canvas {a.b.}

s • picasso

               "art washes away
                   from the soul,
      the dust of everyday life."
                                  — pablo picasso

— • —
A casual Friday night would consist of going out with your friends, messing around or perhaps it's staying inside your cozy flat with your favorite Netflix series on. I enjoy doing either both on a Friday night; but this time I found myself at Webster Knight Art Show at the Knight Academy of art.

I'm currently a student at the academy and I have been for the past two years. They've always held these art shows and I've only attended once out of those whole two years (that makes tonight my second time attending.) A lot of students in the academy came to these events regularly, but I never made the time to come. It just so happened that I was free tonight.

"Sage!" I turned around to see a familiar friendly blonde lad. "Oh, hey, Ben," I waved at him, "didn't expect to see you here."

"Can say the same for you." He teased, which made me smile. I had Ben for studio art class. We never actually spoken out of the classroom, but I liked Ben enough to talk to him now. "Have you seen anything interesting around here?" I asked, glancing around at the couple paintings around the wall. Don't get me wrong, I admired the artist's work, but nothing really shocked me or caught my eye yet. Everyone seemed to be inspired by something similar.

"Sure did. Down the fifth hall, left column, there's this one awesome painting by the American here. It's so different from most of these, but i think you'd like it." Ben informed as his eyes lit up with a hint of post fascination as he described it. I've seen that look before; it comes around when people talk about the most beautiful thing that they've ever seen. I then became curious as to what this painting even looked like.

I glanced at the hallway behind Ben and bit my lip, "Down the hall, you said?" He shook his head and pointed at the opposite direction. "Down the fifth hall. Left column." he corrected. with that, he scratched the back of his head and sighed contently, "Would love to stay and chat, but I got things to do. Nice seeing you."

I simply nodded and grinned, "See you on Monday."

Ben walked away and headed downstairs as I started for the fifth hallway, as Ben instructed. Many more paintings were hung up on the red walls, all beautiful, yet they lacked that simple eye catcher to them. That was until one caught my eye. It was a rather dark painting, showing the body of a partly nude woman with a sword impaled into her ribs. She was holding a dying red rose and you can see a smile on the woman's face.

"Wow," I breathed out, my thoughts becoming verbal statements, "that's absolutely beautiful."

"Glad you think so."

I turned my head and saw the person who I assumed painted this. Ben did recall the artist having an American accent, and this dude had an obvious one. He started coming to the academy since the middle of September, but I never got a chance to learn his name, or even speak to him. Well, there's a first time for everything.

"It's so different," I said, my gaze going back to the painting ,"what got you to paint this?" I asked him. He chuckled and ran his hand through his jet black hair. "Well, you know, the rose represents something that was once filled with life but it fades into it's own corpse and it leaves a bad trademark, it doesn't hold the beauty it once did. And, uh, the woman, she's obviously dying and, like the rose, she's decomposing into her type of corpse and it's like she's looking in the mirror, you know." He explained, a small nervous laugh followed along when he finished his explanation. He really seemed to try to explain to me without sounding sociopathic.

That's the thing about art; you use your mind to express the thing that holds you down, and people call it art.

"It's gorgeous." I nodded as I looked over at him, "I don't think I ever caught your name."

"Oh, right, I'm Andy Biersack." He smiled and extended his hand out for me to shake it. I gladly took his hand and shook it, "Sage Valentine." I returned the smile.

"I know you, you're in my fine arts course." He chuckled and I cocked in my eyebrow, "Really? I never noticed you."

The class has 50 students and I'm not good with faces.

"That's cool," Andy nodded, "Anyway, you're the first person to look at my painting and actually compliment it without looking like this," he then looked at his painting and made a facial expression mocking terror and shock. I started laughing at the ridiculous model and shook my head, "How did they compliment though? Like, did they say it was 'weird' or 'different?'"

"No, it was described as a 'horrific masterpiece'. Not the type of description you'd go for, but, I'm taking it as a compliment." Andy explained with a giggle following along. It was somewhat hard to believe someone as shy and chill as this dude created something so dark and mysterious.

That's another thing about art; it really shows that the difference between the mind and the soul. It's something my dad said when I was a kid, but I never really understood what it meant until I grew up eventually.

"I'll say," I smiled and studied the painting once more, "I wouldn't put horrid in the description, but I will add in 'mysterious'."

"And why's that?"

"Because usually when people look at stuff like this, they try to figure out what's the story behind it. In this case, I had to ask. Did anyone else ask you?"

"Almost every visitor."

"That proves my point correct."

Andy shifted a little and grinned at me, "I like you, Sage Valentine."

I looked away from the painting and fixed my glasses before looking at him, "Likewise, Andy Biersack."

Before any of us could say anything else, the executive director, Director Amelia Dagger of Webster Knight, and her two visitors stopped by Andy's painting, jaws dropping except Dagger's.

"My, my! I haven't seen a work of art so eye catching in the last 15 years!" She gushed over the painting. Dagger was the headmaster's wife, and she's pretty respected here. Another thing about Dagger is that if she loves your painting enough to acknowledge it, your painting belongs in a history book. I wouldn't even be surprised if this one Andy did made it on the next generation of history textbooks.

I stepped to the side as Dagger and her two visitors shook his hand and discussed his work. As they spoke, I decided that that was my cue to go already. It was fun, but the night was still young and I wanted to relax. Before I left, though, Andy looked at me and smiled. I gave him a small wave before leaving.

Maybe on Monday I'll talk to him, or maybe even Ben once again.