The Canvas & The Notebook

Ultimately, what’s the point in doing anything at all? That was the question Lena posed to herself on a recurring basis, but especially when she found herself working five night-shifts in a row to afford rent, a diet of white bread and pickles, and a roll of canvas.

Was there an end to the stress and anxiety of trying to fulfill her so-called purpose in this world? What if her mother had been right all along, that she was meant to find an adequately boring job that would’ve paid the bills and given her time for this “passion” that strictly belonged in the domain of leisure.

Lena’s mother was always preoccupied with numbers, facts. Percentiles, valuations, inflation - things like that. There was no need for emotional sensibilities in her world - she rather distanced herself from those sort of things. Notions of the impractical nature - idealistic, imaginary or, even worse, cultural, those were things that Lena’s mother simply couldn’t see straightly. They were like blurred figures drawn onto fogged glass in front of her near-sighted eyes, disappearing into vapour as soon as they were traced. And so it was the most ridiculous thing to her mother, that she considered art a viable pursuit. How dreadful that a perfectly smart and adequate girl like Lena, decidedly one of the more intellectual of her five children, had grown overly fond of something so abstract and obsolete. Her mother was even more agitated that Lena had the charm and looks to marry a decently well-off man - her second best option - and wouldn’t even consider it.

Lena had always envied people who never once questioned the value of art. The simple contradiction of her theoretical mind was being an artist who couldn’t defend the purpose of art on most days. From youth, the thought was engrained in her that the truly brilliant artists were mad men resembling fire tinder, who burned bright and died young.

Lena lay diagonally on her mattress, scratching at her cuticles. That last roll of canvas lay dormant near her foot, still unscathed. Each day seemed to drag on as she was producing less work, feeling more tired, and having less of an appetite. Inspiration was quickly drying up like an inland sea.

She flipped over on her stomach, hunched over her black leather notebook, and scrawled a gestural drawing onto the pale page in front of her. The figures that emerged from her pencil felt flimsy and unoriginal. Art mirroring the artist, she thought. Lena sighed and laid back down. Her phone rang.

It was her friend Sandra, who worked as a gallery assistant downtown. Lena was covering her evening shifts to allow her more time with her six-month old baby. In exchange, Sandra had convinced her boss to exhibit one of Lena’s pieces in the gallery. Thus, her painting was hung in the ‘Up-and-Coming’ section, and it was the first time her work was displayed somewhere other than an alternative music venue, which really meant a fire-hazard warehouse packed full of inebriated teenagers who could barely see past their own limbs. Sandra asked if she could come in earlier that evening, as soon as possible, and Lena agreed. At that point, she would’ve agreed to anything just to get out of her studio.

Finally descending from her apartment and into the afternoon discord of commuters and food stands, Lena felt slightly better. Being at the gallery would surely help lift her spirits. She loved the clean white walls, illuminated in a soft white glow that made it a warm escape from even the bleakest existential dread.

Juxtaposed white walls separated the space into three distinct sections. The front section was adorned with sought-after works in the likes of Toby Mikhail, the city’s most reputable pop-artist star. His confident paint splatters on the wall struck out like winterberries against snow. Lena’s piece was nestled in the back section, to be found only by the most wandering eyes.

“You’re here!”

Sandra emerged from behind the laminate reception desk, greeting Lena with a rapturous grin. She squeezed Lena’s arms with a particular exaltation, and ushered her into a folding chair.

“Look around, notice anything different?”

Lena glanced around for new work on display, nervous for a second, wondering what she was missing. Sandra let out a giddy chuckle and practically floated to the very back, gesturing at the small vinyl label beside Lena’s painting. Lena squinted, and there she saw the word.

“Sold?!” Lena’s chair screeched from below her, as she leapt into Sandra’s welcome arms.

“One of our regular art buyers - Camille Peng. I always knew she had an eye for talent.”

Sandra proceeded to unfold the situation, not leaving any detail behind. Camille came in just a few hours prior. She was shopping for new clients, a young tech couple who’d recently sold their company and wanted an exhilarating, undiscovered artist for their penthouse loft. She’d fallen in love with Lena’s painting - oh, it was just right - she had said! The understated expressionism, coupled with her interesting mix of medium, it was symbiotic with everything the buying pair stood for.

“Anyways, it sold for $20,000. We’ll process the funds and the money will be in your account by Tuesday.”

“Wait, how? We priced it at $8,000.” Lena stood before her own canvas in disbelief. Sandra had convinced her to nearly double the original price she had in mind, which had seemed overly optimistic to her, but she backed down to trust Sandra’s expertise.

