Tag: Art

All Stories, General Fiction

The Bund by Richard Yu

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There were many things in life that Oscar did not comprehend. Miro, for one, totally baffled him. When it comes to abstract painting, he would readily relegate that area of expertise to his wife. Afterall, she had attended art school for a big part of her life, so she was supposedly an art connoisseur as well as an artist herself. What puzzled Oscar was why she bothered to learn all those advanced techniques just so to paint like a five-year-old. “You should find a job teaching kindergarteners how to paint,” Oscar would snipe. Naturally, his wife ignored his snide remarks. Just recently, she had bid on a sketch by Miro for as much as five years his salary, he being a CEO of a high-tech firm that supplied chips for the space shuttle. Had he run across such a sketch in a flea market, he wouldn’t have paid more than the price of a can of sardines for it, if only for the scrap value of the frame and mat.

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All Stories, General Fiction

To Tame the Animals by Rose Ragsdale

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I first started drawing when I was a kid, staring up at popcorn ceilings, trying to make sense of the symbols I saw there. I created comics about a fox that lived in the midst of the shapeless blurs of styrofoam. I don’t draw foxes anymore. Instead, I draw people I’ve met, making them ugly as sin and arguably very realistic.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Still Life by Frederick K Foote

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“Boy, you better have your black ass down here tonight, or your ass is grass, nigger. You hear me, Ellis?”

That’s my main man, Mac Brown, the Big Sound from Downtown. He got a right to be pissed. A month ago, I missed our best bud, Willa Wright’s art show. My demons kicked in the day of the show. I don’t know why. I woke up 600 miles from home, in a hooker’s trailer, with no wallet, no money, no phone.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Lovely by Bela Khanna

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He looks long into her eyes, probably for the first time. He has focused, from the bottom up, on every part of her nude form, spending minutes, hours, on the impossibly smooth contours of her toes, her hips, her breasts, her shoulders, but this, he thinks, must be the first time he’s really looked into her eyes.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Museum Picture By Jeremiah Minihan

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“Completely naked?”

“Don’t worry, my dear, it will be all right.” He cocked his head. “You did promise.”

Mr. Thayer moved to touch Lydia’s shoulder, but she pulled back, wrapping the thick robe tighter. Mr. Thayer – she would never have thought to call him Gregory – stood back from her. Lydia could not interpret his expression. He might have been showing a twist of amusement or contempt around his bearded lips, but mostly she felt that he was studying her as if she were an animal or a specimen. That was what he did, after all, studied and painted.

And she had promised him. She found herself blushing. At the same time, she felt in control, in some way.

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