Amorphous Aphrodite

I didn’t want to be there that day. It was the tiredness…

Dreams from the night before stole away several hours of much needed rest. Such terrible dreams! Just one dream really, repeating itself over and over. Upon awakening this morning, I wondered if I should bother attending classes. Certain nothing could distract my mind from thoughts of them, I chose to go to afternoon class. The edginess of the dreams dulled when Bill Takiamata walked into the studio class and began his lecture. Suddenly, my decision to attend class seemed ill chosen. I didn’t want to be there.

Takiamata–a tiny, sinewy man whose immediate vibrant energy overshadowed my own creative enthusiasm–had a relentlessness for expression that made me breathless, but not in an awe inspiring way. My breathlessness was more like a reaction–a quiet seething of envy that shuddered through me. His slightly accented voice intoned as he outlined the lesson purpose, and this is what he said:

“Before you, a statue sculpted by one of this school’s graduates. It’s called ‘Amorphous Aphrodite’. Today’s lesson will be a venture into the world of writing about art. Describe, in you own words, in any style or form of your choice, at any length, this statue before you.

“Some of you may choose to analyze the subject; this might entail a discussion of technique, style and composition. Some of you may be inspired to write poetic prose or poetry. Some of you may choose to discuss the sculptor’s intent. Whatever your pleasure, just explore your own personal reaction to the statue.

“This assignment will reveal how each of you perceives the world, so that I can aid you in honing your singular talents. Whichever method you employ, treat this assignment like any other creative work. Let your ideas flow naturally. Let your words be… associations. We’re not writing dissertations here. Don’t concern yourself with proper grammar or spelling. Just write your first impression, and then you’re second impression, etcetera, etcetera.”

Hesitant toward analysis that day, the repeating dream from this morning. A dream haunting me again and again. The unseen beast chasing me…

Night time. I run barefoot along damp cobblestone sidewalks, spheres of incandescent street lamps hovering on one side, an unending brick wall shielding the other side. The wall is bothersome, because it shields me from that unseen beast and I want to see it. The wall is too tall to see over, yet short enough to detect shadows moving. Something lurches in the darkness beyond, gasping and snorting, running alongside me. I hope there are no breaks in the wall. Then suddenly, the sidewalk ends and overlooks a gaping chasm. There is a break in the wall. Unsettled by decision–do I jump into the chasm to escape the unseen beast or do I turn toward it lurking in the break of the wall. As I peer into the darkness to greet the creature chasing me, the dream starts again. I am running again.

Once confronted by Takiamata’s assignment, I questioned my analytical ability. Considering whether to waste studio time in thoughts of dreams or in analysis, I sighed and stared at the statue. An unusual shapeless mass, it posed quietly on the pedestal, all umber and sienna. Finished with a polished glassy texture, it looked unassuming and abstract. Lifting pencil to paper, I slowly wrote my name, student identification number and the professor’s name. Then I plunged into the assignment.

This is what I wrote:

A torso. A torso leaning as if standing on one leg, except… it hasn’t any legs–standing as if it were resting an arm on a hip, but it hasn’t any arms. It is a casual pose; one that is intimate. It leans toward me, as if it wants to tell me a secret. But it hasn’t a mouth to speak with for it hasn’t any head. Nonetheless, I hear its luring whisper. I want to lean toward it. I want to learn what it says. I lean…

Some say the soul lingers in the heart. Some say it dwells in the brain, that our thoughts alone are emanations of the soul. Some call these emanations art. I’m not sure what to believe, but it seemed certain the statue knew the truth. I leaned toward her.

I am repulsed. A tiny something urges me to turn away, but I am stuck. Aphrodite speaks to me; there is something she needs to tell me, but I still cannot hear her words. I am not close enough. Her whisper is like a tiny tongue-kiss on the nape of my neck, shivering and delighting, thrilling me through. My eyes follow the graceful angles that mold from gently peaked mountains into gently slopping hills and into flat even valleys. It is all so sensual…

To caress her… to taste her… to smell her lingering scent, at least…. There is a soul here, there is. That is her allure. I am repulsed. Her whispers are empty promises of what may come; she is as much a prisoner of uncertainty as I. I see it now. So much clearer than before. A torso, yes. A prison. It seemed as such, a nameless soul trapped inside a fleshy cage of. The soul inside terrorized by the limitation, desperately trying to free itself.

