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Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain

40
Liberty and Death

IT LOOKED like spring break was going to kill us all. I worked every day, but only a five-hour shift. Grandpa had me putting what I was learning in my Proteins class to work by preparing ‘ready to cook’ meats for the butcher case. I did kebobs, seasoned roasts, stuffed chicken breasts and pork chops. You name it. I even got a couple special orders. Easter was very late this year—only two weeks before the end of school—but people were already planning their meals. Two customers who tried my stuffed porkchops asked if I could prepare a larger stuffed piece, like a leg of pork or lamb, to cook for their Easter dinners. We took the order and Grandpa said he was proud of my progress.

Then I had Dostoevsky to read. Fortunately, The Idiot is one of his ‘shorter’ works at only 650 pages. I was a month away from the project for that in Merck’s class, but I knew I’d never finish the book if I waited to start it. Mary really surprised me, though, when she suggested a final project for that unit.

“Would you, really?” I asked. Wow! We’d talked about it once months ago, much to my embarrassment.

“Yeah. Either you’d need to use your imagination a little or maybe I could borrow Kelly’s double-dildo. But, you did those sketches last fall. I think you could develop it nicely in relation to the book.”

“You know it still goes,” I said. She looked at me curiously. “If you were trans, I’d still be just as much in love with you.”

“I have my own little issues you need to cope with. We’ll just imagine that one.”

And then there was the airport. I spent about three hours a day prepping the wall where I’d paint Eva in May. The painting would be fifteen feet wide and ten feet high. I needed to get all the background in before we could ever do the live performance of the painting.

I wished I could say ‘finally’ when it came to drawing the larger version of The Garden of Earthly Delights, but I still needed to work on my next project for Merck. I’d planned to use Mary’s and my drawing classmate, Andi, as the model for that painting, but she took off for spring break in Florida. I discovered Rania was local, though, having gone to a different high school than we did. She agreed to do the Age of Reason portrait of the Statue of Liberty after I explained what I wanted.

In order to get the full portrait of my nude Statue of Liberty, I needed a canvas eight feet tall and three feet wide. I’d never transport that to school, so I used the time-honored method of doing two canvases four feet tall and three feet wide. I would have to cheat the background image a little and her torch would probably stick up above the canvas, but I wasn’t going to go any bigger than that. This was an instance in which I had to do a background painting of Rania in one pose and then hide it with her body paint portrait in front. It was kind of a shame that I’d be hiding her beautiful skin tone in gray paint. It was going to take all week.

WE STARTED SATURDAY right after classes were out for the week. Everyone liked Eva’s Earthbound drawing earlier in the week and I was relieved that I hadn’t really been slinging paint that week. Sometimes you just need a break. But Saturday afternoon, I was going to work with Rania for the first time.

“I’m a little nervous,” she said as soon as she was inside the front door.

“Oh, Rania! You are so beautiful,” Sarah Lynn jumped right in. “It’s so nice to finally meet you. I’m Sarah Lynn. Come in and relax for a bit. There’s no need to be nervous. We won’t bite.”

“I’m a little relieved already. I mean, I’ve walked across campus with Jett a few times and he’s told me about… um… your family here. I was afraid I might be… I don’t know. That people might not like me coming here to pose.”

“Hi, Rania. I’m Char. We’re used to Jett needing models. We’ve all done it, so we know how much hard work you have to put in and how embarrassing it can be. Would you like tea? I have my own Chai recipe that is sure to relax you.”

“Thank you, Char. You’re so sweet. You were the Medea monster, weren’t you?”

“That’s me. Dear Jett let the monster out and I’m almost a normal girl now.” Char left to get tea and Ariel came bouncing into the room. She isn’t real big up top, but she sure knows how to bounce. And, of course, she was stark naked as usual.

“Hi, Rania! I’m Ariel. I get to show you that you aren’t the only one likely to be nude today. Any of us might forget our clothes at any time. We’re pretty relaxed around here. Jett won’t get naked unless you encourage him to. He works in white briefs that Kelly collects.”

“You! You were The Garden of Earthly Delights! And the Sex Dreams Book! You are the inspiration that got me to volunteer for this. I absolutely adored your pieces.” Rania hugged Ariel in her enthusiasm.

