5) The Studio

It’s your happy place. Your safe space.

It’s cheery. White walls, soaring ceiling… spray foam inbetween the beams, painted white… everything white. There’s the loft space that your kids love. Every time they come in they head right up to the loft, ipads in hand and they climb the little ladder where they disappear in the back behind the white canvas walls. David put some boards behind the fabric so that the kids would never make the mistake and lean backwards. It’s like a little nest. Your kids tell you that they would love to live in your studio. The loft would be where they slept.

On the walls are all your paintings. Finished framed pieces, works in progress… bright, cheery, colorful in contrast to the plain gallery style white walls. There’s a single window, you’ve never opened it before. You bought a solid wood buffet at the thrift store and painted it a vibrant, Nickelodeon slime green. You’d never use that color regularly, but here it felt safe, a challenge to the status quo. You didn’t stop there though… you like threes… You paint your studio door that same green… and then you add with the rigid barrier of painter’s tape, a large rectangular-ish swath of that same green on the wall that the open door rests on. It looks almost like an arrow, rectangular except for the one side closest to the ladder, that side matches the angle of the its slope. Everything fits neatly together like it was always made to be there.

In the back of your studio behind a little half wall is the area that your kids call “the kitchen” even though the mini fridge you used to have has long since broken and been dragged the long hike to the dumpster. Back here is where you keep all your unsightly things… the things you don’t want to see in a gallery space… the bottles of sticky resin you pour, your Cricut machine, a peg board with your hammer, impact drill, all your tools neatly arranged.

You love this space. It’s yours and yours alone. When you place something somewhere, that’s where it stays. No one touches your stuff, everything stays neat, clean, orderly… exactly how you like it. This is your happy place.

You walk in ready to prepare for Art Walk the next day… your final Art Walk… your last hurrah in this space you love. The following week you’ll begin clearing out your space… your funky pink sparkly diy chandeliers will come down, the green buffet moved out, all the art off the walls. You let the property manager know that come hell or high water, you will most definitely be out by the 21st. She’s ok with this and lets you know that she’ll mail you back your pro-rated rent and security deposit. You ask if she has someone lined up to take over the space, part genuine curiosity, part getting information for your friends, the other artists that rent there.

“I’m not entirely sure yet, but I don’t think your space will be rented right away. We were told that once this space was vacated that the loft space would have to be removed for insurance purposes… you’re the last one with the loft like this… and they’ll probably just move one of the brewery’s administrators over here… they’re running out of office space.”

‘Not your monkey, not your circus,’ you tell yourself, but secretly you hate the idea of some office person typing away, YOUR studio no longer a creative space, no longer a fun spot for kids to play, for people to come in and look on in awe at art and the good juju this place holds.

You open the door, punching in the code, your husband’s name in numbers. The door beeps and you hear the lock mechanism release. You push through the plastic freezer curtains you installed to help keep the cold air in and the unrelenting heat and humidity out, the door easily swings open and you walk in.

Something’s different. Something’s off. You’re way too preoccupied to realize it though, you’re in your own little bubble, completely oblivious to all that is going on outside of the confines of your own skull. You walk to the utility sink to wash your hands. You hate having dirty hands, dusty, sticky, chalky… that makes your skin crawl. You’re not even sure if you need to wash your hands… how many door handles have you touched? But there’s no harm in washing them again.

You finish up and reach for the paper towels that hang on a roll just above the sink but the roll isn’t there. Nothing is there actually. “What in the fuck?” You say to yourself… You’re out of your head now, you’re in the moment, in your space seeing it for what it really is… and you are horrified.

Everything is gone off the walls. The loft has been removed. How in the hell did you not notice this when you walked in? In what was a normally neat, tidy, clean, colorful space, there are now boxes… so many fucking boxes in no particular order, stacked haphzardly as if someone had started the undertaking of packing up your space then got off track and left. “How could they do this to you?!” You think choking back tears. You told them, you specifically told them that you would be out by the 21st… that you wanted to do one more Art Walk. Where had the breakdown in communication occured? Where was your green buffet? Where was all your art? Had they dragged everything down to the dumpster at the far end of the parking lot like you had with the old fridge. Your heart begins to beat wildly. The loft! The fucking loft is gone… everything… everything of yours is boxed up or missing or tossed aside in chaotic heaps. Nothing is in its place… this is disorder, it’s not clean or neat or tidy. Everything that felt safe and good has been torn off the walls.

The white seems overpowering now. Too white. It’s no longer a ‘gallery wall white;’ it instead feels like a hospital, waiting for the doctor to come talk to you after your scans did not come back good at all white; an assylm white. Sterile. Devoid of life. Now the walls with no break from the loft, seem even taller, looming. There’s more space yet somehow you feel smothered, like you’re being suffocated. You feel violated. Where is all your stuff? Why did they do this to you?! Can you drag your buffet and work out of the dumpster if it’s still even there…?!

