Artsy-Fartsy [FICTOID]

“When you said you wished to paint me in the nude,” said the model, “naturally I assumed you meant me.”

“Why would I want to do that?” the painter asked.

“Most of artists who hire me do so.”

“Makes no sense,” said the artist, turning his back to the canvas to spray a fine green wash over it.  “Having you model in the nude, yes, there’s logic to that.  But paint you in the nude?  That means something entirely different.”

“But even ‘paint’ carries two meanings,” said the model.  She rested her elbow on a short pillar, a pose that enable her to talk while modeling.  “One can paint a picture of a house, but not the same way one paints a house itself.”

“Au contraire,” said the painter.  “My garret is filled with paintings of houses I haven’t been able to sell.” 

“The houses or the paintings?”

“Both.  My failure as a real estate agent drove me into the arts.”

He drank another quart of paint.  “I know a fellow artist who painted a model – she posed nude, of course, didn’t want to ruin her clothes -- from head to toe with oil paint.”

“That must have been a frightful mess.”

“It was,” said the painter as the quart of paint made its way through his system, enabling him to spray a new swath of color.  “That’s why I recommend watercolors for that sort of thing, washed off easily.”

“I must commend you on your skill,” said the model.  “It’s quite masterful, not to say unique.  In fact, one might say it’s a unique technique.  I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I have a cousin who shares a somewhat similar talent,” said the painter. 

“Another painter?”

“No, a chef.  He started with roast beef and eventually worked his way up to pea soup.”

“It seems like it would be easier the other way around,” said the model.

“Anybody can roast beef,” said the painter.

© Buzz Dixon