Stargazer

Chapter 2

6

The Art Den, known just as ‘the Den’ among the students, was one of the largest buildings on the Rocky Barrens University campus. The sprawling space divided into studios, both closed-door and open-concept, with windows across most walls, allowing for natural light to filter in. This was not only home to the Fine Arts students, who had 24-hour access to the space, but the location of the parties and raves that took place at RBU throughout the year. There was an unspoken understanding with the art students, a trust bestowed upon them by the administration, that permitted creation and frivolity at all hours. The high quality of the work coming out of the Fine Arts program was already gaining a reputation for the school, and there was a shared awareness that this space, in all of its permutations, was necessary for great work.

The Fine Arts cohort was small. Twenty people were accepted to the program each year. Diana looked around the space: a smattering of folding chairs; an area at the front of the room where faculty were sitting, holding coffee mugs. Students stood awkwardly in clumps. The work of former and current artists hung on the walls. Easels pushed to the perimeter of the room. Music played from somewhere. Diana watched them all carefully, taking note. Long-haired Bohemians, girls in second-hand cords and Nirvana T-shirts, guys with nose-rings and blue hair, conservatively dressed small-town kids, ravers, goths, grunge, punk, indie, Brit-pop, Ska – there was a bit of everything. She knew they would underestimate her. They would form groups and make friends quickly. They would be relieved to find common interests in music and books, and they would suffer through midterms together and stay up late and have campfires and confide about love and breakups. She saw all of this and she was outside of it, but unbothered. She chose a chair away from anyone else, and folded her long body into a sitting position, her legs stretched out to the side and crossed at the ankle.

A small woman with cropped, messy dark hair, a youthful face and a Blondie T-shirt moved to the front of the assembled group, smiling. The chatter died down, and those who weren’t yet sitting found seats.

‘Good morning,’ she said, her voice strong and confident in the large studio space. ‘And welcome to the Art Den.’ There were murmurs and shy smiles. Diana waited, unmoving. ‘I am Grace McLaughlin, Professor of Painting and Chair of the Fine Arts program here at RBU. You may call me Grace. We may not be now, but one day, with the right tutelage, I hope we will become peers.’ She then introduced her fellow faculty members, mostly older men, and one petite Parisian woman who taught drawing. ‘Together, we will challenge you to make art that is meaningful, difficult, and of excellent quality.’

She regarded the students, then continued.

‘Sometimes you will fail. You may be told that your work is derivative, that it is sentimental, that it lacks skill. If you are to succeed here, this will not bring you down. You will push on to make your work better, stronger, different from the rest. Your backgrounds – be it wealth, or good breeding, or connections – will not make a difference here. Talent will be the great equalizer. You will spend long hours here. These studios are available to you 24 hours a day. We recognize the value in giving young artists free rein to experiment, not only with your work, but with your imaginations, your social circles, your lives.’ She paused. ‘I myself am a graduate of the Rocky Barrens University Fine Arts program, from many moons ago. It was important then, and continues to be vital, for young artists to disrupt the status quo. Push yourselves. Make mistakes. Threaten order.’ Grace’s eyes grew wider, and rested on Diana, who held her breath. She nodded, almost imperceptibly. Yes.

Grace waited, letting her statements sink in.

‘Your art should demand things of the viewer, even if it is simply the appreciation of technical skill. Do not underestimate the value of learning how to render fabric, water, skin, hair or wood. Beyond artistry, be constantly asking yourself about concept, meaning, heart. Take license,’ she said, her voice unwavering. ‘By force, if necessary.’

Grace McLaughlin smiled now and, with that, the students were hers. Diana, too. She was seduced by the liberty and by the challenge. An artistic call to arms.

Finally, Grace said, quietly, ‘This is your time to be wild.’

The rest of the morning was devoted to drawing, led by the small French professor named Isabel. The students chose easels from the stack against the walls and formed a circle around a large area with a stool, where a middle-aged woman soon entered in a robe. Each easel had a pad of newsprint adhered to it. Diana had purchased all the supplies suggested in the list the school had posted out back in June: oil paints and bolts of canvas and stretchers, pencils and charcoal and oil sticks. She’d brought her own materials from Toronto, too. There was also an art supply shop that ran out of a closet-sized room between the studios, its front a cut-out window with a half-door below. It was operated by upper-year students, wearing long-suffering looks of boredom as they executed transactions with the enthusiastic first years. Diana had seen a line of people waiting to make purchases in the break before the class began, and had chosen her own easel early, setting it up and waiting, watching.

