Betsy Robinson's Blog - Posts Tagged "art"
New book excerpt
“The Spectators” [excerpt]
At lunchtime, Lily bids adieu to the PR office walls and walks across the street to the museum. As she shows her ID to the guard, she starts to explain, but he clearly is not in the mood and he waves her through, along with other refugees from the PR building. On entering the museum, all five go in different directions. Temps, thinks Lily. We’re all lost and temporary. And with almost no interest in them or anything, she wanders from the entrance to room after room full of priceless art. She senses there is something she is here to see, but she has no idea what and has only forty-five minutes to find it. She can’t remember last night’s dream, but there was something . . . something . . . And there it is. She is the only one in the gallery. She zigzags almost dreamily, as if pulled to the Chagall. She’s like a large metal body in water being sucked by a giant magnet to the other side of the room pool, to stand in front of a painting called “The Birthday.”
First it’s the warmth of the red carpet, the blues and green of the tapestries, the rich orange of the bedspread that draw her. See the pattern, she remembers. Center are two figures—a woman with a bouquet, in a black dress with a frilly white collar, being pulled, just as Lily is right now, but she’s headed toward a window, and floating next to her, but above, is an armless man, a lover, his neck craned backward and twisted in an impossible position to catch her in a kiss. They float back to back, these impossible lovers, but in perfect harmony. See the shape of the sliver of white wall that shows between their bodies. It’s almost a body itself, cutting off what would be a corner of the tapestry on the back wall as if it, too, is an entity. What is it about this painting? Lily is feeling faint and realizes she has stopped breathing. She draws in air and as she does, she could swear she sees the lovers move. The movement makes them inevitable. Back to back, but face to face, eye to eye, nose to nose, and mouth on mouth, they see each other, and they know they are not alone.
It is the most comforting picture Lily has ever seen, and she realizes she has been in a trance for forty-five minutes when her stomach growls and the noises of the public entering the museum shock her out of her reverie.
# # #
This piece is excerpted from The Spectators published in September 2024. Available as paperback and e-book everywhere, but discount paperbacks in USA available here:
IngramSpark
Here is the Chagall painting described in the excerpt, and here is artist Susan A. Pascale's riff on it for the cover.
At lunchtime, Lily bids adieu to the PR office walls and walks across the street to the museum. As she shows her ID to the guard, she starts to explain, but he clearly is not in the mood and he waves her through, along with other refugees from the PR building. On entering the museum, all five go in different directions. Temps, thinks Lily. We’re all lost and temporary. And with almost no interest in them or anything, she wanders from the entrance to room after room full of priceless art. She senses there is something she is here to see, but she has no idea what and has only forty-five minutes to find it. She can’t remember last night’s dream, but there was something . . . something . . . And there it is. She is the only one in the gallery. She zigzags almost dreamily, as if pulled to the Chagall. She’s like a large metal body in water being sucked by a giant magnet to the other side of the room pool, to stand in front of a painting called “The Birthday.”
First it’s the warmth of the red carpet, the blues and green of the tapestries, the rich orange of the bedspread that draw her. See the pattern, she remembers. Center are two figures—a woman with a bouquet, in a black dress with a frilly white collar, being pulled, just as Lily is right now, but she’s headed toward a window, and floating next to her, but above, is an armless man, a lover, his neck craned backward and twisted in an impossible position to catch her in a kiss. They float back to back, these impossible lovers, but in perfect harmony. See the shape of the sliver of white wall that shows between their bodies. It’s almost a body itself, cutting off what would be a corner of the tapestry on the back wall as if it, too, is an entity. What is it about this painting? Lily is feeling faint and realizes she has stopped breathing. She draws in air and as she does, she could swear she sees the lovers move. The movement makes them inevitable. Back to back, but face to face, eye to eye, nose to nose, and mouth on mouth, they see each other, and they know they are not alone.
It is the most comforting picture Lily has ever seen, and she realizes she has been in a trance for forty-five minutes when her stomach growls and the noises of the public entering the museum shock her out of her reverie.
# # #
This piece is excerpted from The Spectators published in September 2024. Available as paperback and e-book everywhere, but discount paperbacks in USA available here:
IngramSpark
Here is the Chagall painting described in the excerpt, and here is artist Susan A. Pascale's riff on it for the cover.