Those hills and those mountains… no! They are like tentacles reaching for me. They reach for me to embrace me,–no, crush me and force me to kneel down before Aphrodite. They force me to worship this beauty in prayer even though I suspect it transcends this globule bust.

Dare as I did, I believed beauty only an illusion… a mask of mythical proportions that had born itself a religion. Yes, a mask. What monstrosities did this statue hide. I tried to imagine the degree of dire, putrid foulness this monster exuded that compelled beauty to conceal it.

Tentacles reaching for me? Or, are those hills and valleys the indentations of that unseen thing pushing its way out? Pushing at the inside walls of the torso, stretching the burnt flesh until it burst and we can see… It must be awfully dark in there, so much for the better. It is better that we do not see what hides within our hearts… so, so much better. But I see what is there. I recognize it.

The pursuit of every artist–no, my pursuit!–was one of replicating Aphrodite. It was my desire to capture her sublime rapture in as many forms as possible, but she is illusion. It is this illusory quality that makes it all the more easier to hide my disgust for such vanity. Both a shield and a mask, I saw the cause for my uncertainties over the past years. I saw the truth that was hid so well from others; it hid behind a mask of content. Immediately I saw the deception in the statue. It mirrored mine.

I deceive. I lie. I am fraudulent. I have no right to call myself an artist, for I do not speak the truth… my inner truth.Aphrodite leans toward me. She is whispering. Her words are only gibberish; they promise only lies. She is nothing but a mass of convulsing reddish-brown tumors casting her tentacles at the starving fish all around and deftly reeling them into her deception.

Those who write feverishly of her allure and breathless beauty, they are all experiencing a quiet seething of envy… envy toward a statue of exquisite delight–a creation they wish was their masterpiece so that others will believe they possess that same exquisite allure.

I believe the soul can be found in both the mind and the heart. The one of the mind is polished and reserved; the one of the heart is wild and very, very unrefined.A torso. Leaning quite casually, but there is nothing casual about an illusion. There is nothing casual about desiring to be as this glamourous piece. Nothing casual at all about pretending to be something your are not.

The following day I tormented myself. Don’t go to classes! Go to classes! Realizing the morning lectures had already been missed, I skipped classes for the rest of the day, then the rest of the week. I felt guilty for missing lectures, but it didn’t compare to the guilt I carried for the past several years; guilt for not painting or sketching the compositions I longed to create. Instead I learned the technical ways and abided by traditional themes, wallowing in my fear of insulting the institution with my unconventional tendencies.

Night time became dreamless sleeps. During my newly made freedom, I sketched and drew compositions by intuition and instinct rather than by premeditation. I worked through the two dimensional space of parchments and canvas, cross-hatching and stippling until I brought depth to the ugliness inside me. I thrived in its release. Certain for the first time about doing what I wanted to do, I just couldn’t stop. But Takiamata called me to his office, and I was forced to stop.

Dwarfed by a large desk, he leaned across its mahogany surface while reading a paper. He motioned me to enter. I laid my portfolio case beside the chair. As I sat, it became apparent that the paper was my assignment.

“You haven’t attended class for several days now,” he began. I was silenced by his stillness.

“I was concerned, but I’ve carefully read your last assignment.” Neither arm movement nor facial expression did he exaggerate.

“This… this conflict you have with yourself is common.” Takiamata suddenly waved his hand before me. “I don’t mean to belittle your condition, Mina. It’s a condition common to artists of your caliber; I just want you to know that you aren’t alone. This struggle–it could be anything: good versus evil, right versus wrong, beauty versus ugliness. It’s what pulsates through all creators.”

Sitting back in his chair, our eyes met and locked. His look was quite different then what I usually endured during his lectures. I realized he wasn’t talking to his student now; he was talking to me.

“In your paper,” he spoke softly, “you state that you do not feel comfortable calling yourself an artist.”

I didn’t reply, but instead glanced around the room. That glance said more than I could every have imagined.