“You probably remember Mary, too,” Ariel said as Mary walked into the room bringing some cookies as Char brought the tea. So far, I hadn’t said a word to my model. The girls had taken charge of getting her comfortable.

“Oh! Hi, Mary. I’m Rania. You were the girl exploding into the universe, weren’t you? I feel like I’m walking among legends.”

“I prefer to think of it as coalescing from the universe into the person I am,” Mary laughed. “These little butter cookies are my favorites. Help yourself.”

“Are there others of you?”

“Kelly and Eva are upstairs finishing up a project. They’ll be down soon,” Sarah Lynn said. “Eva was Athena and Earthbound. You probably won’t recognize Kelly because her project was for a different class. Jett painted her underwear while she was wearing it.”

“Oooh. That sounds as interesting as the body paint. Um… What about the wild ones who were in Bacchanal? There were guys in that, too.”

“Yes, but they aren’t part of our family group. Like you, they just came in to work on a single project,” Sarah Lynn explained.

“They looked like… Well, like maybe we only saw part of the video. They were so ready to have sex it was a little scary.”

“That’s not really our normal mode,” Sarah Lynn continued. “It was a special project that they wanted to do that went a lot further than Jett’s classroom rendition. Maybe someday you’ll want to see it, but it’s not the kind of thing that will get you comfortable for posing. Just be assured that the girls were all with guys they knew and trusted and none of us were involved except in painting them and videoing. We can get wild but it’s for our own consumption, not the public.”

“So, what do we do today?” Rania asked turning to me.

“Oh, hi, Rania. I didn’t realize you were here,” I laughed. “Welcome to our home.”

“Have we been ignoring you, love?” Ariel asked as she planted a kiss on my cheek. I patted her butt and she wiggled it in my hand.

“No. It’s been just right. I wanted to make sure you were comfortable with the environment and the family before I started in on you, Rania. I hope you aren’t too overwhelmed.”

“Not at all. This is exciting. What’s first?”

“Well, there are two parts to the project as I explained. You’ll just pose for the first part and I’ll sketch and then paint. But before I can do that, I need to have your outline in the second pose on the canvas. So, I’ll get you right up against the canvas in the pose that we’ll do when I body paint you and I’ll spray your outline. I’m going to give you safety goggles to make sure the paint doesn’t get in your eyes. When I do the body paint, I’ll be doing your face with a brush and makeup instead of spray. I think that is all we’ll be able to do today other than a few poses and reference shots to make sure we know what we’re doing for the rest of the week. As soon as we’re done, of course, you can shower and get freshened up. We have all the right shampoos and things that will take the paint right out of your hair and off your body.”

“Whoo. I… guess… It sounds like a lot of work. I think… I’m ready to get started,” she said. “I assume this is um… when I undress?”

“Why don’t you go into the studio to get started? Any of us… I mean the girls… will help you if you want or we’ll leave you alone. I’m not going to watch you undress, Rania. I’ll come in when you are ready to pose.”

“Yeah. Um… Ariel? You were such an inspiration. Would you come in with me?”

IT TOOK ABOUT two and a half hours to get the poses set and recorded and to do the spray work on the canvas that would show me exactly where to paint the background image. When we did the final, of course, the spray would be repeated since I’d be painting all the background over it. It took another hour for Rania to emerge from the shower. If she had taken someone in with her, she could have gotten scrubbed faster. Then again, the shower might have taken longer. Rania was truly a lovely woman.

And she had a subtle ethnic quality that made her perfect for a Statue of Liberty. She might be mistaken for any number of different heritages like European, Native American, Latino, Mediterranean, or even Hawaiian. In truth, her mother was Lebanese and her father was of German descent. It had been a good genetic mix to bring about this beauty.

We had dinner and talked about the project and whether Rania needed to shave her pubes. Personally, I liked the fluffy dark bush between her legs. But, as I’d mentioned to Andi when I sketched her, for the painting it is just easier to paint skin than hair.

“Um… I’ve never done that. I’ve trimmed up for a bikini, but… Maybe I’ll go to a salon to have it done,” Rania said.

“If it’s just help you want, I’ll help,” Ariel said. I bet she would! “I’ve had mine all waxed at a salon every six weeks for the past nine months. It’s a little raw the first few days after and hurts like hell. I’m thinking I might have my hair lasered this summer. But I help all the girls here who shave,” she said brightly. Now that was something I didn’t know. In fact, most of what happened in the girls’ bath upstairs was a mystery to me. I was only occasionally invited in to share a bath.

