Sirens & Muses

by Antonia Angress

“Just because something is meaningful personally doesn’t make it meaningful as art. It’s, like, just because something actually happened doesn’t make it a good story.”

A memory, jostled loose: how it had scared Louisa to think of the bird woman paintings as ours instead of mine. How Karina had seemed to seep into the work, overshadowing Louisa’s brushstrokes in a way that felt like a kind of authorship. But here was Ines, an artist who depended on other people to produce successful photographs.

even though it was his pain, the moment he put it into words and presented the bleeding package of it to someone else, it became secondhand information.

“I think it’s easy, when…when you’re neglecting your own happiness, to inadvertently neglect the happiness of the people you love. It’s sort of like you think you’re being selfless or self-sacrificial or something, but really you’re just sowing misery everywhere you go. So I’m sorry for that.”