umm, that’s cream cheese and mixtures of berries and vegetables.”
“What the hell made you use food to paint, man?” He turns to me with bewilderment in his piercing gaze.
“I didn’t have any supplies. No brushes, no paint, no canvas.” I look to the floor as though it will save me. “I haven’t had the desire to work in years. I lost my spirit when I lost her.” I shrug my shoulders, kicking my feet at an imaginary object on the tiled floor. “I recently had the itch. It’s a tingle in my hand. I can’t really explain it, but it was my urge. I laughed it off at first, but the next thing I knew, I was in the kitchen pulling shit from the fridge and pantry trying to come up with any medium that would work. Moved the furniture out of the way and just fell into focus on the wall. A couple days later, this is what emerged.” My fingers find the back of my neck, in an effort to rub the tension away and try to relax.
“Sometimes brilliance is born from necessity, man. Glad you went with it. The question becomes…how do we immortalize it? Since it’s perishable, we have limited time before the food will start to turn and the colors will change and be lost. I don’t know how any of this will work, but my thought is to capture it in multiple days in a life to death sort of motif. Brilliance to murky. It could be showcased as one piece with several prints. I don’t know how long it will take to completely decompose, but I want it from inception to decomposition. What do you think?”
“So you want to photograph it over several days, knowing it will lose what it is today and turn into something ugly and unrecognizable?”
He turns to me with a huge grin adorning his face. “That’s exactly what I want. Life is macabre, man. It turns to shit quickly without warning; it’s an elusive bitch. One day it’s a plethora of illumination, the next its putrid pestilence. People try to hide that, so I’m thinking the middle days, when the colors start to lose their crispness, we use obvious filters in an attempt to cover the loss. Symbolic of the way people cover up the mess in their own lives. Bastian, I think it makes sense for you.”
Ferry’s right. It does make sense for me. I’m at the decay phase. I’ve put as many filters on my life as possible to hide it or cover it up, but the fact is, daily I think of my own demise, how I would take my own life to escape the pain. The agony has been all-encompassing. The only reason I haven’t done it is fear—plain and simple. Fear of the unknown. If there is something beyond this, why the fuck would I want to leave here to go there ? To endure more of
We stand there for an unseemly amount of time, Ferry working the shots through in his mind while I critique my work, wondering if I should kill Nate now or wait until the witnesses have vacated the premises. This nerve-wracking inspection is about to send me into a full-blown anxiety attack.
“I gotta tell you, Bastian. When I found out you were working again, I expected some caliginous pieces. I never thought you would recover the vibrancy you captured when you were with Sylvie. You’re the only man I’ve ever seen that could depict love, admiration, and sheer devotion with a paintbrush, and do it with elegance. I assumed anything you ever did going forward would be dark and somehow demonstrate your torment. I wasn’t expecting this. The way the shadows undulate across the piece creates a different work of art at every angle, and all of them are bright, illuminated in some strange way, refulgent. Seriously, Bastian, this is your best work yet. The textures, the colors you achieved—what the hell is it?”
I clear my throat, hoping to extract the nerves that have my muscles coiled tight. “Umm, that’s cream cheese and mixtures of berries and vegetables.”
“What the hell made you use food to paint, man?” He turns to me with bewilderment in his piercing gaze.
“I didn’t have any supplies. No brushes, no paint, no canvas.” I look to the floor as though it will save me. “I haven’t had the desire to work in years. I lost my spirit when I lost her.” I shrug my shoulders, kicking my feet at an imaginary object on the tiled floor. “I recently had the itch. It’s a tingle in my hand. I can’t really explain it, but it was my urge. I laughed it off at first, but the next thing I knew, I was in the kitchen pulling shit from the fridge and pantry trying to come up with any medium that would work. Moved the furniture out of the way and just fell into focus on the wall. A couple days later, this is what emerged.” My fingers find the back of my neck, in an effort to rub the tension away and try to relax.
“Sometimes brilliance is born from necessity, man. Glad you went with it. The question becomes…how do we immortalize it? Since it’s perishable, we have limited time before the food will start to turn and the colors will change and be lost. I don’t know how any of this will work, but my thought is to capture it in multiple days in a life to death sort of motif. Brilliance to murky. It could be showcased as one piece with several prints. I don’t know how long it will take to completely decompose, but I want it from inception to decomposition. What do you think?”
“So you want to photograph it over several days, knowing it will lose what it is today and turn into something ugly and unrecognizable?”
He turns to me with a huge grin adorning his face. “That’s exactly what I want. Life is macabre, man. It turns to shit quickly without warning; it’s an elusive bitch. One day it’s a plethora of illumination, the next its putrid pestilence. People try to hide that, so I’m thinking the middle days, when the colors start to lose their crispness, we use obvious filters in an attempt to cover the loss. Symbolic of the way people cover up the mess in their own lives. Bastian, I think it makes sense for you.”
Ferry’s right. It does make sense for me. I’m at the decay phase. I’ve put as many filters on my life as possible to hide it or cover it up, but the fact is, daily I think of my own demise, how I would take my own life to escape the pain. The agony has been all-encompassing. The only reason I haven’t done it is fear—plain and simple. Fear of the unknown. If there is something beyond this, why the fuck would I want to leave here to go there ? To endure more of