Writer

Excerpt From: Venus’ Web

By Jennifer Foxhoven (Published under Jennifer Alexander)

 

Art is nothing more than the shadow of humanity. -Henry James

 

The spider had been working on her web since dawn, excreting the long threads of silvery string that extended across the expanse of the window frame. The glass had been broken long ago and cardboard was the only thing dividing the world outside from the converted warehouse loft. Shimmering strands of sunlight cascaded through the cracks between the pieces of weather worn cardboard illuminating the surface of the web with prismatic refractions. The spider dangled lazily. A slight breeze from the window danced her until a gigantic thump caused the windows to shake. The ancient tape gave way to the force of the quake and the cardboard was knocked loose. The filaments of the web hyper-extended and then broke under the weight. Barely escaping, the spider scuttled up to a vacant corner of the room and began to weave again.

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Francesca stood before the block of marble that had just been delivered, inspecting its perfection. As she strode around it, her hands ran across the unblemished surface lovingly as if she were stroking a beloved pet. A gentle hum coursed through her fingers into her bones and dissipated throughout her body. The virgin stone beamed a brilliant shade of white under the glare of the fluorescent lights that were buzzing overhead. She felt a pull; whether it was in her heart or her stomach, she was not sure. It was the same pull that she felt each time that she looked at a blank canvas or mound of clay. 

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The loft was overcrowded with haunting paintings and extravagant sculptures that Francesca had created over the years. The walls were covered with charcoal drawings of sullen faced girls that all resembled their originator. Lining the staircase that led to her bedroom, there were enormous, richly colored, oil paintings with layers of texture so passionate they made their subjects seem almost alive. Boring tables and matching chairs were painted in vibrant shades to disguise their blandness. Even the ceiling wore a celestial mural. Francesca longed to make ordinary things somehow extraordinary. Her life seemed like a series of obsessions that overtook her, each a new perversion of her current state of truth. It was not just an expression when she created her art. It was a need that outranked all others.

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 Francesca glared into the stone. She knelt before it in penance, silently begging this marble to unveil its secrets. She always found this part of the creative process was one of the most frustrating, waiting for inspiration. She ached for the release, the beauty of creation. She could feel an idea swim almost to the surface of her mind and then dive back down into the depths of her subconscious where she could not reach it. For hours she just stared at the stone imagining all the things it might become, a blank surface with infinite potential. The statue’s fate was firmly in Francesca’s hands and it was not a responsibility she took lightly.

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She sometimes thought as Michelangelo did, that the media had already picked its own form. That is to say, that the fate of the marble was already somehow engrained in it, all she had to do was find the underlying structure and reveal it to the rest of the world. Art was not something that she made so much as it was something that she found...