In The Frame (Fiction)
There's a method to it. A lot of people who come in here will take one look at the place and then look back at me like I'm crazy, like I'm at risk for letting it "get this bad" or something. The assumption they all have is that this was once a clean, orderly, tidy place. The idea that there was once a time where it wasn't like this, where I placed a paper out of its perfect spot or I let a marker roll a little too far off the desk, and then I kept sliding down that slippery slope until I was up to my ankles in mechanical pencils and pocket journals; it isn't like that. It’s not just my artistic process– it’s my art.
How do you find anything in all this mess, people like to ask. People like to ask a lot of questions and make a lot of comments about how I keep my space. I always wonder why-- it's not like they're the ones who work here. I like to tell them that I can find anything easily, because I know where things are. Well, how do you know? They ask again. Simple, I say, pulling out my chair and disrupting the pile of notecards on it with scribbled out novel ideas. Most of my paint pens are under the desk, because I do my best paintings while lying on my stomach. The post-it notes on the walls look like a conspiracy board to only an outside observer-- I have them color coordinated in synchronicity with my synesthesia. If I'm looking for a sketchbook from a specific year, I go to the spot in my room I associate with that year, and there it is. Simple. I don't know why people put things in boxes and drawers when you can just come up with a system like that?
Do you lose things, they ask. I laugh right in their faces and gesture around the room as if they haven't seen it. Yes. Of course I lose things.
If I can't find it anymore, well, then that's on me. I guess I just didn't care enough about that old sketchbook or those stickers to keep a closer eye on them. If they're lost in the sea of supplies, I'll say bon voyage. There's a method. Part of the method is letting things go when they're gone. I think that's very "Marie Kondo" of me, actually, letting things go without much fuss.
Eccentric artists are always revered and seen as these cool, introspective, fascinating creatures until we pull the curtain back too far and the art lovers see just how "eccentric" we really are. The ritual of getting a morning coffee and staring wistfully out the window, thinking about art and being creative; that is the uncreative's fantasy of what a creative is. It is not the reality that people want to see. It is not clean, orderly, tidy. This is my art. It works.
I always know where to find the pony beads. Why does it matter how it looks as long as I know where to find my pony beads?
What confuses me is why I even let people see my room anymore when I know what their reaction is going to be. Some emotion on the spectrum between shock and disgust. My roommate’s face no longer betrays the whoa-yuck when they pop their head in to tell me rent is due, or when they bring up my delivered groceries.
“Leave it by the canvases.” I’ll always tell them. It’s the most identifiable item that’s also closest to the door.
Last week, their eyes swept around the room as if they were searching for something, like they couldn't quite comprehend what they’re seeing. Then their eyes fell on me and they jumped, clutching a hand to their hoodie and holding onto the doorframe with the other.
“Sorry,” They said, setting down the groceries. “I didn’t see you there.”
“It’s okay. I know it’s kind of hard to tell at this point.”
“Is this… performance art?”
I can’t tell them that the paint on my body is neither intentional, nor unintentional. That it is just part of the process; the paper mache finds its own way into my hair, under my nails. The yarn has a mind of its own. “Sure. You could say that.”
At some point, I stopped showing people to my room. There didn’t seem to be any reason to, anymore, now that I was doing art full-time. Work didn’t matter as much as my art did– same to going out. It’s not like any potential partners wanted to stay over in this heap. There would be no companionship for me for people who would not surround themselves in my art the way I do.
“I don’t get how you live like this,” My then-girlfriend would wrinkle her nose and try to clean up.
“I could tell you,” I offered, ready to explain myself at a moment’s notice.
“No, no.” She said, “That’s fine.” She would shelve my sketchbooks in the bookshelf I used to hold my fabric, and the moment she left, I would take them down again.
I stopped ordering groceries. I don’t need to eat anymore; I'm too busy with my magnum opus. Nowadays, I sleep instead, my bed becoming neglected in favor of the floor. It feels right to be there. Like I am closer to my work.
In my dreams, my roommate keeps my door open but restricts access behind velvet rope, like in a museum. People will take the elevator up to the sixth floor and walk down the sterile hallway and through the clean living room and be met with me. They will be bewildered that there used to be chintz in this room, that it was anything other than paper and paint and beads and tape and color and enamel and resin and my body and ink.
When they see me, they will not clutch their chests and support themselves in the frame. They will smile and point and be awed at my technique, artists from the world coming to admire my distinct and methodical touches. Maybe they will understand why I place my paint pens under the desk just by looking. Maybe they will comprehend the synesthetic language of my post-it notes. Maybe they will crack the code of what year correlates to what sketchbook, and I will no longer be a mystery to those who observe me.
I am lost in the sea of my studio, and I am happy to let myself go.