1970: The Portrait That Wasn't

by Sharon Berg

It’s been four days. My knees are pulled up under a long flower-printed skirt, heels resting on the seat of the kitchen chair as I read a book. I nurse a mug of coffee from the percolator Noel picked up at a thrift shop. I’ve taken refuge in this flat my brother Weylin shares with Rory and Noel.

Three men live here. I’m the odd one out. Yet Rory and Noel have helped me review both the assault by my mother and the unexpected betrayal by my brother. Weylin’s continued silence since the night of my arrival gives me further perspective. I’ve run away from home. I’m in greater limbo than I ever could have imagined. I still nurse the burn on my hand, caused when Mom threw a pot of boiling potatoes at me. On the surface she was angry I’d accepted a baby-sitting job without consulting her. Beneath that, I wouldn’t be home to do the supper dishes. Still, the rift between us runs far deeper. She fights her insecurity with control. I represent a challenge to her. As for Weylin, I landed here unannounced, interrupting his rendevous with a new girlfriend.

Rory enters the kitchen with a small stretched canvas and sketch pad under one arm. He has a six quart basket of paints and brushes in his other hand.

“Come out for a walk with us, Elke. Noel and I are going to the fields behind Dale’s Nursery. We want to paint in plein air. We figure that’s the perfect place to find inspiration.”

Noel comes down the hall, following Rory, carrying his own supplies. He’s wearing a straw cowboy hat.  

“Yeah. Come on out with us. The Nursery is abandoned. I think people still live in the house, but no one is in the greenhouses any more. That field will definitely be empty.”

“I think it will look like what the Impressionists painted,” Rory adds. “That’s why we chose that spot.”

“I don’t know—”

I’m in limbo. My brother is in a deep funk. He’s recognized what he did was wrong. He gave me a piece of foam and a blanket to sleep on the floor in his room that first night. I could have accepted that he made love to his girlfriend, though I didn’t know she’d be there. That’s why I kept my back to them. But that was followed by their laughter, followed by their invitation for me to look at what they were doing— All I can say is I was shocked. He forced me into sexual voyeurism. I couldn’t stay in his room. I felt so betrayed.

Now, his state of depression is worse than I witnessed during his teen years. He’s missed three days of work. We haven’t spoken a word since I left his room. He doesn’t come out of his bedroom except to use the washroom. No one bothers him, though we do invite him to share supper with us each evening. So far, he hasn’t joined us. It’s been four days of me sleeping in Rory’s bed while Rory curls up in the bathtub. I feel bad about displacing him, but Rory insists on taking care of me.

“Come for a walk, Elke. Bring a book if you want, or a sketch pad. You need to get out of the house. Take in some sunshine. Break the mood. Come on out in plein air with us.”

Noel removes his hat and steps over to place it on my head.

“Here—I’ll loan you my chapeau, so you won’t get sunburned.”

I adjust the fit of Noel’s hat, a smile breaking through my reluctance to move. The anticipation of an excursion begins deep within me. These two are proving themselves to be good friends.

“Okay, I’ll come.”

Rory and Noel intend to paint in 1970 as the Impressionists did one hundred years ago. It’s hard to believe so much time has passed since the Impressionists learned of scientific experiments with light and transferred their understanding of colour and the light spectrum to their canvases. Noel and Rory each have a piece of cardboard to use as their palette, and 12 x 16-inch stretched canvases in addition to the tubes of paint and brushes in their six-quart baskets.

“I want to see if I can catch the shifting colours of sunlight under moving clouds,” Rory exclaims. “Can a still life give the impression of movement?”

As we walk, Rory shares what he knows about the Dale Estate, reminding me of Weylin’s inclination to always share his knowledge.

“What Edward Dale and his son Harry achieved is impressive. Edward started selling vegetables from his garden plot in the mid-1800s. By the height of Dale’s Nursery he had twenty acres under glass. Not only did he employ a quarter of the village of Brampton, but Harry Dale worked beside his father until he inherited the business.”

“That is amazing,” I say. “Weylin told me about how they built their business.”

“They drew the attention of florists from around the world,” Noel adds.

