24. Sloane The Muse
sloane: the muse
MY SUPPLIES WERE PACKED. I was ready to go.
But here I was again, on yet another Zoom call.
“Oh, I totally get it,” I was saying. But I didn’t.
Not really. Mom and Caroline dealt with the supply delays for Sloane Emerson—thank goodness, as I was thinking now.
They sounded like a nightmare. But I knew how to offer solutions even though I hadn’t really lived it. Those who can’t do, teach, right?
Adam came up behind me, actually in the Zoom screen. “I am so sorry to interrupt,” he said. “But Sloane has a two o’clock and it’s two oh four. I’m going to have to grab her!”
Before I could protest, he had clicked off my Zoom screen.
“Adam!” I scolded.
“Don’t Adam me. No. You are pregnant with my child, you are very stressed out, she has been whining for twenty minutes over her allotted forty-five, and this plein-air paint-out is the first thing you have wanted to do in weeks. You’re doing it.”
“Yes, but I don’t have—”
Adam put his hand up. “No, ma’am. Don’t tell me you don’t have the time. I don’t want to hear it. What do successful people do?”
I sighed. “We make the time.”
“Exactly right.”
He kissed me and helped me up from my makeshift office chair even though I wasn’t, like, help-her-up big yet.
“I’m going to carry your supplies down to the boardwalk and help you get set up.”
I laughed. “Sweetheart, I don’t need your help carrying a travel easel, a tiny gesso board, and a travel stool.”
“I know you don’t need my help. But isn’t it nice to have?”
I smiled and kissed him again. “Always.”
“I’ll walk you down, then I’m going to go get the boys from school. Can they come watch you paint?”
I nodded. And I let myself feel the feeling that the plein-air paint-out always brought me: joy.
I would go paint whatever caught my eye, quickly, with no rules, no expectations.
And then I’d meet up with all the artists at five at the Historic Site for an auction of all the paintings.
We’d raise a few thousand dollars for the site, toast to our success, and go home tired and happy.
It was a great day, a special Peachtree tradition that took place during the most beautiful time of year.
Without fail, the water was slick calm, just like it was today.
Only, for the first time in my plein-air paint-out experience, instead of the boardwalk being nearly empty, with a few tourists and townspeople milling about, a group of fifteen or so people were walking all the way to one end of the boardwalk, then all the way to the other, holding smaller versions of the KEEP OUR DOCKS PUBLIC signs that dotted nearly every front yard.
In a fallish twist, most people had put their sign in their hay bale. Talk about a season to remember.
Adam sighed. “Oh, geez. Where do you want to set up now? The gazebo? The park?”
For a moment, I thought about relocating, finding a new, calm spot in which to capture the fall beauty of Peachtree.
But then it occurred to me that, as a painter, sure, I loved to capture beauty.
But wasn’t history as important, if not more so?
I shook my head. “No, this is perfect. Let’s set up right in front of Peachtree Provisions like we planned.
” I held up my hands to frame the scene.
“Actually, put me at the edge of the sidewalk, so I can get Peachtree Provisions, the boardwalk, and the water, all in my line of sight.”
Adam set up my stool and my easel, which, again, I could have done myself.
But why fight it when someone wants to help?
It was so infrequent. I hastily got out my supplies and politely shooed him away.
With my brush, I made light sketches of the boardwalk, the large boat at the dock in my line of sight, Peachtree Provisions, the flower boxes planted by the garden club—everything I could get in the ten or so minutes until the protesters turned and were facing my direction again.
Then, as they marched, I was sketching them like mad.
Mrs. McClasky’s face, the way the wind caught the signs, the lift of Hippie Hal’s foot when he marched, the matching T-shirts they were wearing.
Two hours went by in what felt like ten minutes, and by the time my two little loves were by my side, I had the rough painting mostly finished and was trying to work on my shading.
I stopped long enough to hug my little boys, to ask them about their day.
AJ leaned his head on my shoulder, and Taylor perched on my lap.
And I remembered that there would be three soon.
I remembered that I didn’t want to miss one single moment.
Not one smile, one laugh, one school event.
But this… the way it felt to take a totally blank canvas and transform it in a matter of hours into a true representation of a moment in time…
well, this was what fed my soul. I hadn’t known how much I had missed it, had forgotten how it was the essence of who I was.
I knew I was going to have to talk to Mom and Caroline. I knew I was going to have to take a step back from the business. And I knew that they—with their vastly different personalities from mine—were not going to understand that decision. But I also knew that they would love and support me anyway.
Kimmy came by and handed each of the boys and me a cooked sweet potato, wrapped in foil and cut in half. It was so warm and delicious.
“They’re sort of injected with butter, cinnamon, and sugar,” she said, “so it gets more delicious as you eat.”
“Yum!” AJ said.
“Hey, are you already finished painting?” I asked.
Kimmy nodded. “I’m selling a wildflower field that I may or may not have started last week.”
I laughed. That wasn’t really in the spirit of the event, but it would still raise money, so whatever.
“This year,” she said, “we’re going to donate everything we raise to the dock project.”
“That’s a great idea!”
“Mommy’s paintings always sell for the most money,” Taylor said glibly.
“Taylor!” I scolded, as Kimmy said, “You are absolutely right.”
“That is a terrible thing to say,” I said.
“But it’s true,” AJ said. “Daddy told us in the car that your painting has sold for the most money the past five years in a row.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said to Kimmy. “Boys, that is rude and inappropriate.”
“It’s not rude for them to be proud of their mom,” Kimmy said. “It’s wonderful. You keep being proud of her, boys. She’s really something special.”
I looked back at my painting, desperately wanting to keep it.
The motion of the protestors was some of my best work even though it was so quick.
That was the thing about creativity. There weren’t any rules to it.
Sometimes my fastest pieces were my best, and my slowest were my worst—or vice versa.
You simply could not predict when or how the muse was going to strike.
You could learn to work through it, to work in spite of it.
But you couldn’t ever totally control it.
That was okay. That was some of the joy of art to me, that not knowing.
Taylor and AJ were right: My paintings did bring the most money. And I had a feeling that, if the right buyer was there, I just might beat my own record with Plein-Air Protesters.