“Really? Um… Let’s talk about it later. That’s really sweet of you, but it seems so intimate.”

“You’d rather have a stranger be intimate with you than one of your new friends?” Ariel responded.

“Tomorrow, we’ll work with the background pose,” I said to change the subject. Just imagining Ariel between Rania’s legs was getting me stiff. “I’m going to have you get in the pose we resolved today and then I’ll sketch it directly on the canvas. What I want to do is get your head as near to the same place as possible, even though the background painting will be not quite life-size. You’re a great model, Rania. We’ll take breaks whenever you need them, but I expect to get the sketch all laid in tomorrow.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to do a few sketches as well,” Mary said.

“I want to do a watercolor, if it’s okay,” Eva added. “We’ll stay out of your way, Jett.”

“With Kelly doing photos and some video, maybe you should move into the living room in front of the blue screen,” Sarah Lynn suggested.

“I really hate to take over the living space again,” I said. “It’s not fair to the rest of you.”

“We can just arrange the furniture so it’s like a theater. It’s not like any of us mind watching you paint. Nor looking at your nude models,” Sarah Lynn laughed.

“We all started out—or at least the five of us before Mary and Eva joined us—watching Jett paint via Skype. We’d all sit in front of our computers and chat while he stood in his underwear and slung paint at the canvas,” Kelly said. “Just so you know, I get the underwear from this project. I’ve got a new pair for you, Jett.”

I sighed. Rania was getting sucked in.

THE REST OF THE WEEK was mostly wash, rinse, repeat. I’d work from six till eleven, grab lunch, and head for the airport. Often Eva and sometimes Mary would come out with me to help lay in the background on our performance project. Whichever joined me, there was always a photo record and some video shot. Then I’d get home around three to see Rania waiting for our session. Sometimes we’d take a break for dinner and then continue, but usually we ended before. After dinner, I would do some additional work on the painting or on the drawing for Blankenship. Then I’d read. Nothing like Dostoevsky to put you to sleep. I usually managed to read until at least eleven before snuggling someone up close to make love and sleep. The girls were figuring out who got what position with whom. I just went to bed and loved whomever I was with.

“ARE YOU SURE?” I asked again. Rania had just told me that she wanted to do the pose in our class on Monday when it resumed. “I mean granted that Ariel and Mary have appeared live in class with the artwork, but they didn’t know anyone in that class. After you do this… Well, everyone will know it’s you. I can’t disguise you that much. You’re just too beautiful. And you’ll know… you’ll know every one of your classmates has seen you naked.”

“I’m not an exhibitionist, Jett. It took me all the courage I could muster to take my clothes off here the first time. But… I’ve seen what you are doing with this piece. Patrick Henry declared to the Virginia Convention, ‘Give me liberty or give me death.’ It was the declaration of a revolution. Our country was founded on the concept that death was the alternative to liberty. But you are showing that in abandoning the age of reason, we brought the two together. Death is liberty. Liberty is death. I believe in what you are saying. And I don’t think the message will be clear unless I step off the pedestal in front of the class and leave them with just the image on canvas. And I saw your sketches. You have the one of Liberty leading the people from the French revolution. I’m sure some Puritan insisted that they couldn’t have a bare-breasted Liberty in New York Harbor. But that’s the one you should paint. And how you should paint me.”

“With your breasts bare?”

“And unadorned. Paint the dress on the rest of me, but don’t even gray out my breasts. Let them see flesh coming through the statue.”

Rania’s passion was intense. Delacroix’s image of Liberty was certainly more passionate than Bartholdi and Eiffel’s stiff Lady. To put the Delacroix image of sixty years earlier in the pose of Bartholdi’s guardian of the shores would give the image a power that I’d only imagined. I turned and hugged my model.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, jumping back from her naked body. I was working shirtless and having her bare boobs pressed up against my skin gave me an instant reaction. She followed me and pressed herself against me. I relented and just enjoyed the contact. A lot.

“Well, let’s get the paint on the canvas, partner,” I whispered in her ear.