“Yes. Their roses and orchids were an international sensation. But their business faltered during the 1960s. They inspired competition.”

“Yup,” Rory nods. “The fields are abandoned now, the glass houses broken or removed. But I look forward to painting a few postage stamps of the remains of their flower fields.”

The reality is, Rory and Noel will use their tiny canvases created in open air as reference tools, transferring their compositions to larger pieces completed at home. Their purpose today is to study the landscape, collecting information. Light. Shade. Texture. Form. Line. Juxtaposition. Colour. Every painter manipulates these aspects in their work, choosing one or two to emphasize.

It feels like we’re a small artistic troupe from the past as we walk down the sidewalk, me in my long skirt and blouse, the two of them in paint-spattered jeans and T-shirts. We must look like we’ve stepped out of a time machine. We’ll capture the flower fields in plein air and fresh paint. The Impressionists focused on colours, light, and technique in their brush strokes, informed by the science of light rays. Rory and Noel are still young, still searching for their focus, but they’re dedicated and willing to experiment. I know in my gut they’ll find their purpose.

We reach the edge of the field, down a gradual bank on this side. There’s a steeper bank on the other side. The field Dale used to plant with flowers was a flood plane when the creek was a full-fledged river. That river was mostly diverted when the village of Brampton developed one of the first sewage systems in Ontario. We’ve walked down the old service lane for the Dale Nursery. Flowers still peak through long grass on either side of the creek, remnants of the nursery mixing with native volunteers.

As we make our way down the bank, Rory and Noel walk ahead. I pause to pick orange, purple, and red flowers that peak between the tall, unmown grass. Their passing makes a path down to the flat plain, tall grass bent flat as Noel and Rory forge ahead. Rory sits to sketch beside the stream, then turns toward me, deciding something different appeals to him more.

“Elke, can you hold that pose, picking your bouquet?”

His call alerts Noel, who looks up.

“Hey! Are you seeing Renoir’s Path Through the Long Grass?”

“I am. Something like that.”

We’re all reflections in that moment. We recall our studies, the history of visual art. Both painters are focused on me as I stand, surrounded by colourful strokes of flowers peaking through green. They see a figure carved out of history. We’re hidden from modern houses surrounding this field by trees gathered on the topside of the flood plain. The date might be 1840, or 1940, but it’s actually 1970. I begin composing a poem in my head, capturing my own perspective on the woman wearing a long skirt, a sun hat, and picking the flowers peeking through long grasses on the hill.

♣

We’ve returned home. The over-sized bouquet I picked sits in a jar on the table between Rory and me. I’ve finished drafting my poem. Rory and I worked on either side of the bouquet. I can’t view his face or what he’s working on. He can’t see me fully while we sit. It’s when I rise to make us coffee that I glance over and see his drawing.

He’s added his own spin on things for this 12 x 16 inch canvas. A blur of lines representing flowers cover my face. Only the top of my head and one arm in a long sleeved, blouse are visible.

“That’s different, sort of an anti-portrait.”

He looks up and smiles, “Yeah, I don’t know your face well enough for a portrait yet.”

“So you’re approaching the horse slowly? Hoping she doesn’t bolt across the field?”

“You could say that.”

“I don’t mind sitting for you, Rory. Every artist needs to practice laying down their lines. Almost all artists, throughout history, had models. I learned so much in the drawing classes I had at school. I understand.”

That’s how I became the model and Rory became the painter in our partnership. Yes, still drew and painted in addition to writing, but Rory and Noel gave me a fresh sense of purpose. Pulling me into their painting as a model grounded me. I felt much calmer. They didn’t see me the way other men did. They considered my form and how it collects shadow, the aspects of light all around me, how highlights fall on my face and shoulders. That’s especially true of Rory because I pose mainly for him. The potential to sketch me is there at any time: sitting in a chair, prone on the bed, or standing by a window. I can sense the drawings and paintings we’ll make together in the future. Drawing and painting are a strange glue, making the link between artist and model manifest. But this first close-up is somewhat different.

“Will you add lots of colour?” So far, there’s only the sepia underpainting.

