the forger

“You start with the fuzzy ones: Monet, Degas, maybe try Van Gogh. Then, you move on. Expand. Give a shot at Dali, Duchamp and Picasso, wearing each artist as a mask. You paint Sad Young Man on a Train a dozen times, and each time you make one less mistake. And once you're good enough, you pick your favorites, and only then you really study.”

The sun dipped below the window frame and lit the studio like a Caravaggio. The forger sighed, clapped her hands, and dismissed her first class of the year.

“Most people … they'd say this is wrong.” A student lingered behind, uneasy. “I mean, isn't it? We didn't come up with any of these compositions. How is it different from stealing?”

“I suppose it is stealing. But it's also giving, bringing the wonder of one painting to more than just one place. Besides, people will always say things. They cast us into the dark, paint all over us with black.” The forger motioned to the array of dirty brushes in the sink. “Listen—life is not chiaroscuro. Who is to say where the bright yellow is, and where the dark earth tones are spread? The artist. I want you to remember this: we are artists, not thieves, and in exchange for the memories we preserve on cloth, we can afford a lamp to throw some light and a roof to cast some shadow.”

“We're artists, you say?” The student scratched his neck. “Sure, artists that sign someone else's name on someone else's work. If I'm an artist, who am I? Hell, who are you?”

The forger laughed. “Right now? I am Georgia O'Keeffe. Or at least close enough that people don't care.” She turned to a stack of canvases in a corner, thumbing through them carefully. “See this ladybug, in the crook of the flower, in this one? And the aphid clinging underneath this blade of grass? These were not here before. They are me.”

Squinting his eyes, the student frowned. “I can hardly see that ladybug. At a glance, your work and O'Keeffe's are the same. I guess that's the whole point, anyway; it's what you're teaching us to do.”

“Well, yes.”

“So … what's the difference between you and O'Keeffe? What have you added to the arts that we didn't already have before?”

The artist smiled and toyed with her watch.

“The art is the same, but I have added myself. O'Keeffe is dead—I am alive.”