Lan McHugh Lived a Good Life

[NOTE: Burn victim imagery]

                                  Lan McHugh Lived a Good Life

                            by Paul Crehan

Professor Roth said to the class, “For your final, you’re to create a self-portrait. Interpret that as you will. Oil, watercolor, pencil, collage—whatever you wish. The one requirement? It must be honest. I want you to see you. I want you to show me you. Don’t hide. Reveal. Be the naked model of yourself.”

Lan shifted on his stool and looked around at the others. Fourteen of them. For three of them, Mai, Reese, and Bobby M, this would be a walk in the park. Their access to self was immediate; even obsessive. Mai was an outright exhibitionist, looking for any opportunity to make herself look as ugly as possible.

But Lan. He exhaled hard. He couldn’t do this. Roth knew he couldn’t do this.

Lan knew all along that at some point, there would be a self-portrait required if he were to get his MFA. He’d gotten through the three-year program just fine by not thinking about what lay ahead of him so fearsomely. Now here it was.

When the others had cleared the studio, Lan approached Roth, who was heading to his own easel. He was working on Giacometti figures sitting in judgment of the viewer. It was such a cold work, and yet here was Roth, the warmest and most inviting person he’d ever met.

“Dr. Roth, may I--.”

Roth chuffed a laugh. “How did I know we’d be having this conversation?” He smiled at Lan. That soft, warm smile. “Can I jump to the end?” he asked Lan. “You can do it, and you will do it. We all know you can paint the shit out of anything.  But I’ll say it baldly. Lan: You must rub your nose in the fact of yourself. Your power and grace. You have a lot to tell people. Tell it.” Roth watched as Lan took this in. “And now,” Roth continued, giving Lan a smile, “you’d better get going. You only have 29 and ½ days to go.”

Lan shifted from one foot to the other. Balance? Was he seeking balance?

“Can I do something else—but even harder?” Lan asked. “I mean, it feels a little unfair—it feels unfair—that my degree hangs on this one thing that you know I can’t do. I mean, should I not get my degree because of the one area I’m deficient in? Should we go down the list of artists who couldn’t do any number of things?”

“I’m asking you to be better than they,” Roth said. “No less than that.”

Lan chuffed a laugh. “Dr. Roth.”

But Roth sought out Lan’s eyes and held them. “You’ll drop in anytime, and I’ll advise, advise, advise. I’ll ask questions, and you’ll respond on canvas. I’ll see you through. When it goes to committee for the yea or nay. It will be your best work.”

Lan slurped up ramen, gazing at the broken, abandoned BBQ on the roof of the smaller building across the street. If you were in one frame of mind, it looked like an elk, shot, and down on two front knees, and deciding if this were a decent enough place to die. He had drawn that BBQ a hundred times. Painted it once. It’s what got him into the MFA program after he had completed his undergrad work here. He had noted one day, in going through sketches he thought he could throw out, that the more he drew the BBQ, the closer it got to the edge of the roof. Lan had thought, Whoa…

Could he go to the well of the BBQ one more time and use it for his self-portrait? No. Because no matter what he might do with it now, the committee had seen it three years ago. They might like a full-circle thing, how much more developed and profound that BBQ now was—testament to their investment in him. But they might also think, Is that all Lan McHugh has to offer? BBQ’s?

As with BBQ’s, Lan could be attracted to painting realistic objects, and every now and again, an interesting person he might see in the park. But what defined his work, as Roth made clear to him—and boy, was he right—was the escapism. There was always a thwarted or burdened escapee as the subject of the piece. Lan may have been dealing with Miro-like abstract objects, but they all had personality and wanted out of the canvas. Electrons, genes, mitochondria, nucleotides—they all wanted out. You could see them bunching up at the edges of the canvas. Or, they were clustered in a bristling ball, always a second away from a Big Bang—a burst of failure, unending evidence of failure. And desire.

Lan could, of course, go the easy, safe route. Just get something past Roth and committee and get that MFA. That would be practical, shrewd, and he’d live to be honest another day. On the other hand, Roth would sniff it out—that it wasn’t honest; that it was, in fact, simply safe, practical, shrewd. Calculating. And sad, and disappointed in him, he’d have to decline passing him, out of his duty to artistic integrity.  

But maybe he’d get away with it. He’d have to try a couple two-three things to see. So, Lan went for a walk in the park, thinking, Collage. He’d do a head, a human head—not his own; maybe Bobby M’s—it was really round—and it would be composed of, and filled with, all kinds of things from all kinds of media—magazine bits, newspaper bits, text from books, shots of graffiti, book covers, album covers—whatever he consumed that translated into who he was; what filled his head and made him him.

Nice idea. When you’re in high school. Lan rejected it.