I knew the body response. I’d seen it in a video months ago. The instant of impact. The head thrown back. The leg jerking up as the arm is flung to the side. Lonnie’s death was coming back to haunt me again. It took four sessions to paint the canvas. Her body was stripped bare, no fancy costumes painted on or around her. In the outstretched hand, a high-power rifle replacing the torch, in her left hand, not the stone tablet with the date, but a ragged parchment of the Declaration of Independence. On her breast, the single billowing wound of death.

I’d finished everything except her face. We’d tried a hundred expressions and snapped digital photos of each one, but none was right.

“It needs more surprise,” I posited.

“No, I don’t think she has time to be surprised at death,” Rania said. “I just don’t know how to get the moment of agony. The sudden end of her dream. The climax of life in death.” We sat there a few minutes and I watched different expressions cross her face like she was trying on feelings. The video was running to capture anything we thought of that could be useful if we watched it again. “I need to take a few minutes break. Do you mind?”

“Of course not. This is hard work. Every bit as hard for you as for me. Take whatever time you need.”

She was gone longer than I expected as I reviewed the still photos we’d taken. One was close. I could probably work with it. In the video of Lonnie’s murder/suicide, his face had been out of the frame. The cathartic painting I’d done of it had no background and simply faded off at the edge. I’d never really seen the face of death—and, I suppose, I hoped I never would.

When Rania returned, she was flushed. Ariel entered the room right behind her. Rania immediately went to her pose.

“Run the camera, Jett. And take lots of stills. I think we have it.” Once she was in the correct pose, she shifted enough to spread her legs and Ariel crawled between them.

Oh. My. God! I think they’d been working up to this in another room during the half hour she’d been gone. Ariel began licking Rania, whose face began a wide progression of expressions that I captured in both video and stills. It was tempting to point the camera down to Ariel’s lithe tongue parting the folds of Rania’s sex but I kept focused on her face from exactly the angle that I would paint it. The contortion, the rictus, the agony, the release.

The little death.

As Rania cried out her orgasm, I snapped photos as quickly as the Digital SLR could capture them. And I knew that we had the right expression.

MERCK AGREED to let us open the class on Monday after break, even though projects weren’t due until Tuesday to give those who never thought about it during the break a chance to write something up the day after they returned. Merck was a pragmatist.

Rania and I had worked on her body paint for two days after she decided to go with permanent paint. The result was a grey translucent gown through which one could see every curve and hollow of her lower body and her arms. She held the equally gray torch and tablet as props and I did a sweeping gray wig held in place by her crown. The gray makeup on her face seemed to thaw to flesh tones as it neared her chin and neck, only the gray shoulders connecting the gray arms to the body. Because we were doing a live performance of this piece, I had to do a full body paint around the back as well as the front. It was long and tedious to make it look like folds of fabric flowed around her.

Kelly cut her morning classes as well so she could set up a camera at exactly the correct location to get the full impact of the piece. We had to check angles and positions several times and rope off the half dozen seats in the lecture hall that were directly between the camera and the artwork. Sarah Lynn showed up just before the class and took our second video camera to shoot incidental footage, including the reactions and responses of the class.

“What we have been discussing for a semester and a half is how the literature and art of other ages has affected that of contemporary artists. Mr. Blackburn took that to heart and created contemporary art pieces using his own special medium of the human body, video, photo editing, and canvas painting,” Merck reminded the class. “Keep in mind that your artwork, papers, essays, short stories, poetry, skits, and assorted conversations have not been focused on recreating the period but using it as a launchpad for your creativity. Jett has asked that his piece, titled Liberty and Death, be presented without further comment to let you establish your own interpretation. If you would please settle yourselves for this short performance, we will begin.” Merck stepped aside and we changed the lighting in the room so that only the lights we brought from home were on. Then I opened the curtain.

As we practiced, Rania held her pose for over a minute in silence as students shuffled a little to get a better view and a few whispers were passed. I mentioned that she was a great model. She could hold a pose almost as well as one of those living statues you see at fairs and panhandling on street corners.

Then she moved.

At first there was shuffling, thinking the performance was over—even a couple people applauding as she walked straight forward. But as she turned to leave, there was a collective gasp. She turned and walked behind the piece and it seemed like she’d left her shadow on the canvas. In the shadow was not the statue, but the model stripped naked of all paint and pretense. She threw her head back in a grimace of death as blood sprang from her chest, the high-powered rifle raised in her hand worthless against the reality of dying and the Declaration of Independence in her left hand, a tattered shred of her dreams.

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