What Happens in Paris. Nancy Thompson Robards
look on her face.
“What?” I said, laying down my brush and wiping cadmium yellow off my hands with a rag. “I recognize that look. You’re up to something.”
She nodded. Smiled.
“Before we get started—” She pulled a split of champagne and two paper cups from her shoulder bag. “I have a surprise for you.”
She set them on the counter, then handed me a plain white envelope.
“What’s this?”
She grinned, nearly dancing. “Open it.”
I did. Suddenly, I was staring at a check for seven hundred and fifty dollars—written to me?
“What’s this for?”
“Your sunflower painting.”
I squinted at her, confused.
“The sunflower painting,” she repeated. “My client loved it. She bought it— Is seven-fifty enough? I guess I should have asked how much you wanted for it. But that seemed like a fair price. If it’s not, I’ll—”
“No, it’s fine. It’s fabulous. I can’t believe you sold my painting.”
With a look of pride on her face, she popped the cork and poured two glasses of bubbly.
She sold my painting.
She sold my painting. As I stared at the dollar amount, I couldn’t fathom someone actually paying money for something I’d created.
Holding the check made me light-headed. This was enough for two months’ studio rent with a little to spare for supplies.
Rita handed me a cup and raised hers. “A toast. To there being more where this came from.”
Nice idea, but I was a realist. I painted for fun. I painted for me. But for seven hundred and fifty dollars I could be commissioned.
Holding her cup, Rita walked to the middle of the room and turned in a slow circle, surveying my new work that lined the wall; in some places they were stacked four and six canvases deep, starting to overrun the small space.
She whistled. “You’ve been busy since the last time I was here, huh?”
I nodded. Thirty-three new pieces since her last visit.
“It’s amazing how much I can get done when I don’t sleep.”
I set down my cup and shoved an empty plastic soup bowl—lunch from Panera again—into a sack and put it in the garbage as my sister walked over and flipped through a stack of paintings.
I watched her as she studied my work, and wondered what she was thinking. It suddenly seemed a little amateurish producing thirty-three paintings in the span of five days. Some artists agonized over a single painting for twice as long and here I was mass-producing them.
She paused to take in a brilliant pink camellia blossom, flipped past it and pulled out the close-up of the maroon orchid.
“Has Blake picked up his babies yet?”
I rolled my eyes. “He came by Thursday while I was here and whisked them away. The greenhouse is empty.”
She nodded absently and gestured to the canvas. “I really like this. Reminds me of Georgia O’Keeffe.”
My breath hitched. In O’Keeffe’s biography she said, “Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.”
I read that she painted fragments of things because they made a statement better than the entire object. She created an equivalent for what she felt about something…never copying it form for form. I borrowed the same philosophy in the dark, almost morbid lines of the orchid close-up. No harm in borrowing a style until I found my own.
“Thanks, Ri, that’s quite a compliment.” I pulled out a stool and sat down.
“I’m serious, Anna. These are really good.” She put the canvas back where she found it and picked up her purse again. “I have something else for you.”
I poured a little more bubbly into my cup. “The champagne and check were plenty.”
She nudged my hand with a slim packet of papers. “It’s an application. Here, take it.”
I did so, hesitantly, and set down the paper cup. “A job application? I have a job, Rita, and despite how I hate it, I’m not up for another major life change.”
“It’s not that kind of application. It’s for an artist residency in Paris. Is this not perfect?”
“I’m sure it’s perfect for someone, but I can’t go.”
She put her hands on her hips, and tapped the papers with her index finger’s deep-red acrylic nail. “Anna, this is Paris.”
She held it out again, and I took it.
Artist-In-Residence Fellowship—Call For
Applications.
The City of Paris, France, and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs seek applications from foreign artists of any discipline who wish to participate in an artist-in-residence program. The winners will receive a monthly allowance and a three-month stay in a workshop/studio at the Delacroix International Exchange Centre, a former convent in the heart of Paris. At the end of the residency, one of the finalists will win a one-hundred-thousand-dollar purchase award given by the French government. The winner’s artwork will become part of the permanent collection of the Museum of American Exchange in Paris, France.
By the time I reached the bottom of the first page, I knew there was no reason to keep reading. I shook my head and tried to give the papers back to her. She wouldn’t take them.
“If you went to Paris, I could sell your paintings for you.”
“You just sold one without me going.”
“I know, but that was a lucky fit.”
My heart sank. “A lucky fit. Gee, thanks.”
“Come on, you know you’re good, but it’s the whole French-mystique thing. My clients would just eat it up. The artist just got back from Paris.”
“Oh, validation. That sucks. My going to Paris isn’t going to change the way I paint. You know what Gertrude Stein said about a rose is a rose is a rose….”
“Right, but everyone finds Parisian roses a hell of a lot more appealing than the varieties we grow here. Come on, Anna, what’s stopping you?”
Oh, let’s see…my job. The fact that I was forty-one and broke and if I gave up that job, at my age I may not find another. And don’t get me started on the huge ocean between the States and Europe and the foreign language I didn’t speak beyond bonjour and au revoir. Even if I attempted to utter those words, I was sure some surly Frenchman would toss me off the side of the Eiffel Tower for butchering his language.
“I can’t.”
“Give me one good reason that doesn’t have to do with your being afraid of something you’ve always wanted.”
I closed my eyes and tried to put into words the litany of good reasons I’d just ticked off in my head, but all that came out was, “If I go I’ll lose my studio space.” Ridiculous—even I had to admit it. The absurdity hung in the air between us like a bad smell. Rita regarded me with a confused grin, as if she was waiting for the punch line of my bad joke.
“You’ll forgo Paris to keep your rented studio?” She looked around, and I could see her considering her words before she spoke.
“Paris, Anna. And you could sell your work to the French government for tons of money. What’s not to love?”
When I didn’t answer, she sighed. “They’re choosing twelve artists. You have to apply.