Page 62 of Infatuated as They Come
“You must be missing your fancy country club dinners, huh, princess?” I asked.
“I can handle this place,” she said, a defiant tone in her soft voice. “It’s just some graffiti.”
“You look a little scared.”
“I’m not scared. There’s nothing to be scared of.”
The door was suddenly yanked open, the sound of heavy metal being heaved in my ears. Whoever was in the doorway had their face all covered up, their giant safety mask covering up any defining features. They had a heavy brown apron on, the front streaked with red blotches and the long gloves on their arms coated in a similar looking liquid. I felt Holly tug at my jacket from behind, and I was just about to reach around and grab her hand when the person in front of us lifted their mask up.
“Hey!” It was Damien, his brown eyes all big as he grinned at me. “I thought you forgot all about us. I’d shake your hand, but I’m kinda messy right now.” And then his eyes flickered over to my side. “You brought a friend.”
“This is Holly.” I pressed a hand to the small of her back, pulling her in closer. “My girlfriend.”
“Hi,” Holly said shyly, offering him a wave.
“Hey! Nice to meet you. Are you guys checking out the place today?” Damien asked as he spun on his heels. “Come in, come in. Let me just put my equipment away. You two wait here by the front desk and I’ll just be one minute.”
I held the door open for Holly as she leaned in close to me. “That whole introduction was unnecessary,” she murmured.
Laughing, I shut the door behind us, watching as Damien quickly took off behind a corner. The front part of the studio was the total opposite to the outside. The walls were a crisp white with just a few paintings to my left, and when I peered around the corner into one of the rooms, I spotted a small sized gallery.
“Hey, I’m back!” Damien called out, apron and gloves off as he stood in front of us. “It’s nice to see you again. Your application really impressed me and the other guys here, Sawyer.”
“Oh, right. The application.” I shot Holly a little look, and she gave me a coy smile back. “Glad you liked my paintings, I guess.”
“How long have you been painting for?” he asked. “Has it been something you always wanted to do?”
“Uh, since I was a kid, I guess. I just always liked it and stuck with it,” I explained.
“Cool,” Damien said. “Holly, you go to Columbia, right? We have someart from Columbia students if you wanna check them out.”
Holly nodded. “Ooh, I’d love to see them.”
“Do you guys want a tour? I can show you around the place. I was about to finish up with my work back there.” He nodded to the left. “I do glass and metal work art. We have a big studio if you wanna see that.”
“Let’s do it,” Holly said, her soft fingers finding mine.
We followed Damien past the front desk and through to the back area of the building, and I was instantly met with the familiar sharp scent of paint. The back of the building looked more like a warehouse, but there were a good amount of windows across the ceiling that offered the perfect amount of natural light. To the left and right were the studios: all big and open and spacious with tall, white partitions to keep them separated.
“We support all kinds of artists here,” Damien said. “We’ve got people who do charcoal drawings and graphite stuff. There’s some printmakers here too. People who work with clay and stone. And we’ve got a lot of painters like you. Gouache, watercolors. You do oil, right?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Usually.”
“We have a couple open studios left.” Damien waved a hand at us to follow him further down the row of studios. “If you’re interested, there’s a space open to you. We do ask that you don’t just dump all your equipment here and take off. Some people like to use their studio as a storeroom, but we want artists to be active. We do exhibitions of everyone’s work pretty consistently. We’ve had a lot of success with our artists—some have even had their art displayed in The Met.”
“That sounds so exciting, right?” Holly asked.
It did, but I still found myself rubbing a hand against the back of my neck. “So, we just come here and make stuff and…?”
“All we ask is that you use the space. We’ve had artists say they’ll show up and then never do, and then someone who’d actually use the space misses out,” Damien said. “It’s kinda unfair, right? We need you to commit to a decent amount of hours. No using the space as a storage unit. That’s not what it’s for.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” I said.
“I’m sure you saw from the photos I sent—that Sawyer sent—that he does fine art,” Holly said. “He’ll be a great addition, right? I saw a lot of street art and modern stuff, but nothing like what Sawyer does.”
Damien nodded. “Exactly, yeah. It’d be cool to have someone who does fine art around here.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said. That was when Holly snapped her head over to me. “I’ll think about it, right?”
