It was said his father could trace his lineage to the French monarchy. At least the ones who'd escaped with their heads.
The man knew and respected culture, and despite his aristocratic upbringing, he lived an unpretentious life in northern Arizona. And his social media following numbered in the millions. It helped that half his Instagram posts featured him shirtless, smiling, splattered with clay.
Not that I'd dedicated much time to studying Mr. Guillmand's bare chest but it was difficult to vet his online presence without catching a glimpse or two. Perhaps more than that.
It didn't matter, of course. Plenty of pretty faces and washboard bellies belonged to obnoxious men who didn't know their place.
And this man, with his lurking and sneaking and bird-carving, didn't know his place. I realized it the day he arrived at the company's campus. He'd been arrogant, his arched eyebrow nothing short of contemptuous as he scanned the ten-thousand-square-foot studio built to his specifications and then turned his unimpressed gaze toward me.
It was a moment, an exchange over before it started, but it burned long enough to leave a bitter taste in my mouth. After that, I'd made a point of avoiding Mr. Guillmand's corner of the campus. Frankly, I had more important matters at hand than a condescending artist. I served as executive vice president and chief of staff to the company's founder. My days were packed with real priorities. The moods of one inconsequential man didn't rank among them.
"This isn't an effective use of my time," I murmured to myself.
I knew this, but I didn't turn back to my office. If there was one thing I did well, it was shutting down problems. I intended to do just that.
The campus was vast, many hundreds and thousands of times larger than the tiny offices we'd shared with two other start-up ventures back before our initial public offering. There were moments when I missed fighting for desk space and electrical outlets, and waging war on anyone who dared to microwave fish in the communal kitchen.
Most of all, I missed knowing every member of the team. We'd been a family in those early days, a scrappy little group willing to do whatever it took to get off the ground. With more than fifty-three thousand employees in offices all around the world now, we were a different kind of family.
And that scrappy little group was scattered to the winds. Most of the original outfit had moved onto new ventures and passion projects. Others left the company courtesy of a swift kick in the ass. Even the man who made me believe in the beauty and power of innovation, Cole McClish, had pulled up his Silicon Valley stakes and settled a world away in Maine.
It'd been Cole's idea to develop an artist-in-residence program. He argued it was small money for easy PR, and I bought that reasoning. I bought it, sold it to key stakeholders, and saw it through to fruition. It was a solid plan, but it never accounted for Mr. Guillmand's obnoxious birds invading my days.
Or his bare chest.
Chapter Two
Gus
Oiling Out:the technique of painting a thin coat over existing layers, often to return colors to the shade when originally painted.
I climbed a tree today.
It wasn't my brightest idea, but I needed a new perspective on the hills and mountains in the distance, one I couldn't gain from the ground. If I was back home in Arizona's Rim Country, I would've hiked until I found the right vantage point.
Actually, no. Fuck that. If I was in Rim Country, I'd be scavenging for stone, clay, felled trees. I wouldn't be sketching ridgelines. I'd be doing something useful, not…whatever the fuck this was.
With a resigned sigh, I brought my charcoal back to the sketchbook. It was another in many pages of dark, smudgy scribbles. Flowers, trees, hills, clouds. Each more uninspired than the one before. If you'd asked me two months ago, I would've said my creative well knew no bottom.
That was before creating in captivity.
When the biggest, most recognizable internet firm in the world announced a residency at their California campus, complete with a hearty stipend, living quarters, and all the bells and whistles, I hadn't thought twice before applying. I never expected they'd select me. I figured they'd see my name, see my incoherent body of work, and move on to someone more suitable.
I'd made it through art school only because I hadn't known what else to do with myself and couldn't stomach working a nine-to-five. I wasn't classically trained, not really. I had no apprenticeships or residencies to my name and I'd rejected that path often. Regardless, I did well and I knew acclaim in small doses. A centerpiece sculpture in the New Mexico statehouse. Several community art installations across the Southwest. Exhibits in San Francisco and New York. A revolving collection featured at a new hotel in Vegas.
I made my way on my terms and that was essential.
But a slim part of me wanted this, wanted the stamp of approval. No matter how often artists said they did it for the craft, we also did it for the love. The adulation. It bit like a bug and the venom hooked you just as quick as it sucked the life out of you.
That venom had me up a tree in Silicon Valley, staring off at the natural world while my fingers scratched out the shape of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The lines started out soft, almost downy. Lamb's wool in shades of green, yellow, brown. Nothing like the Kaibab Plateau or Buckskin Gulch or the raw magnitude of the Mogollon Rim.
But I had to do this. I had to stretch my fingers, translate shapes into stories. I'd draw my way out of the driest spell in my thirty-six years, and eventually, I'd find a path back to the beginning. If I could do that, I'd learn how to create again. Even if I had to do it from inside a fishbowl.
I was betting on this. I couldn't stare at the walls or walk in circles anymore. I had to get out of my head and move my hands. I never went longer than a month without a new project taking over my existence. It always went that way—until now. An idea tickled the back of my brain until it consumed my every breath and thought. After submitting to that cycle for more than twenty years, I didn't know how to function without it.
I would've been rocking in a corner right now, scratching my skin off like a junkie in need of a fix, if not for a voluptuous, whip-cracking executive vice president. One frigid look from her and I felt the fire kindling inside me.Fuck that.It wasn't kindling. It was a goddamn wildfire. She brought to mind steel-tipped arrows and lush camellias and a dozen other contradictions.
And doves. Graceful, regal doves.