The days went by—flew by—eight days disappearing so fast, you’d wonder if they had arrived at all. He hadn’t met with Roth once. He noted everyone else’s sketches. He heard them discuss ideas with Roth. Mai’s portrait of a vagina—and he had to assume it was hers—was on the way to becoming great. He could tell from the amazing command of her lines, the surety in them, the perspective she was taking, and the color choices—all of it kind of genius. If Mai thought it was ugly, she sure was wrong. This was Georgia O’Keeffe beautiful. Boy, he sure didn’t want to follow Mai on Committee day. No matter what he came up with, his work would pale in comparison.

Reese had a real Georges de La Tour thing going on, putting himself in the picture as Mary Magdalene at the smoking lamp, though he was bathed in the light of the cityscape below. The tension in the piece between meditation and the insistent encroachment into it crackled with menace.

Lan was so screwed. By comparison to others, Mai, Reese—all of them—he was going to look real undergrad. Unworthy. They had good ideas. And they were executing those good ideas well.

“When can I expect a visit from you?” Roth asked him in class one day.

“Oh. Soon. Soon,” Lan said, working on a small canvas that featured a forearm, hand, fingers, entering the canvas from the left, the whole bit laid out on a white linen tablecloth (linen wasn’t all that hard to do), a gash in the forearm, and blood pouring from it and pooling a bit next to it, before finding its way by the laws of nature out of the pool and across the tablecloth to waterfall off the table. Stupid. Gruesome. Was it a self-portrait? Perhaps more importantly, could he sell it to Roth—and the committee—as the required self-portrait?

Roth studied the sketch. “No,” he said. “Performative. Lurid. Boring. We all carry that feeling around. That’s about everybody. Not about you. Don’t do generic. Do Lan McHugh.”

Lan shrugged. “This is just something I’m working on. To get me somewhere.”

Roth looked at him, warm—a twinkle in his eyes. He knew Lan was full of shit. “Okay,” he said and moved on.

That same day, Lan’s mom called. He hadn’t spoken to her in a year. “Your dad’s gone,” she said. Her voice matter-of-fact. “Drunk driving. And killed the two people in the other car.”

Well, Lan thought. Who didn’t see that coming? It was always there to show up. His dad had been driving to that end forever. “Okay,” Lan said.

“Your sister and I already buried him. No ceremony. I wanted to spare you having to deal with all of us. Coming home and all.”

Well, Lan thought. This wasn’t true at all. It was a good thing, though—no doubt. She had, in fact, done him a favor. But it wasn’t her intention to do him a favor. She just didn’t want him home. To face what she had done.

Freak, people whispered when they saw him, or they outright called him that. Like it was his fault his nose was gone because of the fire, half his face nothing but burn scars now.

She had passed out while smoking a cigarette, and of course it set the curtains on fire. He had been eight and asleep and trapped by flames. His sister had leapt through a window—and only got one cut. Why didn’t you do that? His mother and father said to him—scolded him. Why didn’t you think to do that?!

And they would no longer look at him. I just can’t look at you, his father said—out of anger. She’s five, and she figured out what to do!

After he hung up, Lan thought two things: One, no I’m not going to study myself and commit what I see to canvas. Two, I am not going to paint my face (and arm and leg)—because that would be to get my degree based on charity. The committee knew who he was. This town was small, and he was a sight. And everyone admired his courage and felt really bad for him. And he didn’t want to become a bona fide artist because of how people looked at him and felt about him. He wasn’t just a burn victim. He was an artist. Look at me! Artist! Artist here!

Lan walked down to the river. He stood on the high bank of it. He asked the river, because he was in that kind of ridiculous mood, What is it that I feel about myself? What is it that I want? The river had no idea. It was pretty busy, being a river.

He had to ask the questions several times over, because he’d lose focus on the one, then the other, then grow tired of asking the questions, then think about having a tuna sandwich from Subway. What is it that I feel about myself? What is it that I want? Getting no answers, he turned from the river and plodded up the bank and turned for home.

The next morning, before dawn, because Lan wasn’t much of a sleeper, he woke up and as he headed to the bathroom, the answers to the question came to him just like that. There was pretty frequently a sudden clarity like this in the early morning, after he’d spend a long time the day before trying to work something out. You really did have to sleep on things.

And Lan knew exactly what he had to do for his self-portrait. What is it that I feel about myself? What is it that I want?

It would be honest. Searingly so. Roth would see that. He was pretty sure Roth would see that. He saw a lot. But the committee…? On the other hand, he did have the context of his complicated, painstaking prior work. They knew he was anything but lazy. So wouldn’t they have to see that his final project was what they wanted: honest self-appraisal—a real reveal? In fact, he wasn’t even going to prime his canvas.

