Vathýs

Vathýs by VALMRY

I often go to places for inspiration, trying to fuel my ever growing desire to keep working on my art and writing skills. In the fall I decided to visit a small area known as Star Island in the New England area. I had heard rumors of its beautiful scenery and explicit isolation just from the coast. It was connected to two other small island areas known as Cedar Island and Smuttynose Island and; while it only had a few small stone buildings and Chapels, a hotel for conferences, and a dock for the ferry and other boats to come and go, the ocean spraying against the rocks proved to be a very inspirational site indeed.

The hotel allowed visitors up to seven days stay and I was excited to finally make headway in my new painting. I had set up my canvas and paints, sitting and taking in the view at the rocky shore.

On the first night I had wanted to try getting a sunset view, so I gradually did the necessary preparations and went to work. As the sun began to set lower and lower into the horizon I began to feel an ire chill in the air. Being amongst the coast, I brushed the feeling off until the sun finally set and the sky was dark. As I settled into my bed that night I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. As a result my sleep was minimal.

The second day I tried to get a sunrise view since I had gained little sleep and was already up and about before dawn. So once again I sat down in the same location and set up my canvas and paints. As I worked into the day gradually something, once again, seemed off. I looked over my shoulder several times but no one was around and just continued to work. Later that night I looked over my paintings and was happy with my interpretation. With my mind at ease I slept well that night.

The third day I decided to take a mid-day approach and followed the same routine but once again I felt a presence and the ire feeling of chills, this time, spread throughout my body and my very bones. So much so that I packed up my things and got into my room shower to spend the next forty-five minutes warming up. I stayed up most of the night and decided to depict a night portrait from my hotel room.

On the fourth day I decided it was best to take a break and enjoy the scenery so I explored more of the small islands. It was beautiful all over the place and even though I was enjoying the splendor of the various attractions and the imagery of the island I couldn’t shake the ire feeling I had received on day one. Before I knew it I was back in the same place I had painted the first three paintings and something was telling me to paint once again. So I returned back to my room and grabbed my things before placing them back in the same location and this time painting a nice night portrait before heading to bed.

On the fifth day I did a midmorning and noon landscape and on the sixth day I did a midafternoon portrait. On the seventh day, as I was preparing to leave that morning I realized my brush was missing. Going back to the location I was always being drawn back to, I looked around thinking I had just forgotten it somewhere. In that moment I thought I heard something and caught a slight glimmer at the corner of my eye as I looked back out into the ocean. The ire feelings began to linger and chills caused goose bumps over my skin. As I stared into the open water I had a feeling something was staring back at me from the deep depths. It was then I decided that it didn’t matter and I returned to my things before departing on the ferry back to the mainland.

As I arrange my wrapped canvases I noticed something sticking out from the knock used to tie the soft fabric around the group, it was my brush. Thinking I had just used it to help tie them up so they wouldn’t get damaged I thought nothing of it.

When I returned to my apartment a couple days later I opened up the tied fabric and took a look at the canvases I had made. To my surprise I didn’t see the landscapes I had painted in all their glory. I had thought I had managed to make the five different versions of the day but instead had painted something far more disturbing.

On day one I had painted the scenery showing a little pair of red dots hiding amongst the waves. On day two I had painted those same dots a little closer but moving away in a blur. On day three I had the pair of red eyes looking through a wave directly at me, the motion of a hand reaching out. On day four, the darkness of the waves had been given shape to a mass that looked something between a misty cloud and a wave. If you have ever seen the photograph of something just under a water’s surface that it was shown in different hues from the sunlight you could picture it with a pair of eyes. On day five and six the mass had been given shape and was now creeping out the stones from the crashing waves. A boney hand was reaching out as if looking to grasp for anything to hold onto. I also noticed the painting that I had made from my hotel room was no longer amongst them.

Frightened by what I was seeing I hid the paintings away in the back of my closet until several months later something jogged my memory. A news clip of a body found amongst the rocks of the same island I had been painting on made me nervous and I dug the paintings out once again. To my surprise the paintings were the same as I had seen them when I painted them in the first place. There were no eyes, no hands; just the sky, the land, and the ocean. The portrait that I had done from my hotel room was even still there and nothing seemed out of place.

As I struggled to process what I had seen and what I believed I had saw and whether it was just my imagination or a dream I realized one key thing. The color used to paint the eyes was still embedded in the brush because I had not touched it since the incident. The paints showed no indication of the color though, so how was it possible? There was no sign that the dust collected on it had been disturbed.

After some time people visiting my gallery began to say there was a life like presence behind my artwork and could make out things I never would have noticed. One of the most popular images described was that of a pair of eyes outlined behind or over shadowed on top of objects staring back at the observer.