Art Therapy

Stay Back

"James, please stay back after class. There's something I need to discuss with you."

"Sure thing Miss Lysa," James replied with a sigh, putting down the books and art supplies he was placing in his bag. He guessed he was in trouble because even as he was handing in his art project earlier, he could tell from Miss Lysa's face that she was far from impressed.

Well, he had miscalculated the amount of time he would need to finish the sculpture over the weekend and had ended up doing such a botched up job that he contemplated not handing it in at all but decided against it last minute.

Once the other six students had left class, he walked over to where miss Lysa was hunched, muling over some end of term project proposals. She looked ever so serious as her glasses sat perched loosely over her nose. He leaned in and let out a little cough, not wanting to startle her.

"Ah James, please sit down," she said, looking up into his face then pointing him to the chair opposite her desk which she circled, to stand above him.

"So I think you know why I asked you to stay back. Your project was, quite plainly, below average," she said, nodding over to the cracked vase at the edge of the table. Looking at it now, next to the other decently cured pieces, he had to admit it looked trash.

"You're one of my best students and I was surprised when I saw this. I know you have your finals coming up but you should try as much as possible to also put in time with your project. This was just a test run using clay but
I hope you know this will make a huge chunk of your grade-able results."

"Am sorry miss Lysa I have no excuses about this, I know need to put in more time. I guess sculpting isn't as easy as I thought."

"I know you're okay with the other aspects of fine art but this is a new skill and like everything, you have to put in the time and effort to see it through to the end. Now I want to give you another chance. Am grading these projects on Friday so that means you have three days to start all over and give me something better. I know you are busy with classes at the moment so I'd like you to come in everyday after class to work on this until prep time ends. I can give you a note to hand to your class teacher to exempt you from night preps just for this week till Friday. Do you feel this is something you're comfortable with?"

"Yes that would be okay. And thanks for giving me a second go at this."

"Great! Now I'll give you a copy of my keys to the studio and you can come in during night preps to work on this. I will not be around but you can always let yourself in and lock up when you're done." With this, she leaned over to grab the key chain across her desk and handed them to him and as she did, she got close enough to him so much so that he could get a whiff of her. Her perfume was always pretty intoxicating...something close to warm vanilla sugar and James always found its subtlity very distracting.
She was close to 10 years older than him but he couldn't help notice how radiant her skin looked up close. And although she smiled often and was pretty chill half the time, he knew not to get on her bad side. So he was determined not mess the second chance she had so generously granted him. Secretly, he also wanted to impress her because if anything, she was nothing short of amazing when it came to the fine arts.

With the keys in his pocket and bag slung over his shoulder, he walked out the studio, making a personal promise to show up and show out over the next few days.

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