The November project 2019, part 6

It hadn’t been that easy to convince me. Karen, my closest co-worker, was not anyone I used to hang out with in my free time, and saying yes to join her on an evening activity simply felt… wrong. Like mixing two worlds. Karen was just work, you know?    I said yes in the end, partly because Karen was so engaging and convincing in her way of talking (it made me wonder why she was working as and accountant when clearly she’d be better in sales), partly because the activity wasn’t some perky girls night out or a corny session of yoga, wellness and mindfulness. No activity where I’d feel uncomfortable or be forced to be buddies and pals with someone who was just a co-worker to me. No, the activity was an art class. “We’re starting a new semester tonight and people who wanna try it out can attend for free”, Karen had told me. No paying demand until the next session, in other words. I thought, an art class, that was actually something I had thought of attending a long time ago, but abandoned since I didn’t consider myself having enough time, money or talent to even try. Now, a couple of years had passed, I had made myself a career and had been able to reduce my hours without losing pay, and even if my confidence about painting was still very low, there wasn’t really any excuse to not go. The venue was at an old cracker factory. It had been preserved; the windows still had their white mullions and uneven surface, they let in the sunset light in an incredible picturesque way. Old, thick water radiators sat under the windowsills. The temperature was cool in the hall, but the warmth of the afternoon sun still lingered. The floor was made of thick planks that made a lovely creaking sound when stepped on. Over it all rested a scent of dust, wood, and perhaps tar? It was hard to distinguish.    The class was held in a corner of the biggest hall. There were both easels and cushions on provisional benches, everything a little abstract and irregular, while still neat and organized. Canvases in one place, paint bottles in another, and of course a little table with coffee and tea. It was, however, hard to feel at home at the start; the visitors who obviously had been there before found each other immediately and started talking about how summer had been and how fun it was to start anew, while us new didn’t quite know what to do with ourselves. Most of us were equally shy and spent the minutes before class start with walking around the hall, coffee cups in our hands, inspecting the surroundings and materials. Tentative.    Luckily, it wouldn’t take long before the teacher showed up. She looked like a thousand old art lady stereotypes at once; her hair was gray but curly and with impressive volume, she wore glasses with thick frames, and loose linen fabrics in earthy colors. Bright red lipstick. With a dashing smile and vigorous body language, she welcomed us all and told us about the contents of this course, about the different techniques and motives we were to try out, and that those who wanted would get to showcase their work at a gallery a few weeks before Christmas. This first class would contain a bit of everything, as an introduction for us new people. The very first assignment was to draw with pencil and coal to get to know each other; we were divided into pairs and would then draw portraits of each other in only ten minutes, all while interviewing one another.      Challenging, absolutely. All I had done with pencils before was doodles in the margin of note pads. I ended up with a younger woman, way more relaxed than me.    “I’ve been here before, but it was just so much fun that I had to return. You’re new here right?”    “Yes.”    “So what do you do when you’re not painting or drawing then?”    “I work at an accounting agency… we help other companies, mostly small businesses who don’t have their own accountants, with… well, accounting.”    “Fun! Or is it? There’s a lot of numbers isn’t it?”    “Yeah, you could say there’s a lot of that. I wouldn’t really call it fun, but I have an easy time with numbers and like having structure in things so usually I work pretty fast.”    “We are so lucky to have people like you. I’m useless with numbers, to be honest. Almost failed math.”    “Oh, that bad?”    “Yup. I don’t just wanna work with my head, I need to get to use my hands as well you know?”    “Yeah, I can understand that. Art for me is something I’ve always liked just because you get to explore completely other elements in your surroundings, while still staying structured if you want to, and using your hands. I liked drawing and painting as a child, I remember that. Haven’t done much of it as an adult though.”    She worked quickly and concentrated, gave almost every answer and question with her eyes on her paper. Still she had an extremely extrovert aura about her, the complete opposite of me who still felt nervous and drew slowly because I had to look up all the time. Her hair was dark and put up in a messy bun, she wore a purple scarp, green tank top and blue overalls. Her eyebrows were thick and her nose big and straight. Diana was her name.    “Damn it, can we really only use pencil for this practice? I wanna give you some color”, she said, grumpily. “Hey Gunilla, do we have any colored pencils I can use?”    “We do have some, but I’d rather you stay to plain ones for this assignment. And you only have two minutes left anyway”, said the teacher.    God damn it, I thought, being way less done than I’d hoped to be at this point. The drawing didn’t end up as I’d wanted it to, but Diana still praised it. “That looks really good!”    “Not as good as yours, yours was incredible, in just ten minutes you managed to make me way prettier than I really am.”    “What kind of talk is that! We’re not here to compare to one another, only to ourselves. You have on top of that not been here before, this was really for being your first assignment. And you are that pretty! I promise. It can just be hard to see for oneself at times.”    “Gosh, you’re flattering me.”    “What! I mean it.”    I didn’t know how to handle such kind words like that. She seemed to be an amazingly… pure soul. Endless kindness, positivity and altruism seemed to live in her.    The evening continued with practicing perspective and scare by painting the hall we were in, then color practice with watercolor versus acrylics. It probably went OK, I didn’t think too much about it. By the end of the class however, I knew I was going to pay for a full term. People like Diana was a kind I needed in my life. Even if the art was to fail miserably, it’d still be worth coming here. For her.    purple