Page 42 of River & Rue

I was blowing my nose into the hem of my T-shirt and contemplating buying a one-way ticket to Seattle when my studio door opened.

Gideon Masters walked inside.

I knew who he was, of course. Everyone did. The man was a legend, one of the most lauded and accomplished painters in the world. What I couldn’t fathom was why he was here, grinning at me like I’d correctly answered a question I hadn’t heard him ask.

Much later, he told me he’d been curious about me since he’d seen my murals in Paris. When the fallout from my show reached him, he felt compelled to track me down. He figured he’d see how I was handling everything and possibly offer some advice. But his motives changed when he saw me sitting in the wreckage of my art, looking equally destroyed.

His first words to me were, “I see you’ve figured it out.”

Bitterness quickly replaced my surprise and awe. “What? That I’m a failure?”

Gideon tilted his head, copper curls afire in the sunlight falling through the studio’s high windows. Eyes bright with curiosity roamed the floor before finding me again.

“I don’t see failure,” he said mildly. “I see an artist who just learned what many never do—what Picasso truly meant when he said, ‘Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.’”

I squinted at him, still drunk enough to wonder if I was hallucinating the conversation. Like he knew what I was thinking, Gideon chuckled.

Then he blew my mind.

“Come to Paris. Give me six months, and I guarantee galleries will be begging to show your work.”

I scrambled to my feet. “You’re offering to mentor me?”

He nodded, the smile on his face sibylline and slightly terrifying—an expression I would come to know well over the following months.

“Don’t bother asking me why. I won’t tell you yet. I may never. But I’ll give you this much—a taste of my mentorship, if you will. The true artist is a phoenix. We build and burn, over and over again, in order to experience and capture the world anew. You’ve burned, and now you have a choice. Will you build again, or will you bury yourself in ash until the world fades to shades of gray?”

I stared at him for a few seconds, then shook my head. “Sorry, but I’m way too drunk to understand that.”

Gideon’s laughter rang out, so loud and boisterous I couldn’t help laughing with him. He strode across the corpses of my paintings and stopped right in front of me. This close, I could see the silver in his hair and the faint lines on his face. But mostly, I noticed his eyes. A shade lighter than mine, they brimmed with life, wisdom, and peace.

He extended a hand, and I wiped my palm on my pants before clasping it.

“Will you accept my mentorship, River?”

Not trusting myself to speak without making a fool of myself, I nodded fast. He offered that slightly terrifying smile.

“To rising from the ashes.”

In the week since Rue left me reeling on the porch, I’ve done a lot of thinking. Mostly in bed at night as I wait for the sound of her sneaking into her cabin. No matter how hard I try, I can’t fall asleep until her bed creaks.

I’ve thought about Gideon quite a bit—his role in my life, first as my mentor and then a friend. Without his intervention that day, I’m not sure I would have had the courage to pick up a paintbrush again. But what I’ve come to value even more than his artistic guidance, what I’ve thought about most, are all the little wisdoms he’s shared over the years.

Like the metaphor of artists as phoenixes.

Create and destroy.

Build and burn.

Rise from the ashes or become them.

Eight years and hundreds of paintings later, I know the cycle well. The pain and necessity of it. The discipline required to balance sensitivity with perseverance and passion with intent. To embrace failure as opportunity. To welcome metamorphosis as dead trees welcome fire, knowing something new will soon grow.

I’ve never struggled this much to rise from the ashes, but I’ve also never been buried so deep.

A few weeks ago—submerged in self-pity after a failed attempt to sketch something, anything—I asked Gideon if he thought my art had broken when my heart did.

In his typical way, his answer was more philosophical than practical.