And then you feel it. You’re being watched. You’ve had your back turned away from the door as you stared at your empty space in horror and sadness, grief… For a split second you think it’s the skittish stray cat, ‘Dali’ apptly named for her fur pattern that gives her a mustached appearance. Sometimes on rare occasions when you’re all alone, she’ll appear at the door, peaking through the flaps, looking for food? Comfort? Security? And on even rarer occasions she’d slowly make her way through the flaps, one time walking all the way over to the loft’s ladder, sniffing cautiously as she’d make her way around. You’d hold your breath, not wanting to scare her away.

But this felt different. This didn’t feel like ‘Dali’ and as soon as you turned to face the door you gasp and jump back in horror. It’s not the slight little mustached kitty… it’s a coyote. You’ve never seen one up close. You’ve seen plenty from a distance… skittish creatures that slink into alleys and disappear into neatly manicured hedges. You’ve gotten ALL the Nextdoor alerts, “coyote spotted… keep your pets indoors…” You’ve always been told that they’re no threat to humans, just give them their space and they’ll leave you alone. But this one? This one doesn’t slink off and disappear into nothingness like the others do at the slightest hint of a human too close. This one glares. This one is right in the doorway, crouched down as if it’s about to pounce. It’s eyes aren’t quite right either… it’s not the soft brown eyes of your dog, no… these are black holes where eyes should be… two fiery yellow specks where the pupils should sit. You can’t scream. You know it wouldn’t do any good… the walls are thick block concrete, no one else is at the studio, no one would ever hear you from the brewery on the far side of the parking lot.

Your mind goes back to that time when you worked at the veterinary / boarding facility. You were a teenager, one of your first jobs ever. You had to clean the kennel runs. A huge new Harlequin Great Dane was being boarded. There was a warning card on his run, “CAUTION: DO NOT TURN YOUR BACK TO HIM.” You ask him to be good… eyeing him suspiciously as you carefully open the kennel door with your squeegee in hand. He trots to the far end of the run, watching you just as carefully as you keep an eye on him. The run is clean, not a single incident… all is well but as you turn your back to him to open the door he is on you, you feel his breath on your neck, he’s huge. He outweighs you by at least 80lbs, he closed that gap between the two of you in record time. You turn to face him and he rears up. His huge paws landing on your shoulders, pinning you to the kennel door. He’s staring down at you. You freeze. A coworker walks by and yells, the Great Dane retreats to the back of the run… you have two massive wet paw prints on your shoulders. You don’t ever go into his run again.

And now in your studio, with that ‘coyote’ thing crouched down in your doorway, ready to pounce, you wonder if someone will happen by again and save you from whatever this thing plans on doing. It growls. Those black holes for eyes, those pin pricks of flames where the pupils should be… it inches closer to you, just like Dali had cautiously inched through those same flaps.

You have three options, find something to protect yourself with… the only thing you can think of is your broom. You imagine yourself trying to fight this snarling monstrosity off with a plastic broom you can’t even find. Your next option is to make a run towards the beast and slam the door shut before he can inch his way in any further… will you be able to hold the door closed? He’s massive. He looks strong. Teeth bared, massive paws with thick black nails curled into the threshold, getting traction to leap onto your throat… You don’t know if you can do it. And your final option… run like hell, jump over, jump into him… throw him off, he won’t expect you to charge him running full speed… if you can just get out of your studio you can scream and maybe someone will hear you, there will be help… you just have to go… you just have to launch yourself.

But you can’t move. You’re frozen. The sterile white walls. The too high ceilings that feel like they’re simultaneously looming above and squeezing you down. Where’s all your fucking stuff?!! Where’s your art? Where’s your buffet? Where are the chandeliers and your resin and your cricut machine? The beast as if it can hear the inner workings of your soul, your very being, snarls menacingly in reply.

And then you scream, but it’s not quite a scream… it’s a guttural sound you’ve never made or heard before, it’s fear, it’s grief, it’s frustration, it’s everything all at once, and it surprises both you and the coyote… and you wake with a frantic start… the tail end of that awful sound you made still on your lips… you had cried out and woken yourself up from this awful dream with a panicked jolt.

The white walls are gone, your empty studio gone, the beast didn’t even exist… yet it all felt so real. The most vivid dream you’ve ever had. Now you’re looking around your heart still thudding in your chest, taking in your familiar surroundings, the comforting weight of your cat on your feet, the familiar sound of the fan whirring overhead, David snoring beside you, your cool darkened room… You exhale… your breath a steady stream…

…Thirteen more days.