The woman in the center, the model, took her robe off unceremoniously. She rested her foot on a part of the stool, her arms at her sides, and turned her head slightly. She was around fifty years old, with a slender and muscular body. Her hair was greasy and fell in stringy pieces down her back. Diana took this all in; some students around her also looked, some pretended not to, many having never drawn a nude before.

‘We are going to do an exercise,’ Isabel announced loudly to the room, which fell silent, listening. ‘These are four-second drawings.’ She paced, her posture like a ballerina’s, chin held high. ‘You need to demonstrate form, muscle and where the model is putting her weight, using only the line and weight of your charcoal. You should only have one or two lines in each drawing to render this. The model will change her pose, and you will have a moment to flip to the next fresh page.’ She paused, her eyes roving around the room at her new students. ‘Choose your charcoal now.’

There was a shuffle of movement, and the model suddenly came to life, curling her torso inward, her hair falling over her face.

‘Begin,’ Isabel called.

The other students were talented, Diana could see right away. The girl beside her, Kim, had a confident approach to drawing, a lack of hesitation that cost others time – like the guy on Diana’s other side, Noah, who tried to draw too much, too lightly. This aligned with Diana’s first impressions of them. Kim was bold and outgoing, and had thrust her hand at Diana as soon as she’d dragged her easel over. Noah nervously copied what other students were doing as they had set up their stations. Now, they all kept tabs on one another, despite the fast pace of the exercise; eyes darted between easels, students sizing each other up. Diana knew all of this, acutely aware of the held breath, of the sharp taste of competition that moved like a live thing among them.

‘Change!’ Isabel called out every four seconds, and the model changed her pose. There was a frantic rustle as pages were turned or torn from their pads, floating down like enormous white leaves while the students’ stark and simple renderings became simpler still – stronger, better. Lines drawn with such pressure that pads held indents of the model’s throat, her back, her buttocks, her breasts. One line. Two Lines. ‘Change!’

Diana was smiling. This was her arena, her gladiatorial debut. She became aware when Isabel stood behind her for a spell, Kim and Noah’s bodies shifting slightly, a tension in their movements. Isabel simply murmured a ‘very good,’ and continued to move around the room.

During a break between classes, Diana stayed close to her easel station, observing the other students as they chatted, starting friendships that they would later say were the most important of their lives. Kim established herself as a kind of leader immediately, her voice and laugh carrying, others watching her and nodding in agreement as she spoke. Diana felt no need to connect with any of them, choosing instead to study the quick drawings she’d done in the session, assessing them for weaknesses and strengths.

‘So, do you live on campus?’ Noah asked after the break, as they were setting up for a painting session with Grace.

‘No, I’m across the lake at my family’s cottage with a friend.’

‘Oh yeah? That’s cool.’ He paused. ‘I’m at Segwun residence. I’ve only been there a week and the hallway already smells like stale beer.’ He shrugged, pulling out some paints. ‘And… sometimes puke.’

Diana smiled lightly. ‘Yes, we’ve been to a couple of parties there.’

And so they had. Diana and Aurelle had soaked up everything about the nightlife of the campus since they’d arrived a few weeks prior. They’d sought out keggers and raves in the residence, nights in the Art Den, as well as bush parties and house parties. Together, they roved the campus after dark and wandered into whichever place was most appealing to them in the bubbling undercurrent of debauchery. As the summer ended, more students arrived, and by the time Frosh Week hit, the nightlife in the woods was in full swing.

‘I thought I’d seen you around. You look familiar,’ Noah said. He squinted, and pointed at paintbrush at her. ‘Isn’t your mother famous, or something?’

Diana regarded him coolly. ‘No. She’s not.’ She turned pointedly away from him, and adjusted her focus to her the center of the room, where Grace had entered.

‘Okaaay,’ Noah muttered, and blew out his cheeks. Diana didn’t care. He was talking about Marianne, about Aurelle, and she would give him nothing. But a tiny part of her thrilled at the thought of being mistaken for Marianne Taylor’s daughter. As she watched Grace speaking with Isabel, Diana thought about how far she’d come from those days of watching the Taylors from her bedroom window.

Better than family.