“Not with art,” Rushkin said, “but the spirit of art. The muse who whispers in our ears, who cajoles and demands and won’t be silent or leave us in peace until we have done her will.”
He gave her an expectant look, but Izzy didn’t know how to reply to that. She knew about being inspired—what most people meant when they spoke of a muse—but Rushkin spoke as if it was an actual person who came to him and wouldn’t let him rest until she’d gotten what she needed from him.
“You’ll see,” Rushkin told her after a few moments.
“What’ll I see?”
But Rushkin was finished with that conversation now. “It’s a good thing we’ve had you working in such standard sizes,” he said. “I think I have finished frames for all the pieces we’ve chosen. Help me bring them up from the store-room, will you?”
Izzy knew better than to press any further. She followed him downstairs and they spent the remainder of the morning framing the paintings Rushkin had chosen and carefully wrapping each of them for transit.
“How were you planning to take them to the gallery?” Rushkin asked when they were finally done.
“My friend Alan’s waiting for me to call. He’s going to drive me over.”
When Alan arrived, Rushkin helped them lug the paintings down to Alan’s car. He shook hands with Alan, wished Izzy good luck, then disappeared back into his studio before Izzy had time to thank him for all his help. She adjusted the paintings in the backseat of Alan’s Volkswagon one last time, then got into the passenger’s seat beside him.
“So that’s Rushkin,” Alan said as they pulled away from the curb. Izzy nodded.
“He’s not at all like what I expected.”
Izzy glanced over at him. “What were you expecting?”
“I thought he’d be more like that drawing you showed me of him last year.”
“Like it how?”
“Well, more grotesque, I suppose. I didn’t realize you’d done a caricature.”
“But I didn’t do a caricature ...”
“Whoops,” Alan said. He gave a quick embarrassed laugh. “I guess I put my foot in my mouth this time, didn’t I? Look, don’t pay any attention to me, Izzy. What the hell do I know about art? Hey, are you and Kathy really planning to get a place on my block?”
“If we can afford it.”
She let him steer the conversation away, but she couldn’t get what he’d said out of her mind. She knew that all artists had blind spots in how they perceived their own work, thinking it better than it was, or worse, but she hadn’t thought that she could have gone that far astray when she’d redone her sketch of Rushkin last September. Granted, she hadn’t had him sitting in front of her the way he’d been in the original drawing that he’d taken away with him when he left, but still ...
IV
Albina Sprech—the, as she put it, “proud owner and sole employee” of The Green Man Gallery—was much older than Izzy had imagined she would be. Because Jilly had referred to her as such a good friend of hers, Izzy had been expecting someone in her mid—to late twenties, but when she thought about it, she really shouldn’t have been surprised. July’s friendships crossed all borders: age, race, sex, social standing, and lack thereof.
Albina was in her fifties, a small, compact woman with greying hair that had lost none of its luster.
Her facial features, the pronounced cheekbones and high brow, combined with the pale blue eyes that didn’t seem to miss a thing, reminded Izzy of a Siamese cat. She had a feline grace when she moved, as well, a lazy elegance that, like a housecat’s, couldn’t quite belie the wild spirit lying just under the veneer of her cultivated demeanor. She was dressed casually in a wool sweater and slacks, her only jewelry a pair of small gold hoop earrings and a gold broach shaped like an artist’s palette. Izzy hoped she’d age half as well herself.
“Jilly certainly didn’t overstate your talent,” Albina said after studying the paintings that Izzy and Alan had brought into the gallery. “Although I must admit that I am somewhat surprised at the maturity that’s already so evident in your work. Quite a remarkable achievement for an artist of your years.”
“I, urn, thank you,” Izzy mumbled, her cheeks burning.
“We don’t see enough of this style anymore,” Albina went on. “At least not from the younger artist.
Realistic, certainly, yet undeniably painterly. It—I hope you won’t mind me saying this—but these paintings of yours remind me a great deal of Vincent Rushkin’s work. Your palette, your use of light, your handling of textures.”
“I study under Rushkin,” Izzy said.
Albina gave her a considering look, eyebrows arching. “Oh, really. Isn’t that odd. I’ve heard so little of the man in the past decade or so, I thought he’d passed away, or at least retired.”
“He still paints every day; he just doesn’t show anymore.”
“And,” Albina said, her eyes taking on a faraway look, “does his work still retain its power?”
“Very much so. If anything, he keeps getting better.”
“You’re very lucky to be working with him. Whenever I look at The Movement of Wings, I can’t help but shiver. I have a reproduction of it hanging in my dining room at home.” She looked up and smiled at Izzy. “I think his work was what drew me into this field in the first place.”
Izzy returned the gallery owner’s smile. She’d had a postcard of The Movement of Wings on the wall of her bedroom back on the island and lost herself a thousand times in Rushkin’s cloud of pigeons, circling about the War Memorial in Fitzhenry Park.
“I know exactly what you mean,” she said.
“Well, then.” Albina shook her head as though to clear it. “This puts an entirely different light on matters.”
“How so?”
“Frankly, while I was quite taken with your work, I felt it was perhaps a little too derivative of Rushkin’s style to take for the gallery. You know how the word can get around, how spiteful people can be. At this stage in your career, the last thing you need is to be thought of as simply an imitator. A critique like that can stay with you throughout your entire career. But there is, of course, a long tradition in our field, of a student’s work reflecting aspects of her mentors’.
And I can see, particularly from your use of perspective, that you have already begun to gain a sense of your own style.”
“I’m trying,” Izzy said.
“Of course you are. And while these things should never be rushed, I can see where you will be having your own shows in the not too distant future.” Lead-ing the way back to her desk, Albina added,
“Now we’ll have to fill out a few forms. We take a forty-percent commission and our checks go out once a month. That’s not a hard and fast rule, however. If something of yours has sold and you’re desperate for some cash, I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out. But please. Don’t be calling me every day to see how your paintings are moving ....”
V
All right!” Alan cried once they were out on the pavement in front of the gallery. “You did it!”
Izzy accepted his hug, but she was finding it a little hard to muster as much enthusiasm herself
“What’s the matter, Izzy? I thought you’d be thrilled.”
“I am, I guess.”
“But ... ?”
Izzy gave him a halfhearted smile. “It’s just that I feel the only reason she took my stuff on was because of Rushkin. It’s like my paintings only have validity because they were done in his studio, under his eye.”
Alan shook his head. “Whoa. Wait a minute now.”
“No. You heard what she said. She thought my stuff was too derivative for her gallery until I told her I was studying under Rushkin.”