Understory 2020

The Starving Artist’s Lament

I am what you would call a starving artist. Literally. I’m deep in the desert with no food, no water, just my paints and canvases. I blame Billy for convincing me to go here. “It’ll be safe,” he said, “Just hire a guide.” Well my guide thought it was a good idea to eat a cactus that turned out to be hallucinogenic. Needless to say, he got extremely high, and now he’s wandered off god-knows where. I tried to keep him by my side, but I could only stay awake for so long. I just wanted to paint the rolling dunes man, get some unique landscape painting practices. Maybe I’d even produce something good enough to sell. But I’m not selling anything at this rate. It’s just me, my paints, and my canvases. My brushes too, can’t forget those. I’ve wandered for days, and was lucky enough to find a rock outcropping that provides me significant cover from the sun. Now I’ve just been spending the hot days resting under there, and the cool nights I’ve spent walking around, hoping to find some travelling party that will rescue me, before the sun inevitably comes up and I’m forced to hide before its full splendor roasts me alive. It’s just me and my supplies out here. Me and my supplies. I’ve tried to sleep under that rock, but I just can’t break the “sleep at night, stay awake during the day” habit ingrained in most of us. So I’ve just sat there, staring at the rolling dunes that cut across the horizon. I haven’t much else to do, so I’ve been painting them. It’s not easy, the thirst has caused my head to grow woozy. Sometimes I’ll spend hours thinking I’m doing a good job, then when I take a good look at my painting, I realize it’s just a spiral of orange and blue, like water washing sand down the drain. God I wish I had some water right now. Sometimes I look up at the sky hoping for just one cloud, but all I see is blue. There’s no clouds here, just me and my paints. Just me and my canvases. Just me and my brushes. God, all these paints and canvases and brushes that I brought, why did I bring so many of them?! I hate them!

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DAVID CRISAFI-LURTSEMA is a senior pursuing a Baccalaureate degree in Computer Science. David is a “computer dweeb” who was born in New Jersey and raised in Alaska. Since he was little, he’s always had an interest in Creative Writing.

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