“Yeah, but I’ll make it a jar of red flowers—for simplicity’s sake.”

He pulls his cardboard palette from the basket of paints he set by the door when we returned from the field. He squeezes out greens, blues, sienna, reds, black, and yellows. I make coffee, no longer sitting, so he begins with the background. Sharp points of shadow play on yellow walls from the door with its window. In this painting, he’s toying with the shadow, exaggerating peaks and valleys.

Placing his coffee in front of him, I sit with my own cup on the other side of the tall bouquet to re-read my poem.

     Renoir

     The greenhouses were empty

     glass elephants on either side of the lane

     our three reflections

     photographed where glass looked back

     and keeping pace.

     At the end of the lane

     we tug-o-warred down an incline

     to walk on a flower-dotted field

     behind deserted flower houses.

     The sun rolled shadows ahead

     like a tide

     washing the grasses.

     I ran ahead,

     my long skirt spread like a sail

     and chimneyed by wind as I bent

     to gather the fragrant heads of poppy

     and tie them in my apron.

     Painted by the sun’s hunt and seek

     between the clouds

     I glanced over my shoulder

     to where you were both busy

     an easel on either side of me

     and saw myself framed

     like a quotation. 

He starts by adding colour to my hair, seen in gaps between pert phthalo and sap green leaves. Using daubs of paint straight from the tube, my hair is yellow ochre highlights on burnt sienna. But the true focus of the painting are napthol red and vermilion petals. Flowers are central in this portrait, the figure behind the vase just one arm in a black blouse printed with Cerulean blue figures.

After supper, we sit on his bed, side-by-side, reading a book about Marc Chagall. Marc loved his Bella desperately, passionately. She was his muse, his model, his lover, but she also spent time with another man. Sitting beside Rory transports me to the party when we first met, our focus then being nothing more than the possibility of friendship as we explored a book on Picasso. These past few days I’ve felt utterly supported by Rory. It echoes the support I used to receive only from my brother, but this feels more fulfilling. I find myself trusting Rory more than I’ve trusted anyone before. He allows me to be myself. He champions all of my interests, whether writing, drawing, or water-colours.

As I relax, I lean on his shoulder. Rory bends to kiss the top of my head. I lift my face to look into his. His eyes remain on mine longer than usual. It’s a shift in perspective, blue eyes reading green eyes, looking for clues. Slowly, he leans in, kissing me full on the lips. It’s a soft, gentle kiss. It’s the first time I’ve ever been kissed like this. He draws back to look at my eyes again, checking for more signs, wanting to know if kissing is acceptable to me. Finding the answer, he leans in again. The next kiss is still gentle, but there’s an extra note of exploration.

For my part, the hesitancy I’ve wrapped myself in due to broken trust and denial of my sexual interference by family friends is slipping away. I can’t heal if family doesn’t believe my experiences. After some time, Rory sets the book on the floor and rises from the bed to turn out the lights. We pull back the quilt and cover ourselves, but we don’t remove our clothes. I’ve told him about my distrust of men. I’ve shared the things different boys and men have done to me in the past. Rory’s hands don’t travel below my shoulders. I realise he’s waiting for me to take the initiative, waiting for me to indicate I want more than kisses. I’m almost there.

For the next three weeks, we kiss and hug until we fall asleep, though our hands explore a larger terrain as each week passes. One thing always leads to another and that moment feels historic. I’m not coerced, not pressured. He’s waiting for me to initiate more. He lets me take the lead. When it finally happens, it’s like tectonic plates slipping, the way the whole earth suddenly moves beneath us. And there’s such a crescendo at the end.

There is such a release. I let go of my doubts. I’m choosing this man. I’m the model and he’s the painter. Even our love-making becomes genuine artistry. Stroke. Touch. Pressure. Stretching. Moving. Fluidity. Juxtaposition. Rhythm. Harmony. Voice. All of of our touching echoes the moment I posed on that hill where flowers peaked through long grasses. It’s reflected in the way Matisse, Ingres, or Renoir paint their odalesques. Rory will follow their example. It’s destiny.