Dealings in Vermeer

Girl in History

It was a stressful time of the year. I made the mistake of checking my email in the middle of the Contemporary Art course and froze when the all-too-familiar words jumped out of the phone screen: we regret to inform you...

My vision tunneled and the room fell away. A stinging, cold sensation crept up my legs and arms like a delayed electric shock. I took a deep breath but suddenly the lecture hall air smelled rancid and I was forced to take shallow, quick breaths to keep myself from drowning in the growing pool of despair in my chest.

I couldn't feel my stomach. The room was suddenly too cold.

The email from the university career office flagging the imminent deadline for art specialist internships sat unread. Dragging my clammy palm over denim, I turned back to my laptop and started to browse through my art portfolio for the umpteenth time.

Professor Patrica was calling attention to a piece of abstract art on the projector but all I could be bothered with was my latest piece of digital art: a couple of colorful pods entangled in mid-swim in a transparent lake. And the note beneath it from Nel that read: it's beautiful, but I don't know if it makes me feel something.

I gnaw at my nails. That was my chronic problem. Technique, lines, color – I had it all but put together into an original piece of work? Empty. Soulless. Lacking.

I had spent the entirety of last summer wrecking my head over what could be going wrong but no one could give me a concrete answer. To be told that my artwork wasn't up to par was a grave without a reason.

"See you next week," Professor Patrcia said to the class. Sounds of collective chair dragging and shirts ruffling rose up.

"Yumin? A minute, please."

I stood up to leave but Prof. Patrica approached me with a concerned smile. She was one of the ten or so professors dedicated to teaching the major-related courses for the joint accelerated Art History Programme. She taught her subjects with a dedicated ferocity, and I was sure that she had come to comment on my inattention.

The joint accelerated Art History Programme at Nanyang Technological University was one of its five specialized offerings that allowed undergraduates to complete their bachelor's and masters together over five years. It was notorious for accepting only a handful of students each year, most from rich families who could afford to pay what was the most expensive semester enrollment fee in the country.

Money was never going to deter my mother's incessant nagging that I should take up an art or history-related degree. For her, the best I could do was to continue her legacy in the art industry. She was something of a big name among artists and galleries – a marketing director at one of the top art auction houses in Singapore. But that was her, not me.

All I wanted in high school was to be free of her. Walk away from her six-inch red stilettos and the fractured canvas under them, the smell of expensive cigarettes and alcohol mingling in the air on nights when she was in a bad mood. And she could be in a bad mood for a long, long time.

But I was nothing but my mother's daughter. Having proved myself incapable of mathematics or physics in high school, I begrudgingly agreed to take up Art History at Nanyang Technological University.

To my surprise, Professor Patricia handed me a small A2 flyer. The background was a black-and-white picture of a sleek office with multiple medieval art pieces staring at each other from the walls. Some fancy modern gallery or auction house, probably. At the bottom was a semi-transparent box overlay with the company's contact details and instructions for new applicants.

"If you haven't found something yet, I think this will be a good opportunity."

I take the flyer from her; nod once. Groan internally. The career office must have tipped her off, and I couldn't complain – the professional attachment was supposed to start in December.