The Love of Creation

Ms. Potts emerged from her little cottage style home at the end of the street into bright, blinding sunlight. A scorching breeze greeted her, blowing the graying strands that had fallen from her bun all around her head.

Another scorcher.

She sighed, almost wishing for a rain cloud. That would have been perfect. A little cloud to dim the sun. A little rain to cool the baking asphalt. Something to temper the raging heights the thermometer had reached. But… No.

Relieving though a rain cloud might be, a stormy sky would undoubtedly ruin everything Ms. Potts had been working towards all summer. Would ruin the weather series it had taken her months to make. It was her last chance to finish.

She looked at the sky, the old kindergarten school teacher zeal from ten years ago flaring up for a split second. “Don’t you dare rain.”

Readjusting the canvas bag on her shoulder, Ms. Potts hobbled down the front stone path, trailing off toward the backyard where the smell of fresh grass and paint was calling her. Evidence from yesterday was still strewn out across the many work tables and tarps. Spilled paints, spots of clay, empty buckets and old paint brushes. She didn’t have time to lament over them now—if her arthritis hadn’t worsened in the last week, the place would be spick and span. As it were, it was all she could do to finish the last project.

No matter. The only thing that matters is completing this.

This piece was essential to the collection. Without it, she would have an incomplete recreation of spring, autumn, and winter.

Ms. Potts set the bag down before a battered old easel on which sat an almost finished painting of the mountains behind her house. So far, she’d captured the lovely blue sky from yesterday and finished the tops of the tallest mountain. The rest of the canvas was blank, though oddly impatient, as if it knew that creation was but a brush stroke away.

Ignoring the heat pressing against her lungs, she began arranging various blues, greens, reds, purples, oranges, and lastly white across her palette. At the same, she spoke the story to herself, drawing from the inspiration that had sparked the image for the painting in the first place.

“Between the two mountains,” she said, “there lived a prince and princess. Brother and sister, twins and best friends…” She dipped her brush in blue and then black, swirling them around in a dash of white to make a rich, slate gray. “They lived a quiet life, learning the ways in which to govern their people. That is, until the day a drought fell upon their land.”

Ms. Potts took a deep breath and applied the paintbrush’s tip to the canvas. It came away with a muted shnick, producing the beginnings of the rocky surface she’d imagined. Smiling, she stood straighter. One brushstroke down.

And she painted. And painted. And painted.

The minutes wore on as the brush prodded, swept, and poked the empty spaces. Pat, pat, pat. Ms. Potts continued the story, rehearsing it, though she knew it like the back of her hand. It had to be perfect. She had to be perfect. Pat, pat pat.

Sweat accumulated in the creases of her elbows, along her hairline, and around the waist of her dress. Still she painted, ignoring the swarms of overwhelming heat wafting through her backyard. It was so hot the paints sometimes slipped and slid on the canvas, mixing in places they shouldn’t. Ms. Potts smudged them away with her finger and painted on.

I am determined. I must finish it today. I must, I must, I must...

And determined she was, for the painting was coming to life beneath her careful hands. On first glance, it might’ve looked to be a hodge-podge of sky blues, ruddy oranges, and jungle greens, but on closer inspection, one could see a story unfolding between the vibrant shades. The twin mountains stood proud and tall, watching over the rivered valley. Ancient trees framed the gigantic hills, bowing in allegiance and showing the younger trees to whom they owed their gratitude. Forest animals milled here and there, drinking from trickling offshoots or rummaging hidden delights. It painted a story much like the one Ms. Potts was murmuring to herself as the empty space on the canvas filled.

By the time noon had gone and the peak of the day approached, Ms. Potts had used the entire tube of green paint and had only a smidgen of aquamarine blue left. Dipping a brush—a tiny thing with a bunch of bristles specifically used for detailing—into the remaining blue, she painted two small figures on the tops of the mountains. Then, she crouched lower and initialed the bottom right corner. She was done.

Swiping an arm across her forehead, Ms. Potts stuck the brush into the bun on her head and gathered her skirts in a knot. It was so muggy the skirt felt almost damp. Although that could’ve been her sweaty hands, Ms. Potts wasn’t sure.

Now, with the long, swish of her skirts out of the way, Ms. Potts tucked the bundle of brushes under her arm, hooked a finger through the hole in the palette, and set off for the garden shed.

It took nearly thirty minutes to wash out all the paint in the soft bristles. It would’ve taken another ten to remove it all from under her nails, but Ms. Potts wasn’t one to dawdle. As soon as the brushes were clean, she stepped out from under the blessed shade in the shed and went to stow the painting inside before the whole thing melted into a goopy mess.

The moment the breeze from inside her air conditioned house met her, Ms. Potts breathed a sigh of relief. The sweaty stickiness smeared over her skin faded away as she propped the picture by the stairs. By the time she’d put the paints away in the art cupboard, her hair was sticking out all over the place, but the heat had finally evaporated from her scalp.

She sat at the kitchen table with a cold glass of water, her eyes on the distant mountains as dark clouds gathered behind them. Droplets of condensation dripped from the water glass. Despite the fact her job was not yet complete, she felt a sense of satisfaction.

She’d beaten the rain.

As a treat, Ms. Potts fixed herself a bowl of pecan ice cream fresh from the ice cream maker, then showered and readied for bed. I want to be well rested.

The next day, long before the accursed sun could rise, Ms. Potts arose to pack the car. Some of the other paintings were already seated in the backseat amid carefully packed pottery. She went back and forth all morning, filling the car with a summer’s worth of projects. When the school bus barreled by, she knew it was time to leave. She put on a daisy patterned dress and gray ankle booties and rolled down the highway to the museum.

Her joints were protesting the work from the day before, but she rubbed lavender oil on them and ignored whatever soreness lingered. Surely it would be worth whatever aches and pains she felt for what was coming. I can take a few days of stiffness.

The museum was packed with other men and women from the community who had brought their own creations for the event; science exhibits with baking soda volcanoes, beekeeping stations with samples of fresh honey, a history booth stocked with replicas of the tools and inventions people used hundreds of years ago… The recycle center had even sent over a hundred notebooks made from recycled paper.

Ms. Potts wheeled her overflowing cart toward the table labeled “Fiction” and began organizing a display fit to draw any stranger in.

It wasn’t long before the loud bus engines were heard outside the building and, in even less time still, a bubble of children’s voices came floating down the hall.

Ms. Potts watched as children of all ages filed into the room. They were packed in clusters led by one or two teachers, and all wearing uniform t-shirts, so as to pick out group members more easily.

When the teachers had their day planners in order, the groups started dividing and heading off to their first stations. Ms. Potts was excited to see that her first group was a bunch of kindergartners, judging not by the tininess of their frames, but by the wide curiosity in their eyes.

“Welcome, children,” Ms. Potts greeted in her most bright, storytelling voice. They turned toward her like magnets, though their eyes continued to stray over the luscious hues in each of the seasonal paintings, the spots of color in her pottery cups, and the colorful beaded bracelets laid on the table.

“Who’s ready for a day of creation?”

And, as Ms. Potts watched all the shining little faces burst with excitement, she knew it had all been worth it. Every aching bone and muscle. Every blistering day outside in the heat. Every backbreaking hour she’d spent laboring over her art. All of it was worth it to spread a little creation in the world.