Sally Manger
May 20, 2012 2:51 PM
Blank [Room Four] by Sally Manger
Typically a left-brained person, it was very unusual for Sally to engage in artist endeavors. However, today was not a normal day. Due to her latest project—the goal of which was to understand emotions and feelings in not only her but others—she was exploring the world with a bit more curiosity. She aimed for a slow transition to understanding. It was certainly an undertaking, but she was certain she could do it. There was no reason for her not to.It was said that art was often the child of emotion. Thus the Aladren sought a canvas and paints, which she found in the fourth room of MARS. The walls of the room—set to display scenario chosen by the “artist”—today resembled Florence, Italy during the Renaissance. The art of that time was by far superior to any other era, and Sally hoped to find it inspiring.
From the art lessons with which she had been provided as a child, she remembered being told to paint as she felt. Feelings—the mastery of which was her objective—should pour from her soul and pierce the very fabric of existence, her hand only the messenger, the brush her partner. Paint as you feel, not as you think, she told herself. Emotion, not thought.
Grey-brown eyes blinked at her “creation”. She painted exactly what she felt.
The canvas was blank.
What was wrong with her that she couldn’t even muster up enough emotion to paint one picture? Sally wondered what she would have been like had she not been raised to be so devoid. Her mother’s art was beautiful—her paintings flawless and her doodles astounding—but if she had inherited the trait, it had been blocked by her father’s expectations, all to which she had conformed. She knew she wasn’t stupid, but she felt foolish.
She heard a noise—a foot step?—that indicated she was not alone. The thirteen year old turned around to face the noise. “Are you an artist?” she inquired politely. A light pink hue colored her cheeks. “Would you help me?”
12
Sally Manger
Blank [Room Four]
198
Sally Manger
1
5
Sara Raines
May 21, 2012 12:17 PM
I can't say I have that problem by Sara Raines
Christmas was approaching, and while there were many advantages to her arrangement with Preston, Christmas included some of the disadvantages, or at least some of the inconveniences. Arranging for invitations, to both the major family Christmas party and to one of her mother’s smaller events between Christmas and New Year’s, to go to the Stratfords this year was one of the things Sara had left entirely up to her parents, but she thought she ought to have more of a direct hand with the present – or presents, as the case could be – and that was where she was running into the first real problems of her relationship.Was she, for instance, supposed to also give gifts to his family? Or would that be seen as, at best, either presumptuous or childish or, at worst, as an attempt at a tastelessly obvious display of wealth, as though she and her parents were desperate to prove that she was worthy? If she got presents, should she also get one for Shelby Sinclair, and if she did that, would she then need to get one for Jaiden Sinclair and his fiancée on top of all this, since she was also getting a present for Fae and it would perhaps be impolite to leave out their brother? And even if she was supposed to only get something for Preston and just send a very nice and respectful card to his parents, what was appropriate and what was not? How personal should a gift be?
The problem, she thought, was the ambiguous, for pureblood society, nature of their relationship, though she thought it didn’t help that they had been at school since it began and she hadn’t had a chance to get to know his parents personally. If she had even known Mr. and Mrs. Stratford better, she thought she would have had a better idea of what was expected of her, but she didn’t. She was feeling her way along blindly, just hoping not to make a major mistake that would ruin everything.
As a distraction from the catalogues that were starting to make her head hurt, Sara had decided to visit the art room. She was not much of an artist, but she could, thanks to Aunt Margaret and Sara’s own desire to copy everything about her mentor, knit as well as sew, and she had the idea in her head to try her hand at making Preston a scarf – maybe blue and black, for Aladren, but with his initials at one end or something like that. Whether she would actually ever give it to him depended entirely on two things, the first being how good it was and the second being whether she finally decided that was a proper thing to do, but she had the thought that trying it would make her feel a bit more like she was doing something instead of stressing about something as silly as gifts when she had more substantial things to think of this year.
When she entered the room, though, she found it already occupied, and resembling Italy, something she took in with pleasure before looking at the room’s other occupant. Sally Manger, she thought; one of the third years, an unusual girl who was now sitting in front of a blank painting canvas, asking for help.
“I can try,” she said with a friendly smile, noticing the other girl’s slight blush. “I wouldn’t say I’m really an artist, but…” She glanced back from Sally to the canvas. “What are you trying to do?” she asked, just to be sure painting was the intention.
0
Sara Raines
I can't say I have that problem
179
Sara Raines
0
5