5. Aeron
CHAPTER FIVE
AERON
The overhead fluorescents in the sculpture studio cut everything in half.
One half of the room gets the cold white wash from the fixtures. The other sits in the soft bleed of light from the windows along the east wall, where the afternoon sun comes through at an angle that makes the dust in the air visible to everyone.
The Professor is at the front of the class. His name was… what was it? Something with a C…
Cheng. Professor Cheng.
He’s at the front, pacing in front of the projector screen, blocking our view of it occasionally when he pauses.
He’s a compact man, mid-fifties maybe, with a shaved head and reading glasses he keeps pushing up his nose with a clay-stained thumb.
His hands look like they haven’t been fully clean in years.
The clay has settled into the creases of his knuckles and under his nails.
He’s wearing a rumpled linen button-down with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and there’s a small chip in one of his front teeth that shows when he talks.
He’s going over the semester syllabus, like he hasn’t already done that fifty times. Most of the students are arranged at scattered worktables in mismatched chairs, some paying attention, some not. It’s an advanced class, so nobody is sitting in rows like freshmen classes.
I’m a freshman, technically, but I talked my way into this class, and I’m trying not to remind anyone of that fact. I’m just relaxing at a solo table, trying to do what these upperclassmen do.
I’m doing a good job of it, but my heart is still racing, like suddenly one of them will turn around and shout, “Fraud!”
I’m only half-listening to Cheng because I’m not stressed about the class itself—I can do the work. It’s people that spike my anxiety.
Cheng is talking about the semester projects, which are mostly self-directed, which means I already know the only thing I need to know: nobody is going to tell me what to make.
That’s the only reason I signed up. I didn’t come here to learn how to sculpt.
I came here because I’ve been thinking about a piece that needs clay, metal, and woven fibers all at once, and none of my other classes give me that kind of freedom.
Here, I can make what I want, how I want it, and the teacher will review it for what it is, not whether or not I used specific techniques or followed the “rules.”
Freshman classes are all about “follow the rules exactly, or else.” The teachers want to make sure students learn basic techniques before running wild, and I understand that, but most of them don’t trust students at all or allow any change.
I learned that in high school when I turned in a drawing I’d spent almost thirty hours pouring myself into.
The art teacher admitted it was good but gave me a D- because I didn’t draw apples and fruit like everyone else.
I did all the other requirements, including using a stupid grid (which I hate), but because I would’ve gone insane drawing apples I got marked down.
I figured college professors would be the same (I was right), so thank God I made it into this advanced class because it might keep me sane this semester. Cheng will give me room to breathe and explore, something I’ve struggled to get even from my sister.
My sketchbook is open on the table in front of me, angled so no one can see it unless they’re standing directly behind my shoulder.
While Cheng is talking and pacing, I’m working on my concept with a soft pencil, letting the graphite drag across the page in loose, fast strokes.
The piece I’m imagining is a torso. Not anatomical, not realistic.
More like the suggestion of a body built from different materials: a clay chest cracked open to reveal a welded metal armature inside, with woven fibers threading through the gaps where the clay has broken away.
The fibers would be raw and unfinished, trailing off the edges as they come undone.
I don’t know what it means yet. I just know the shape of it, and the shape feels right.
Here and now, just for this moment, things feel right.
They always do when I’m sketching (or creating).
This is the only version of me that works.
The one with a pencil in his hand, creating on a page, so deep inside the process that the rest of the world just goes away.
When I’m sketching, I don’t have to be anyone except me.
I don’t have to figure out where I fit in a conversation or figure out whether I’m wanted or simply tolerated.
The pencil moves and the world moves with it, and I’m not Aeron Belrose—little brother, tag-along, afterthought. I’m just a hand making lines.
More and more, that’s all I want to be: just a body making lines, in the act of producing art. I’m kinda tired of dealing with everything else about life.
I pause mid-stroke, feeling someone looking at me.
It’s a specific feeling, like a light source you haven’t located yet.
You know it’s there because the shadows are shifting, but the light is hard to pinpoint.
I don’t look up. I keep drawing, adding cross-hatching to the metal armature, suggesting the weld marks.
But the feeling stays, persistent on the left side of my face.
I glance over for a second, just to see who’s looking at me and disturbing my focus.
Dorien.
He’s sitting two tables over, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed.
He’s watching me from the corner of his eye, instead of watching Cheng.
He does that sometimes—glances in my direction.
I’ve caught him doing it at home, too. If I’m in the living room or kitchen, I catch him glancing at my sketchbook, trying to see whatever I’m drawing as he’s making his way to the basement to hang out with Carter.
He never lingers—I think because he tries to avoid my sister—and he never says anything to me except the occasional “Hey, what’s up? ”
My irritation overwhelms me and I make a stroke that’s too jagged on my sketch.
I didn’t know he’d be in this class when I signed up.
If I had, well… I probably would’ve signed up anyway, because I’m stubborn about things that don’t matter and spineless about things that do.
But I would’ve liked the heads-up. Walking into the studio on the first day and finding Dorien already at a table, leather gloves off, hands in clay, had startled me so much I actually turned around and left.
Cheng moves on to something about material sourcing.
I add fiber lines to my sketch, threading them through the broken clay like veins.
The graphite is getting soft at the tip, which means the lines are thickening—actually better for this part.
Softer. Less controlled. I let the pencil do what it wants.
“Fifteen-minute break,” Cheng says. “Stretch. Refill your water. Back at two thirty.”
Chair legs scrape. People stand and drift toward the hallway or cluster into small groups.
I stay where I am because moving means risking eye contact with someone, and I’m in no mood to give anyone the “hi, I’m obviously a freshman who doesn’t belong here” smile.
I keep drawing. The fibers need more texture.
Maybe a looser weave, something rougher, like burlap.
