Drawing A Blank

How nothing at all became the latest art craze.

Contest Prompt

"Write a story or poem about an artist struggling to find inspiration.''

“It is a statement most profound,” Chan Ivry, art critic, felt the vision’s bold statement slap him in his face with its bold appearance turning his mind blank.

He was jostled into motion by the rich madam Clarice Devour. “I say. Why isn’t there a painting here? Take this blank canvas away before the fault is noticed.”

The stunned artist, Henrique Arsay, tapped her on the shoulder, “Padon, mon ami, this art is mine. It represents the difficulty in finding inspiration which creativity demands. This subject alone, has been keeping my mind captive for months. Voila. You view an inspiration.”

“You are a blankety blank fool if you believe that.” Clarice reached up, tugged at the canvas, and wrenched it off the wall. She battered it over Henrique’s head, shattering its hope of ever being whole again.

“There.” She wiped small scattered pieces off the artist’s head and blew the attached debris off her gloves. "I had my own inspiration."

He stood transfixed, staring out of the frame and its hanging larger pieces. “What have you done?”

“Stand still. You have become art itself. You and your canvas are one and the same.”

“She’s right,” an inspired Henrique said after a long silent pause, while spitting out a cloud of dust. "Why didn't I think of this before?"

The art event’s photographer, summoned quickly, began taking photos that would be prominent news on the morrow. Excited attention gathered around Henrique as he refused to move an inch. “Mon du, I feel it in my bones. Ouch.” Henrique pulled a splinter out of his skin.

Chan Ivry’s art critique article about Henreique becoming art reverberated across nations.

The money donated by an approving Clarice Devour who shared in the honor, inspired Henrique to create a whole new movement of avant-garde called ‘Living Art’’. It features both the artist and their expression of art combined.” The next creation, the well remembered ‘Artist Painting Himself Into A Corner’ drew international applause.

"C'est la vie. What is a frustrated artist to do?” Uninspired copy cats soon dominated the scene. Public interest began to fade. Henrique grew despondent. Clarice Devour sent her art donations elsewhere. The world turned away. “ I’m struggling worse than ever before, but for what artistic result?" screamed Henrique in the dark to his bedroom walls.

Art knows no bounds. Its interpretation is personal, yet its expression universal. Value is determined by spanning artistic merit, market forces, and historical context with an elusive result. Henrique was about to become its nexus.

“Henrique? Yes, I remember him vaguely. A flash in the pan. What’s he doing now, cleaning other artists' paintbrushes?” Clarice asked Chan Ivry.

“People are talking. No-one’s seen him in months. He won’t answer his door. There are rumors he’s finishing something new and revolutionary.” Chan Ivry needed to stir up some interest. His website was declining in subscribers approaching catastrophe.

“Slide this under his door.” Clarice whipped out a blank check. She signed the bottom and handed it to Chan. “He’ll have to come out to cash it. While he does, go in and see what’s up.”

“It is non-art art,” Chan reported, spreading photos of Henrique’s bedroom like cards from a deck on Clarice’s diamond studded end table. “He was in such a rush to cash the check, he wouldn’t tell me a word about it, just told me to come in and see for myself.”

Perfection is an abstract in this world of ours. Henrique’s bedroom was a perfect mess. Half empty pizza covers littered the floor. Pop bottles played spin the bottle as Chan kicked to make room for his feet. He stopped, faint from the smell of moldy socks and widened his teary eyes.

“I’ve got it. Hidden in this garbage pile is the unexplored art world mankind has been waiting for.”

The effort to produce equally perfect non-art art became a competition without parallel. Copycats stank. They were quickly revealed for the sad wannabee’s they were.

“I give up.” Henrique retired into his bedroom non-art art masterpiece. For months he dedicated himself to taking up his new hobby making Origami out of pieces of Swiss cheese for the neighborhood kids previously addicted to playing Candy Crush on their cellphones. "I'm bored. I'm getting frustrated with my life. It has to have more meaning than this."

"He's got to help me." Chan came knocking at his door.


Wc 726