Fine Art
It was something that Warhol said which made Ted kill the first time. Death makes a lot of money. Death can really make you look like a star.
Catherine stood on the doorstep looking bright despite the rain which fell around her. She was trying to remember everything she had been taught. Press the doorbell. Press it twice if you don’t hear anything. Hang back. Don’t be too close when they open the door. Walk down two steps if there are steps. Or two paces if there are none. Be friendly. Try to motivate. Excite them with your endless appreciation of God’s word. Don’t be too pushy if they seem angry.
This was her third door already. The first belonged to an old woman, who invited Catherine inside and set about making a pot of tea, which was filled directly from the cold tap into the tea-pot and covered with a striped woolly tea-cosy. That’s where it boils, see, the old lady said. Catherine checked for wires. Seeing none, she gathered her belongings and made her excuses. The second door belonged to what her mother called a heathen-slammer: the door was instantly shut in her face.
By 9.17 am, Ted had managed to answer the door, filled with his usual characteristic weltschmerz. He was annoyed by the visitor. He seemed to have a fraction of the productivity levels of his fellow contemporaries and his MA Fine Art group was full with active artists who ran extra curricula groups, projects and competitions. One of the class, Hilda, had just been given space to exhibit in the Saatchi gallery alongside other exceptional young artists for the forthcoming month. Whereas his usual angst provided him with a muse and delivered him safely into an artistic territory, he found that his jealousy was a drag, a constant preoccupation which tugged at him and begged him to create something to impress his tutors. Usually when he created under the umbrella of envy, he would produce uninspired pieces which he found difficult to contextualise under peer scrutiny.
When Catherine said hello, Ted looked at the literature she was holding and found himself turning back down the corridor without shutting the front door, as though the girl would naturally follow him. Catherine did follow him, she was spontaneous and naive enough to do so, taking his silent retreat as a trustful invitation.
It was just blood and hair, but Ted was convinced it was his best work. His tutors were gob-smacked: the aesthetic arrangement is sublime… the effect is liminal…you have captured the mindset of a murderer… it has a spontaneous quality- I want to see more.
Dorothy Fryd works for the School of English at Kent University as a Lecturer in Creative Writing. Her poetry and fiction has been published in Magazines, Anthologies and Competitions such as The Rialto, BRAND Literary Magazine, Forward Press, and has forthcoming poems in Obsessed With Pipework, The Interpreter’s House and South Bank Poetry Magazine. She was awarded the title of Canterbury Poet of the Year in October 2009 and was shortlisted for the Bridport 2010 Poetry Prize. Dorothy has performed work at various venues in the UK, including the Barbican, the Roundhouse, RADA, Brixtongue Art Gallery, Sounds New Music Festival, and Canterbury Art Festival. She also co-tutors alongside Jacob Sam-La Rose on the Barbican Young Poets Project, which is a creative project designed to help emerging poets develop their writing and performance skills.