Should I add a new material? Maybe in addition to fiber I could…
A shadow falls across my sketchbook.
I know it’s Dorien before I look up, the shadow seemingly comfortable invading someone’s space.
When I finally raise my eyes, he’s standing next to my table with his hands in his pockets and his head tilted at an angle that says he’s already been studying the sketch for several seconds before I noticed.
Great. Judgment incoming.
“Mixed media,” he says. He reads the small list near the edge of the page. “Clay. Metal. Fiber. Which kind of fiber?”
I resist the urge to close the sketchbook. Showing him is faster than having him hover. I honestly don’t know why he’s hovering. “I haven’t decided what kind yet. Maybe jute.”
He pulls out the chair across from me and sits down without asking, which is very Dorien. “Can I see it?”
My heart is pounding, which is stupid because I’ve known Dorien most of my life. Well, he’s been around most of my life; not that we really know each other.
I push the sketchbook across the table because the alternative is saying no and then having to explain why, and I don’t have the energy for that. And if I’m rude, he’ll tell Carter, who will tell June, and then she’ll lecture me like I’m five.
Dorien picks up the sketchbook carefully, which surprises me. Most people grab sketchbooks like they’re leafing through a magazine. Dorien holds it at the edges like it’s something important, and his eyes move slowly across the page like he’s actually studying my thought process.
Then his eyebrows lift slightly. The set of his jaw loosens. His expression opens, the way a curtain slips and lets light through a window you thought was covered.
“This is good,” he says and… I believe him. I haven’t ever known Dorien to be a liar, but also, he just sounds genuine. No “real potential” bullshit. Just a simple, flat statement.
I don’t know what to do with that, so I deflect. “It’s a rough concept. You know, the proportions are off and the metal work is mostly hypothetical since I’ve never actually welded anything.”
“You haven’t welded?” He leans forward like I just said something interesting instead of something embarrassing.
“I’ve been thinking about metal lately too.
Clay is… it’s where I live, but metal keeps getting into my thoughts.
The permanence of it. Clay can crack, collapse, break in the kiln.
Metal holds.” He taps the sketch where I’ve drawn the armature.
“This structure, the way you’ve got the metal underneath everything, like a skeleton.
Is that the point? That the thing holding the whole piece together is hidden? ”
I stare, wide-eyed and mouth hanging open.
The studio light hits one side of his face and leaves the other in shadow.
It occurs to me then that Dorien has a bone structure that looks like it was forced into submission instead of developing naturally.
Hair pushed back like he ran his hands through it once and it decided not to resist. Posture that’s too still, like he trained himself out of slouching.
Even the way his sleeves are rolled to the forearm is purposeful, the cuffs folded at the exact same width.
He’s made himself this way, but if he’d had different life experiences, how might he look different?
Regardless, nobody has ever considered one of my pieces this deeply. People look at my work and say “cool” or “interesting” or “what the hell is it?” They don’t ask about what’s underneath, what I’m thinking or trying to express.
I sit up a little, his words pulling my spine straighter.
“Yeah. The clay is the exterior, which is the thing people see. But it’s breaking apart.
And the metal inside is what’s actually keeping it upright.
But you know, I think that should have some cracks too.
Because what holds us up isn’t reliable either. ”
“And the fibers?”
“The fibers? Um…” I pause. The fibers are the messy part.
It feels like they fit because I’m going with my gut instinct, but I don’t yet know what they’re for.
“They’re, I think, connecting the broken pieces.
Or trying to. I don’t know if they’re stitching things back together or coming apart.
I think maybe both. Maybe they’re what connects this internal and external, so we’re all one being.
” I bite my cheek and grimace at myself.
It feels like I’m rambling bullshit. Learning how to “talk like an artist” is stupid.
I just make art. Period. The viewer should be the one giving it their own meaning.
Dorien sets the sketchbook down and looks at me. I think it’s with recognition, like he realizes I can speak “sculpture” to him. At least, that’s what I hope.
“Both is good,” he says.
The conversation opens from there in a way I’m not prepared for.
He asks about my process, and I tell him things I don’t usually tell people: that I build pieces from the inside out, starting with whatever material feels like the core and layering everything else around it, even when I don’t understand why.
That I can’t stay in one medium because every material says something different and I haven’t found the one that says everything I need it to.
That I chose this class because I wanted access to the welding equipment (and the freedom), not because I care about sculpture as a discipline, which is probably offensive to say to someone whose entire artistic identity lives in sculpture.
He laughs at that last part, and it makes me realize I’ve never actually heard Dorien laugh before. Maybe he’s laughed with Carter, but not out in the open with anyone else. The sound is more soothing than I expected from someone who carries himself like he’s made of angles and leather.
“I’ll teach you to weld if you teach me about fiber work,” he says. “I’ve been looking at textile artists lately. Anni Albers. The way she treated weaving like architecture. I want to bring some of that structural thinking into my pieces but I don’t know the first thing about working with thread.”
I almost say something sarcastic, something about how Dorien, the junior-year sculpture prodigy, wants fiber tips from the kid who set fire to the garage ceiling last summer. But I don’t, because the offer is genuine and I can tell by the way he’s leaning forward, elbows on the table, hands open.
“Yeah. Okay.”
Cheng ends the break and Dorien retreats to his table.
I spend the rest of class half-listening to a discussion about material storage while adding detail to the sketch.
The afternoon light from the east windows has shifted, moving across the floor in a slow crawl, and now it reaches my table.
My sketchbook sits in full sunlight for the first time all class.
The graphite lines glow slightly at the edges where the light catches the sheen of the pencil lead.
I stare at the drawing in this new light, and it looks different. Better, maybe. Like someone turned a lamp on inside it.
Light. A light on the inside of the piece.
That’s a great addition.