SPLAT! 

Hush Hush

Canvas to brush.

The time is a quarter to twelve. The bells have stopped ringing and the ventilation keeps on humming. My sole creator, I am a tool for them. While I am much use for her, I’m dying. 

The focus of an artist cannot be broken without disturbance. In this state, I am thrown and clattered onto a nearby table as she franticly paints her world. I often ponder if she thinks of me, while I am just a brush historically I am an ever so crucial tool. To many of her kind, I offer control, precision, and efficiency to tasks that require my work. I am unique in every way, my brothers and sisters are also the same. From bristle to handle I suit a specific need. I am a long-handle flat brush, I have synthetic filaments, and I’m durable and large enough to aid my user in many forms. 

To her, I am one of her favorites, mainly because I am one of her biggest brushes. She uses me to create bold strokes, and large washes of color, and to fill wide spaces in her world. I make textures and shape the starting process of her work, I am the coworker to her sketch, and I lay the foundation. However, I am only a brush. I have my limitations.

As I am drowned in gamblin solvent, a paint thinner, my bristles gulp down the liquid. As I approach the canvas with a bright shade of phantom blue on my hair, once I touch down on this desert plain the combination of paint thinner and oil paint sizzles. I’m tossed, slammed, and pushed into the gessoed bare white canvas. It is rough and unmerciful. I groan across the fabric. This hissing is what she’s after. The thinning of paint mixed with oil paint creates the perfect atmosphere for blending. The rich colors mix well together, blue and yellows wisp around each other as I gracefully dance on the canvas. Yet, she is still unsatisfied. 

SLAM. Aggressively she throws me back onto the work, I’m not blending like she wants me to. A huff of frustration escapes her lips. It’s one in the morning now, and she is beginning to tire. Quiet halls, and a cool darkness flooding outside, disappointment is taking over. I’m trying my best, there is only so much I can do. She is attempting a landscape, a subject she is not fond of creating herself. It’s new uncharted territory and I have become a victim of exploring it. More time passes, more anger and mishandling are had. Others in the studio walk by and complement our work. I wonder if they ever see me. Do they wonder if I yearn for escape, or help? It’s complicated my situation in the grand scheme of things. After all, I was a gift from my creator’s brother. He used too much of her other supplies so I was brought into her life as a “sorry”. 

The beautiful color is pattered as my work comes to a close. My tired body has completed its job. I hear my creator is satisfied with her labor. The witching hour is approaching. I sense a notion of sadness in her hands as she holds me. I am dying. 

Solvent and abuse have worn out the glue that holds me all together. I am manipulated, my head can be twisted and ripped off my neck. I shriek, “I am falling apart.” If it wasn’t obvious to my creator my bristles have started to fall all over her canvas as she used me, she even noticed one or two and yanked them out as they “bothered her”. Acknowledging my fate she knows what has happened, she knows who I must belong to now. She’s had me for quite some time, she’s used me in every work since now. 

One by one she takes her last minutes to use me to my full potential. I am glad she now sees me for this. I create beautiful textures for her and offer her time-saving washes over her canvas. She wants me to be used as much as I can before I go. She begins to slowly remove my bristles, a way to estimate how much time I have left. However, that is now. Paint-covered fingers remove my head as she grips me one last time and walks over to the trash. She keeps my body made of wood, she may have uses for it later. The last time I saw my artist she thanked me, and I was gently tossed into a soft cushion of crumpled-up oil paint and water-covered paper towels in this trash can. I find it surprisingly It is comfortable, as I end my time here. I am glad I was of use to her. 

I am only a brush. I had limitations.