artist’s angst – luna's on line

The image shows an incomplete watercolor on open pages of a notebook. There are tubes of colors next to it and some painting paraphernalia.

Purple robes from the snot of snails, rays from the tails of mango-fed cows.
Colour-wash fades, dribbles down the page,
Feeble brush strokes
weep over wet
paper.

In a misery of contempt she kicks the traces of her fractious art.
Screw it up and start again!

Ground from stones, hewn from rocks
poisonous pigments from the artist’s jewel box
cobalt and lead, one blue, one red
the venomous tools of her craft.

Carving curves with furious angst
passions explode and erode
while careless cadmium spatterings
join dread smears on the studio floor.

Scissoring through shards of purple-pink silk
the blood on the carpet of despair
raising her brush she rages on
rending the canvas in two.

Written in response to Sadje’s What Do You See #47 photo prompt.
Image credit: Elena Mozhvilo – Unsplash

Modern art glares at her from the gallery walls. Does it demand her praise or merely crave her understanding? She pauses before a blood-red canvas, a slash of blue and two blobs of green, created by a modern Scottish artist of whom she’s never heard. Should she have done?

She feels the assistant’s snooty gaze rest on her as she crosses the room, her footsteps echoing on the stark white floor. The centre-piece sculpture rears up menacingly; a hooded man, a gaping maw. Does his expression reflect the artist’s angst?

She’s seen enough.

Out on the street she meanders past a few shops but none can tempt her within. She crosses the road. The city’s unfamiliar and she’s just killing time before her train leaves.

Then she sees it.
The display beckons.
She quickens her step.

Soon she’s inside perusing the shelves and bathing in the gladdening glow of beautiful books.

Written in response to a prompt from Susan T. Braithwaite
Genre Scribes Friday Fiction Writing Challenge #26

The challenge this week was literature.

With apologies to galleries and gallery staff – I used to work in one!