“This is beautiful.” Carter murmured. “It’s symbolic, raw, profoundly moving, visually captivating.”
“What’s this?” he asked, pointing to the plaque that said,start peeling.
I smiled, nodding. “Go ahead.”
He reached out and found one of the thousands and thousands of colorful threads that I’d painstakingly embedded in black wax over several new pieces I’d painted. “It’s interactive?” He asked, waiting for my permission to start pulling the thread. “I saw one of these at your school.”
“It’s on trend.” I teased, shrugging with a shy smile. “Go ahead.”
Carter slowly pulled one of the threads, and it peeled up in a wild swirling pattern, revealing a new colorful painting underneath, exposed only by the thinnest line of color exploding out where the thread had once been.
He looked at me curiously, and I tipped my head towards the bucket. He dropped the thread into the all-black bucket and suddenly, the clear tube that fed out the side exploded with color, swirling around to the other side of the display.
It was a bit of an illusion I’d rigged up with the help of someone from the engineering department, but it looked like the threads were swallowed up into the darkness and then transformed into liquid color.
“This represents the process that you have to go into the darkness, into the grief, to find the light.” I said. “You pull one thread at a time and then you let them go. It seems insignificant in the moment, but in reality, this is what you’re creating.”
I tugged Carter to the other side of the display, where the explosion of color swirled through a complex network of tiny clear tubes that weaved around the new collection I’d created. It was colorful and joyful, but in an entirelydifferent way than my old work had been. It was chaotic, nuanced, and a bit dark in some places, too.
“The joy was always there under the surface.” I explained. “Turns out grief and joy can coexist. You just have to know where to look.”
This side of the piece was a living, breathing visual that represented the ever-changing dance of grief and joy. A push-pull that would probably never stop being part of my life.
Carter was quiet, and I nervously filled in the space. “The piece will continue to change over time, because that’s how grief works.”
“And this blank canvas?” He asked, adorably intrigued by the small white canvas at the center of the colorful display.
“It’s not blank.” I grinned nervously.
He leaned in, findingmyhandwriting all over the canvas in white.
“This is the final journey of the mother-daughter relationship.” I explained as he puzzled over it. “When the daughter becomes a mother.” A slow smile crept onto his face. “It’s not filled with color yet, because I haven’t gotten that far—I don’t know what the color of motherhood is yet.” I didn’t bother adding that I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to be a mother anymore. “And it’s the third strand in the braid.” I explained. “The triple goddess. Mother, maiden, crone—queen.” I amended because I’d always liked that version better.
He shook his head in awe. “I love it.” He wrapped his arms around me, picking me up as he spun me around, and for a moment, I didn’t care who was watching. I laughed freely for the first time in a long while, and Carter moved us to a quiet corner, setting me down behind a pillar.
His hands hit the wall behind me. “I’m so proud of you, Sara.”
I shyly looked away. “You’re just saying that. Everyone is just saying that.”
He tipped my chin up. “You want to bet? I’m telling you, I’mincredibly impressed. This is real inspired art, Sara. It makes you think, and feel, and the more you look, the more you find,” he said passionately. “You have a real gift, don’t doubt that, not even for a second.” He stared at me in awe, and I blushed at the praise. “What you did, the concept, the lived-in practicality of it all, the vulnerability you showed. It’s commendable.”
I swallowed hard. “You think?”
“I know. In fact, I already bid on the piece.”
“You bid?” I gasped. “You hadn’t even seen it yet.”
“This is going to be worth a fortune.” He mused, sounding like a pleased investor. “This will continue to gain value as you develop as an artist. I mean, the fact that this is your debut collection is wild. Not to mention, there is so much potential for subsequent connected collections.”
His wheels were turning, and I could see his work-brain turning on. That’s how I knew he really liked it because now he wasn’t busy spinning up flowery compliments. No, he had gone full-out investor mode. It made me feel the slightest bit better to realize he genuinely believed that the piece had value—he of all people would know.
I shifted nervously. “What if I don’t want you to own it?”
“Why not?” He asked gently, reading my anxiety, already locked in, right there with me.
“Because I think I need to let this one go. My professor’s assignment, this piece, it was about going through the process. The process ofletting go,and I don’t think I could look at it every day because Ineedto let it go.”
He nodded, concealing a small smile.