June 15^th arrived, spring til hanging around, a welcome idler. The committee came into Roth’s studio bearing warm smiles for all. The old hippie chick prof who looked like a hippie chick prof—the hair, the scarves, the rings, flowing saffron-colored pants, and the flowing untucked blouse. The blocky turquoise necklace. And Dr. Kline, and Dr. Revere, and Dr. Luther, and Mrs. Combes, and Mr. Bell—and, most scarily, Dr. Kellick, the head of the college. Handshakes. Well-wishing. The class of 15, including Lan, all swallowing hard, their dry mouths clicking when they did.

They sat poised on their easel stools, their portraits covered by sheets.

Roth also had a vote. But it was just a formality. Because though Roth wouldn’t have seen these project in the last two weeks before committee review, he wouldn’t have pushed them on toward review in the first place, had he not a great sense that he could vote yes for them. Roth was typically the one vote a student would get when he had completely ruined or even sabotaged his work. At least the vote would be 6 to 1. Not a soul-crushing unanimous decision. 

The committee sat in chairs that Dr. Roth had dragged in from wherever he found them in the studio building. A few nerve-calming jokes from Dr. Roth, a few forced or even genuine laughs, and suddenly it was Mai’s turn.

Lan was gobsmacked. Mai’s portrait was stunning. Powerful. Simple and complicated. Declaration and cri de coeur at one and the same time. Well done, Mai. The committee, and Roth, saw it immediately. They heaped praise on it. So, Mai was going to get her degree.

Reese’s Georges de La Tour-inspired portrait went over well. The committee didn’t love it, but they appreciated it. Sami was next. She too passed. Lynette, Dale, Angie…Nice run of successes.

And then it was Lan’s turn. He made his speech, during which he noted that Roth was swallowing as much as the students had been, as much as Lan had been, and his eyes were filled with…fright? Concern. He was scaring Lan, who was thinking that what he was about to do was akin to suicide.

“I focused on three things,” Lan told the committee. “First, I focused on honesty. Revealing myself honestly. Then, I asked myself two questions. What is it that I feel about myself? What is it that I want?”

Hippie chick prof had her brow knit. She was concerned. Where was Lan going with this? She made Lan’s heart stir up. In fact, it was palpitating. Dr. Roth’s nostrils were spread wide. Man, he was nervous, like, really nervous. In fact, and Lan took a quick survey of the seven total committee members—they all looked either concerned or strange. But certainly he had gotten their attention. They couldn’t wait to see what was behind the curtain of rough cloth.

“So. All right,” Lan said, now stepping back and to the side of his easel. “May I present the Self-Portrait of Lan McHugh.” This was such a mistake, he thought. What an idiot he was. But he had never been able to quiet the voice that had said, Be honest. Be honest. Be honest. And this was the effort that quieted that voice; that said, Yes, this is the truth. But it wasn’t going to get him his MFA. The committee—enough of them, anyway—wouldn’t accept this. Oh, shit, he thought. The vote won’t even be close.

He whisked the cloth away. But one thing—one thing he could say for sure—this was too big a challenge for them to grant him his degree because they felt sorry for him. This was too much to approve of in keeping with the dignity of the college, by handing him an MFA in spite of this work, not because of it; out of charity, not out of artistic judgment and commendation.

But mostly, he realized, This is how I feel. This is my truth. And I’ll never get another opportunity in my life to stand by it so powerfully. And to risk all for it—because I’ll sure as shit have to move, because there was no second chance here at Wexler. And he’d have to endure the long process of people just accepting his burnt-up, nose-less self, or not at all, just calling him Freak, any time they’d pass.

The silence from the committee—and Roth—was pretty profound. Lan looked at all of them, each of them, as they took in his blank canvas. Only his signature at the bottom right.

Five-to-two against him. Roth got what Lan was saying loud and clear. And hippie chick got it. The rest were actually annoyed. Which made Lan feel pretty good, to tell the truth. He wasn’t there as part of the equation, as part of the evaluation of the work—a self-portrait wherein he had disappeared—or had escaped.

Lan moved to California. Cal Arts accepted him into their MFA program. He had included his self-portrait. They liked it without even knowing he was all burnt-up. They liked the ‘cheekiness’ of it. It was anything but cheeky, but Lan wasn’t going to argue with them.

He got a job in a stockroom—away from the public, of course, at a big-box store. Found yet another shit apartment. Endured all he had to endure. Which is why he had turned to painting in the first place—to create a world he could control. He got his MFA. Moved to Fresno. Became a fixture in the community, taught online courses that became popular and were good for him, because he could control the camera angles so people only saw of him what he thought they could take.

He sold lots of paintings. Worldwide. He didn’t become rich, but he bought a house with a yard. And got two dogs. Lan McHugh lived a good life.