Today was the day for which Allen has been waiting, and which he has also been dreading. He was up at dawn this morning, unable to sleep any longer than he had. Thankfully, Megan arrived only an hour later with coffee and doughnuts. “It’s going to be fine,” she told him.
He sighed and rested his head on her shoulder. “What if nobody comes?”
“Then you and I and Professor Groves and my parents and your dad and brother will all have a lovely evening looking at your work, and then we’ll go get wasted at your favorite bar.”
Another pit sunk itself into Allen’s stomach—though he calls them regularly and is quite close to his family, he hasn’t yet spoken to them in depth about his artwork. I don’t think he has any reason to be worried, but that logic is having trouble cutting through his concerns. At least he is not overly worried about introducing Megan to them. He is proud of her, and he knows that they will love her almost as much as he does.
“When are they supposed to be here?” Megan asked, stepping back and reaching for her coffee. Before Allen could answer, though, she put his cup in his hand, too, and nudged it towards his mouth.
He took a sip, closing his eyes as the warmth ran down his throat. I made him imagine it seeping down into the cold places in his chest and stomach, too. “They’ll meet us for lunch at 11:30.”
Megan brightened. “Then we have time for you to show me around a little bit, right?”
Her evident enthusiasm made Allen smile. “Yes, we do.”
“Great! I want to see all the places you were an idiot when you were an undergrad.”
Now he laughed. “Oh, I don’t know that we have that much time.”
He did show her around, and it was just the right use of their time this morning. Remembering the days when he attended as a student here, Allen began to see all the ways that he has changed—and all the ways that he hasn’t. He is still an artist, still a dreamer, and those traits stayed with him even before he came back to his work.
Lunch with his father and brother went well. As expected, Brian and Seth Gray loved Megan almost from the first minute. She is easy to love, this vibrant, friendly, confident woman. She carried most of the conversation, but she did get Allen talking a little bit about what they would see at the showing this evening, both as a way to practice what he would have to say and as a chance to share his thought processes with his family.
On the way out from lunch, Brian stopped Allen and put a hand on his shoulder. “Not to be maudlin,” he said in a quiet, hoarse voice, “but she would’ve been so proud, son.”
Allen’s throat immediately closed so that he could not speak, but nothing stopped him from smiling. And though his eyes stung with tears, that was the moment that carried him all the way through to the evening, when the whole group of them—Megan’s parents having arrived just an hour before the event began—walked across the campus to the museum.
It struck him hard, seeing his artwork displayed in such a professional setting. And yes, the exhibit was small, occupying only one room, but it was by no means unimpressive. The stark black lines of his work against the white walls and under exactly the right lighting had an impact they had not before, and all of them fell silent as they walked in.
“Well, what do you think?” Professor Groves asked, walking across with the curator of the museum. “I wasn’t sure when you said you wanted your self-portrait across from the cathedral, but now that I see it I like the contrasts between the pieces.”
Allen couldn’t speak. The sight of the room was a revelation to him. How strange it is, for a dream to come true before one even has a change to really dream of it!
Megan squeezed his hand and said to Professor Groves, “It’s perfect.”
She raised her eyebrows, grinning. “You must not be an artist. Come on, now, Allen, there’s always something that you spot only at the last moment.”
Allen cleared his throat. “Well, now that you mention it, I did think about thickening the lines at the bottom of—”
He didn’t finish, for Professor Groves was laughing at him, and the others joined in. Allen smiled, but his concern had been sincere, and he glanced around the room.
And then Sabasa was there behind him, draping him with one wing and sending a rush of fulfillment through him. “There is always more that could be done,” she murmured to him, “but a piece is not truly real until you can step back and call it finished. Let your work be real. It is good.”
He exhaled, blinking away tears, and Sabasa and I shared a smile.
“Well, we’re ready for our guests,” the curator told them. “We’ll have about half an hour to meet and greet, and then we’ll get the statement from you, and then you’ll have a chance to go through the room and answer any questions that people might have. Does anyone want something to eat or drink? We’ve got a nice little spread over here.”
They served themselves hors d’oeurves and punch, and then Allen turned around to see other people coming in.
In the end, it was a respectable turnout, though certainly not a great crowd. Still, there were over a dozen students present, and a few friends of Allen’s from college, and some people that Megan knew, and several of his old professors, and even a handful of curious people from the community. By the time the curator came to get Allen for his statement, the room was nearly full, and Allen had to take three deep breaths before he could bring himself to speak to them.
“So this is more people than I expected to see,” he said, which got a chuckle. “Thank you all so, so very much for coming. I know that for a new artist it can be difficult to get a good start, but to see all of your faces here tonight assures me that I certainly haven’t gotten to a bad one.”
He paused, glancing down and wishing that he had brought notes.
“You’re doing well,” I murmured to him. “You can do this.”
He coughed a little and looked up again, finding his father in the crowd. “I always thought of myself as an artist,” he said, “but a few years ago my life changed quite suddenly, and my inspiration dried up. I thought I had walked away from art forever. But I’ve found that—” He lost the thread of his thoughts for a moment, and Sabasa stepped forward and drew his gaze to Megan. She smiled at him, and he took a breath and went on in a steadier voice. “I’ve found that art is not something that leaves you, even when you think you have left it. In creating all these works that I’m going to talk about tonight, I’ve found myself drawing on things that I’ve thought and seen during the years that I wasn’t painting. I’ve always been an artist, even when I didn’t think I was.
“Here’s what I’ve learned about art,” he went on, having found his rhythm. “There are two parts to it, as the old saying goes: inspiration and perspiration. For me, the inspiration comes easily, but not always with the force that motivates me to work. I got lucky a few months back, but I’ve been learning in the days coming up to this showing that that flash of lightning never lasts, and you’ve got to hold on to it hard to be able to finish a piece of work.
“But loss drains you, so that you can’t work on anything, but especially anything that is important. After my mother’s death, I couldn’t give my heart to anything that had power over me the way my art did. So I put my brushes away, and in so doing I gave myself time to recover. That rest was necessary, so much so that I thought I was done forever. It took one of those big ideas that forces you to slam on the brakes, to get me back into motion. And when I was moving again, it was easier to keep moving. Isn’t there something like that in thermodynamics?” he quipped, and the crowd chuckled.
He cleared his throat again and glanced around at his art on the walls. “So here’s what I’ve learned about loss. When it happens, you need to take care of yourself, and that’s important. But if you want to honor the person who is gone, the only way to do that is put something good into the world in their name. And that is the force that will keep me in motion as I go on with my artwork in the years to come. All that I do, everything you see here, is dedicated to my mother, Whitney Gray, who was the first to teach me to value beauty.” He turned to look at the portrait he has done of his mother, a swirl of arching lines and letters from which a pair of calm brown eyes look out, and lifted his glass. “This one’s for you, Mom.”
And as the whole room toasted to Whitney’s memory, I turned to Sabasa and said, “Do you think that she can see this?”
“I do hope so,” Sabasa answered. “How could she fail to be proud?”
I agree with her. I am also proud, although this night was mostly Sabasa’s work. In any case, it was just as much of a triumph as the last such event that I attended, and with a far better result at the end. Having talked with many people about his work and even sold two pieces, Allen left the museum late that night humbled and happy. He went out hand-in-hand with Megan, feeling that all the world was beautiful and on his side. A good start, indeed.