A/N Here's the next chapter for Invisible Dreamer! I'm sorry it's so short. Please review though!
Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight
Chapter Three: Art Class
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Charles Wallace stepped towards him. "Who are you?"
"A Teacher."
Charles Wallace's sigh was longing. "I wish you were my teacher."
"I am." The cello-like voice was calm, slightly amused.
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Her art teacher, Mrs. Nahimana, was the only person Kim thought actually knew her name. She had that kind of artist sensibility that noticed all the tiny details that individualized each person and each day. Shaper than any Sherlock Holmes, Mrs. Nahimana could tell you what everyone was wearing at the end of the day because she took the time to notice. Kim wondered sometimes if anyone knew how incredibly rare that was.
And yet…. for Mrs. Nahimana everything was like a detail on a painting. She noticed clothing and pattern and color in her life the same way she would contemplate the brushstrokes and colors and composition in a Monet landscape. The details for her were two-dimensional and abstract. She saw Kim's black sweater, but not Kim's face. Kim was reminded again about something her priest had said… about looking into each person's face and seeing the Image of God. Mrs. Nahimana didn't see the image of God – she didn't even see the image of common humanity.
Still, Kim could never decide whether Mrs. Nahimana was to be pitied or admired. The fact that she did live each day with a keen consciousness of its particularity was something to be admired. Most people lived the weeks and months with a vague blankness around their eyes, almost as if they were viewing the world through wax paper. However, at the same time, her consciousness was like a connoisseur's appreciation of a Van Eyck masterpiece. It dehumanized where it should have created.
But for all that, Mrs. Nahimana did know her name – which was more than Kim could say for the rest of the people in the building. Maybe it was because Kim was the only one in the school who had a love for art. Not to say that she didn't have talent too – but Mrs. Nahimana wasn't necessarily just looking for talent. She desired students who came to art because they loved the feel of chalky pastels in their hands, or nasty-smelling oil paints on their canvas.
And strangely enough – Kim did love it – all of it. For that one period she was able to shed her normally pragmatic, organized personality and lifestyle for something spontaneous, challenging and disordered. She loved the messy pastels, the smelly paints, and the difficult subjects.
Oh, she was aware that art – just like any other craft – had to be learned and practiced. It had techniques that must be mastered and skills that had to be completed. But there was also this nebulous underworld quality to art, sort of like the underside of an iceberg, which existed beyond techniques or rules or skills.
It was that nebulous quality that made her love to paint, that made her almost able to forget Jared for a blessed hour.
Depending on her mood, Kim painted in two different styles. She loved the old realism of the sixteenth and seventeenth century Dutch school. It was a style painstakingly built up over layers and layers of thinned oil paints. It was an exact style that still managed to be mysterious – mainly because Kim was never quite sure after all the layers were dry how the painting would turn out. Kim liked the style though because it required a severe patience, but also a dash of inventiveness as she impulsively mixed her paints and oils together.
She also liked the Dutch school because of their obsession with light. The paintings of Rembrandt could be so dark, until he illuminated the subject with one austere shaft of bright light. She loved Rembrandt, but her favorite artist was Jan Vermeer. Vermeer's style was softer and more subtle…. He painted with tiny pinpoints of light – almost anticipating the Impressionists' techniques – and Kim loved the muted yellow and blue tones of his work.
Although the Dutch artists tended to focus on interior scenes, Kim used the techniques for her small, intimate studies of the landscape around La Push – the forest with sunlight occasionally throwing dappled shadows through the trees, or the ocean on a stormy day.
However, the particular craft of the Dutch school could take months to achieve, so Kim usually experimented with it in the corner of the kitchen at home, which her mother grandly called her "studio," because it had the best light in the house (good, natural light being none too plentiful in rainy Washington). Mrs. Nahimana rarely saw those.
At school she habitually painted in a style almost diametrically opposed to that of the Dutch school. Instead of heavy oils, muted colors, and landscapes, she used bright acrylic paints, and painted canvases inspired by folk art or by traditional Native American designs. Kim loved the bright colors and abstract designs of traditional Native American art, a love that she shared with her mother.
Her mother collected old Native American weaving – rugs, blankets, table runners – and even had a loom set up in their basement. On lazy Saturday afternoons, they talked for hours about colors and patterns, comparing their favorite designs. Kim always took her school canvases home, and her mother would sometimes weave rugs or blankets based on Kim's original designs, whenever she was on holiday from the hospital.
But on this day Kim wasn't in the mood for the brightly colored canvases she usually painted, and she didn't have the patience to work on a Dutch-inspired landscape. Instead, in a rare show of emotion, she started slashing great gobs of paint onto a canvas. She had no idea what she was painting – she really didn't care even.
By the end of class, she saw what looked to be a storm blowing through a forest. The trees, carelessly shaped by sweeping brushstrokes saturated with paint, were bent over in the wind. They looked harsh, yet ethereal. It was a style reminiscent of modern art – of Edvard Munch maybe…
Kim hated it.
Mrs. Nahimana felt differently, however. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "May I keep this in here, dear? I would love to hang it on the wall!"
Kim nodded in silent frustration, packed her bags, and went her next class.
A/N Okay, I know this chapter seems a little out of place... But it plays perfectly into the second thing that I wanted to explore in this story about love (besides it's sometimes comic aspects). That's the aspect of paying attention... Can one really love someone without paying attention? That's my question for you today.
It becomes very important later in the fic.
Please tell me what you think!
