The Inspiration Read Online Free PDF

insane asylums are positively haunting. I appreciate the emotion they evoke, but I certainly wouldn’t want one of the prints hanging in my house.
    I wander through the show, saying hello to some of my business acquaintances. There’s a burst of laughter and loud voices at the front of the gallery. It looks like Jess has run into a few old friends from Pratt. She waves me over and introduces me to the impossibly hip group. Joe, who’s heavily tattooed and pierced, commands everyone’s attention.
    “Hey Jess, Ba-roque Beat is set up in Times Square. Let’s check them out.” He turns toward me and smiles. “It’s just too damn quiet in here.”
    “What’s Ba-roque Beat?” I ask him.
    “They’re a group of performance artists led by our friend Alessandro, who also went to school with us. He’s a performance artist and street performer.”
    I nod, realizing Jess has painted him several times in her current series. I’m happy to be included with the group, and we head to Times Square on foot, laughing and joking the entire way.
    As we near the open area of Times Square at 6th and 42nd, I hear a thunderous pounding. We join the large crowd around a group of men sitting in a row with varied sizes of plastic tubs in front of them. They’re beating the tubs in synchronization with large wooden sticks. In front of them is a man in a black body-stocking making the strangest shapes with his body.
    Joe taps my shoulder and nods to the man in the body stocking. “Alessandro.”
    There are four other performers dancing around Alessandro to the tribal beat. It’s electrifying.
    Jess is already dancing and Laura laughs and joins her. Soon we’re all dancing and howling, a misfit tribe on the primitive savannah of Manhattan.
    Just when I think I can’t dance another step, Alessandro’s group finishes the song and two of his dancers move through the crowd with tubs to procure donations. Jess tosses in a twenty.
    “Let’s get over to ArteHaus before the booze is gone,” Joe says.
    “SoHo, corner of Greene and Broome,” he barks at the cab driver as we pile inside.
    As we head to Max’s show, I give Jess a nervous look.
    “Don’t worry, babe. I won’t let him anywhere near you,” she says, assuring me.
    When we step inside ArteHaus, I squint to adjust to the dramatic lighting. It’s dark other than the brilliant spotlights focused on Max’s large-scale paintings. The floor’s vibrating with the throbbing bass of loud music. We move to the bar where the featured drink is a Flaming Dragon: a mix of herbal liquor and Bacardi rum that’s set on fire to heat up the liquor before drinking.
    “So hot going down and then you’re on fire.” Joe grins as he passes me one and downs his shot. My face flushes as the combination of flavors burns through me.
    Joe pulls me over to a painting. “Fucking Max. I hate him.”
    The towering canvas is an intricate layering of paint, scratches, words and imagery that pull together cohesively. It’s chaotic and your eyes can’t stop moving from one area to the next. I finally settle my gaze on a small flat screen meticulously built into the canvas. It plays a series of serene images—the ocean, a grass field, a cerulean sky with puffy clouds. The jarring appearance of a documentary photograph of a man with a gun pointed at his head and his mouth twisted in terror stuns me. I inhale sharply and the image reverts back to a field of trees.
    “Joe, how you doing, man?” I turn to see Max knock knuckles with Joe, followed by a raised handshake and slap on the back. I can’t keep up with the moves that cool guys to do in greeting.
    “You ass. I hate you. This shit is too damn good.” He nods up to the painting.
    Max grins. “Well, from you, that’s a high compliment.”
    “You bet your ass, Romeo,” Joe says laughing. “By the way, let me introduce you to the enchanting Ava Jacobs.”
    My cheeks go red.
    “Oh, we’ve met,” he says coolly.
    He squints at me, lifting his