“Half the students who attend this facility are here because their parents paid for them to be here, whether they’re talented or not. Some of them will become designers at best, and there’s nothing wrong with that at al, if that’s what they really want to do. Some won’t pursue art as a career at all.” Suddenly his voice lowered in firm insistence.

“Mina, the work you produce during class is exceptional, but I wonder if it is truly you. If you want to simulate beauty, do so, but if you want to redefine boundaries previously created by others, then you redefine. I believe you need to redefine, not necessarily art itself, but rather yourself.”

“But what I see is ugly,” I whispered.

“So what! Some of the best pieces of art reflect the ugliness inside. Sometimes they are so ugly that you can’t help but stare at them, then suddenly you understand what it’s all about and the piece becomes compelling. Everyone feels ugly once in a while, Mina, even beautiful people. Ugliness is a shared experience more so than beauty.”

Takiamata pointed toward the portfolio folder on the floor. “You’ve been drawing.”

I nodded.

“Let’s see.”

I shook my head.

“If you didn’t want to show them to me, Mina, why did you bring them?”

He was right. I wanted to show them to him, because despite my envy of his passion, I respected him.

Carefully we cleared his desk and pushed the chairs against the walls. I pulled the drawings from the folder, the whole while worrying as to his reaction to their content and style. For the first time, my soul–in both mind and heart–was on display in all its truth and ugliness. Would he understand them–any of them?

My drawings littered the floor leaving Takiamata little room to walk.

This is what he said: “Your struggle is eminent. Tension thrums with every line. Composition ceases to exist. There is little or no white space so there’s little room to breathe. Their content is grotesque, absurd sometimes, as if you mock the perils of your vision even though it still terrifies you. The collages of imagery reiterates disturbing yet speculative thoughts. I keep asking myself, what if? What if the ugliness prevails? What if it consumes traditional beauty entirely so that there is nothing left to strive for?”

Takiamata stared at me hard for a long moment than smiled.”Fear lingers in all your works. Fear of not knowing how others will react to them and to you.” He sighed. “Mina, anything that was ever worth creating was created on a foundation of fear.”

He carefully started gathering my pieces, and I saw that he was deep in thought.”I had to do an abstract piece as an assignment while doing the Masters program,” he began, as if beginning a story. ” I hated abstract art at the time. Yet, I was more afraid of rejection and failing than abstract art. ‘Amorphous Aphrodite’ was built on that fear and became a highly regarded piece.”

“Listen to your heart, Mina. Do what you need to do. Beauty has it’s myths; it’s an illusion. I’ll be the first to agree with you. I want you back in class so you can explore this inner vision. Revel in the more base side of life and spirit, depict the world as you see it, and don’t worry how others will react. Not everyone is going to experience your work in the same way.”

I returned to classes that day. After some initial attempts to do as Takiamata asked, he finally suggested a means to alleviate my fear of other’s reactions. He suggested I display my pieces during studio class. I refused. Then the dream returned. For weeks it persisted, until one night…

I run. The unseen beast pants and moans beside me, hidden by the brick wall. As the chasm and the break in the wall loom nearer, I ready myself. Then I dive into the chasm below.

Voices echoed through the studio. Where nude models usually posed stood easels supporting sketches and drawings.

“I don’t like it.”

“Creepy.”

“This is supposed to be art.”

“I don’t get it.”

These were just some of the comments uttered as I walked toward Takiamata, walking around a girl who stood before a very recent ink drawings

“That piece.” Takiamata pointed at the girl. “I don’t recall seeing that one in my office. It’s… decisive. You’ve come to terms with something about yourself.”

It was a new piece. Something drawn the night after dreaming of diving into that chasm and watching the reflection of my fears tremble in the break of that wall.

Takiamata urged me to walk about the room. As I returned, again I stepped around that girl still staring at my drawing. She stared with no intention of looking elsewhere for at least a little while longer.

“Do you have a name for that piece?” Takiamata asked.

“How about ‘Assimilation Abandoned’”, I replied.

“The alliteration is familiar.”

I smiled. “It’s my way of saying thank you.”

Takiamata, or rather Bill, put his hand on my shoulder. Leaning toward me, he whispered, “It’s beautiful.”

Revised for Writ Bits from the draft originally published in MagMyr, Volume 5, 1996.
© by Cathrene Gehue, 1996