“Consider it a token of good faith. Cameron sees potential in you, as do I.” Sandra’s phone beeped. “Oh, shoot. I don’t mean to be horrible, but I’ve got to go relieve the babysitter. We’re celebrating this weekend though - I promise!”

And just like that, Lena was left buzzing alone in all that mellow whiteness.

She felt like she was hovering above her body, above the gallery, looking down at its clear white light. Exhaling slowly, she resisting the urge to brush her fingertips on her own painting to confirm it was real, this was all real. She pushed down the trickles of anxiety telling her it wasn’t.

—

Five days had passed since Lena heard the news. The cheque from Camille Peng had cleared that morning. Lena now had $20,000 sitting in her bank account, and she had absolutely no idea what to do with it.

The gallery was empty that morning as Lena journaled in her notebook. She jotted down ideas - finally book her dream trip to London, search for a new place with a separate work area from her bed perhaps…

“Mom, is this supposed to look scary?”

Lena realized that she had been joined by a young mother and a boy, who were holding hands and staring intently at the Mikhail piece. The boy pointed at the red splatters of paint, tilting his head as he tried to make sense of the violent brushstrokes. He couldn’t have been more than seven years old.

“If it stirs up those emotions in you, then you’re most likely right honey,” The mother replied with a generous voice.

The boy gazed upon his mother for a second through his large tortoiseshell glasses, then nodded back. The mother’s eyes met Lena’s, and she smiled gently. Lena watched her hand a small black notebook, unlike her own, to the boy to make sketches of the paintings he liked. From her many shifts at the gallery, Lena figured they would prefer a slow browsing without much guidance or explanation, so she left them alone.

A while later, they approached Lena to purchase a handful of prints that the boy had selected. He offered to show Lena the drawings he had made. Lena found the boy quite talented, and told the mom so. She looked pleased, patting her son on the head as they thanked Lena and headed for the door.

--

Lena always felt a little sad when she saw children and their parents. She thought of her own family, whom she hadn’t spoken to in years. They all lived out on the West Coast, in the same suburb that she’d grown up in, where every house was nearly identical. She hardly remembered what it was like growing up there - the days and people all seemed mushed together in her mind. All she remembered was cataclysmic arguments with her four siblings, each of them more pragmatic and assertive than the next.

Still feeling uneasy about the sum of money sitting in her account, Lena decidedly opened her notebook again, to find swathes of papers and sketches that weren’t her own. She quickly recognized the scribbly lines and bright crayons - the little boy must have taken her sketchbook for his own.

But beside his drawings, there was polished handwriting that didn’t seem like a child’s. She quickly glanced over the neatly printed words, spanning pages and pages. Cycles, the first page was titled.

Cycles

Love is cyclical

Like tidal waves

Crashing in and out of shore

Until one jumps ship

Inevitably

The lighthouse beams and flickers

A fantastical backdrop

For my melancholic night

I’m just a passerby

In this world of temporal desire

But I’m leaving behind something

Someone

He keeps me strong against the tide

Even in his little frame

In his eyes I see

The only reason we’re here

Is to witness all of it

The moon to my tides

Lena was transfixed - she couldn’t resist turning the page and reading more. Her words were delicate yet forceful. She wrote about her son’s keen eye, the tremendous artist and man that he was growing into. She wrote on her own fears of not being able to show him enough of the world, not stimulating his mind the way he deserved. She wrote about her hopes to see her words published one day - perhaps much later when her boy was grown, as she conserved every penny and minute for him. The notebook was filled nearly cover to cover; with prose, poetry and the boy’s drawings.

Behind the front cover, there was an address scribbled under the line 'If lost please return to Ciara Santiago’.

--

Lena checked twice to make sure she was getting off at the right bus stop. She found the building easily - an apartment complex off the side of the freeway. It was almost dusk.

Lena had made up her mind, but a general sense of timidness entered her stomach. After all, she was a complete stranger - what if Ciara took it the wrong way? Still, it was rare that Lena felt so certain about something, especially as of lately. She knew what her gut was telling her to do. Lena had been given a vote of confidence, a blessing of blind faith that had eased her into a sense of direction. Now, she would pay it forward. After all, behind every great artist was someone who wildly believed in them without expecting a return.

As she rode the elevator to the seventh floor, she gripped the little black notebook tightly in her hands to keep the cheque from slipping out. On it, was $10,000 written to Ciara Santiago as an advance for her forthcoming book.