Closer
I was never good enough. When I got into the prestigious local choir, the one you had to audition to get in, my mother’s first reaction was “but you can’t sing.” When I came home carrying the essay that had won first prize for my year, my mother criticised my subject choice and told me I could have done better and then maybe I’d have come top in the school. After a while, I stopped trying and settled into a comfortable existence of mediocrity. What was the point if it would never be enough?
That was until I discovered pottery. It was a minor assignment for my coursework, but the moment I cradled the clay in my hands, it felt as though I’d come home. As I moulded it, the pot taking shape as I teased it out of its hiding place in the material, a deep calm descended, almost as though I was channelling some mystical energy that was using my hands to perform its Will. The finished product wasn’t the best pot I’d ever seen - the top lip was slightly uneven and there was a bulge in one side where I hadn’t quite smoothed the surface properly - but I knew that I would do better next time.
And I did.
I don’t think my art teacher, Miss Linnett, was used to students taking her subject seriously. She was the stereotypical mouse, all flyaway blouses and flyaway hair, who couldn’t keep control of a classroom if her life depended on it. So when I asked her if I could stay behind after school to work on my pottery, she was hesitant to say yes, probably thinking that I was planning on trashing the room. It wasn’t difficult to talk her round and I found myself sitting in an empty room, a lump of clay before me, waiting for me to bring it to life.
I took a deep breath, opened myself up to my Muse and pulled off a piece to shape it.
When I stepped back from the finished work, it was dark outside. I’d completely lost track of time, immersed as I was in creating a shallow dish with ivy leaves entwined around the rim. So many flaws stared back at me I felt like smashing it up and starting again, but I was already late for dinner and I forced myself to remember it was still early days. I hadn’t even begun to master my craft.
I began coming into school early so I could use the art room. Part of me was relieved to have the excuse to be away from home. Mother had already lined me up with a job working in my uncle’s shop and I wasn’t going to take it. She wouldn’t hear of it and things had become even more tense than usual. But when I was working, my real work, all of that fell away. Everything I created was better than the last, intellectually I knew that, but all I could ever see were the faults, what I’d done wrong, what I could do better next time, what I would do better next time.
What Mother didn’t know was that Miss Linnett had said I could move in with her after exams were over. She’d been impressed enough by my creations to show them to a potter friend of hers and he was going to take me on as a sort of apprentice. It was informal with no guarantee of money other than what I could make from selling what I made, but I knew he would be able to help me take my art to the next level and I so desperately wanted to be good at something.
Exams came and went in a blur. I didn’t really care about the results - I already had my future laid out and it was hard enough putting the clay to one side for long enough to sit them; revision had taken a back seat and I’d be lucky if I’d even passed one. But Miss Linnett, Beth, had convinced me it was important to try and so I did, just for her. But even as I drifted off to sleep in her arms at night, that glorious first night when I officially left school and Mother behind, I was planning my next work. I was thinking that I wanted to explore more with the leaf shape I’d developed, use it as the basis for a bigger piece than anything I’d attempted in the past, maybe a Green Man figure. I slipped into dreams where my Green Man came to life and whispered dark, arcane secrets in my ear that lingered into morning, echoing sweet suggestions of what I might learn if only I could recreate him.
My first day under the supervision of Ned went well I thought. He put me to work mass producing statues with a mould he’d created, telling me I could do my own thing in the afternoon. The work was unchallenging, but there was something to be learned from even the most basic of tasks and over lunch, he told me that he thought I’d do all right. I’d come to learn that this was high praise indeed. Ned was not one for hyperbole.
That afternoon, I began carving out the leaves that would form the basis of my Green Man’s head. Maybe it was the nerves, but none of them came out right. Ned reckoned they were fine, but I could see that they simply weren’t good enough, not for what I had in mind. Build, destroy, build, destroy, a pattern that continued well into the evening until Beth came to see why I hadn’t come back for dinner. I left the workshop in frustration, knowing that I could do better and cursing myself for failing.
That night, the Green Man whispered to me once more, promising all sorts of wicked delights if I could only bring him to life. All he needed was the perfect vessel and I knew I could build it for him.
Ned gave me assignments, tasks he needed me to do so that he could get on with the more sophisticated work and as long as they were completed to his satisfaction, I was free to do what I liked with the rest of my time. But I found it increasingly difficult to focus on them. They simply weren’t important in comparison when my Green Man deserved a statue that reflected his beauty.
If only I were good enough to do him justice. Build, destroy, build, destroy. It became the story of my life.
Eventually, Ned tired of telling me to redo work that I’d rushed so I could get on with my Green Man. I’d yet to make even a single leaf that would do him justice and I’d have thought that Ned would understand how important art was. It was more important than food, more important than love, more important than life itself. If he couldn’t see that, then he wasn’t the mentor I thought he would be.
So I stayed home, while Beth went to teach the demon hordes how to appreciate art. I was becoming increasingly doubtful of her qualifications though - couldn’t she see the cracks, couldn’t she appreciate that the lines were all wrong? Ned had said that the leaves were perfect too, but what did he know? He left the workshop at 6 every night, wasn’t dedicated enough to work until he dropped.
Build, destroy, build, destroy.
The Green Man promises me that Beth will stay, that she is devoted enough to realise that creative genius such as mine deserves support. He guides my hands, tries to place my fingers where they need to be to recreate his foliage, but it’s just not good enough.
Build, destroy, build, destroy.
Beth says she’s worried. She says I’m not the girl she fell in love with, that I’m wasting away, I need to take better care of myself, eat something at least. She doesn’t understand. It’s her who’s not the person I thought she was.
Build, destroy, build, destroy.
So close now, so close. I can feel success waiting around the corner, lurking ready to pounce when I finally find the zone that will channel my Muse and allow me to create that one perfect piece that will be the start of something the likes of which the world has never seen. Michelangelo will be like a toddler with play dough in comparison to my work. Beth says I’m obsessed and it’s her or him, but know she doesn’t mean it. I know that when she sees what I see made manifest in clay, she’ll understand that it was all worth it. She just has to hold on for a little bit longer.
Build, destroy, build, destroy, build, destroy, build, destroy.