Longing Heart

Have you ever felt like the painting on the wall above your grandmother's fireplace is watching you? Or like the sculptor of that marble statue in the museum managed to make marble look a little too life-like?

Well, there's a chance you might be right.

Sometimes it really is just your imagination. Not every painting or sculpture or piece of art is alive. Landscapes aren't, for one. The still-life you painted in high school isn't alive. Not every piece of art that depicts a person is, either. Only some of us, the ones that our artists really poured their heart and soul and love of art into are alive.

You might have realized I said "us". I myself am a painting, titled Longing Heart. You haven't heard of me, don't worry, I'm not a very famous painting. In fact I'd wager only a handful of people even remember I exist. My artist wasn't famous, he struggled to make ends meet for most of his life. I think I'm the only one of his paintings to survive, he sold most of us for very little when the bills got tight. I was found by his friend after he passed, when they were cleaning out his apartment. They weren't sure what to do with me, and I've changed hands many times, but I finally ended up here. The Kenton Art Museum, in the Local Artists permanent showcase.

It's a small museum, and most of us stay here for a long time. I've been here over 50 years, I think, and I'm one of the younger ones. Tulips In June is the oldest as far as we can tell, but that one isn't alive obviously. We only know because Portrait Of A Lady is the oldest living painting, and she said Tulips In June was here before her. 

Most of the time if one of us leaves it's because of something the preservationists call "irreversible degradation". The old paintings break down over time, the paint fades and discolors and the canvas breaks down. Our preservationists love us, and try to save as many as they can, but a small museum doesn't have a lot of money to throw around on old paintings by nobody local artists.

It's easy, being a painting. There are no expectations, not that we can do much anyway. Every day is the same, there are no surprises. The museum opens at eight, a handful of bored looking kids and hopeful parents wander through before lunchtime. Sometimes there's a couple of art students from the college a town over, sketching us for an assignment or a research paper. Once, there was an art investor that came through. He said he was "looking for undiscovered talent". He took Garden Party, and paid enough that the preservationists were able to get the supplies they needed to save the degrading varnish on A Study Of Still Life before it had to be thrown away.

Perhaps I should say it was easy being a painting. Then came the day it all changed, at least for me.

I met Elizabeth Parker one day in spring. I didn't know what day, calenders aren't exactly common in museums, but I knew it was spring. She was a new preservationist, fresh out of college and still optimistic about the future. Up until this point, I didn't even know it was possible for a painting to fall in love. But I knew it the moment I saw her.

The first time she pulled me off the wall, she was fixing a small area where a child had smudged jelly on me. Since Kenton Art Museum was small, there wasn't really anything in the way of security for the art, especially not nobodies like us. People were able to get up close and personal with us, which is good for appreciation but bad for our longevity. It also meant tiny fingers were free to smear whatever sticky sweets on us they wanted, something I used to loathe the feeling of. This time, though, all I felt was elation at having strawberry jam on my old wooden frame. 

Elizabeth handled me so gently, like I were a priceless work from the Louvre rather than a step above a high-school art piece. She looked at me lovingly, spoke softly about how beautiful I was, what a shame it was that people didn't think I was valuable just because my artist wasn't famous. It felt like minutes rather than the hours I knew it must have taken her, and it was over far too quickly. I wanted to spend a lifetime in her care, listening to her whisper about brush strokes and how colors blended together until my paint turned to dust and my canvas rotted out of the frame.

After that, I judged every day by if I got to see her. I began to hope that my paint would fade or my varnish would discolor so that she would have to work on me. I silently begged the children to touch me with their grubby fingers, or for the sun to slant just a little further in through the window and bleach my colors. Anything that meant Elizabeth Parker would have to work to preserve me, pay attention to me, value me like I had never been valued before.

The unfortunate truth is, paintings don't last forever. Our lives are even more numbered by the quality of the materials used to create us, or the lengths preservationists are willing or able to go to in order to keep us pristine for future generations. No matter how we may be loved, sometimes all the love in the world isn't enough. And a small art museum with a tiny local artists exhibit that no one cares about can't manage the fund to keep us around indefinitely.

It began small. A spot in the corner of my canvas where the material had begun to degrade past the point where it could be saved. No problem, most of me is still good. Elizabeth said I was still beautiful, and the museum decided I could still be on display. I didn't mind, it meant more attention from Elizabeth, and that could never be bad.

But it got worse. My paint faded, my varnish degraded, and at one point the frame keeping me stretched tight had to be replaced all together. Elizabeth did her best, and I welcomed every opportunity to feel her touch and hear her soft words, but I knew it pained her to see me fading away. I knew I wasn't special, she loved all of us in the museum, but it felt wonderful to have her worry over me. What any other painting might have dreaded, I welcomed with open arms. How could fading away be the end, how could it be so terrible, when I knew I would live forever in her memory and heart? I knew what it was to be loved and cared for and feel like someone saw me as the most valuable thing in the world. If at the end of that, Elizabeth Parker held me in her heart forever, it couldn't be so bad.

I'm too old and faded to hang in the museum now. I'm more trash than art, they said, and they had standards to uphold. Who needs a tiny museum, anyway? I live with Elizabeth Parker now. There are three of us, paintings that were too old or damaged to stay in the library. She took us home, keeps us on her wall, and loves us with every piece of her soul.

That's good enough for me.