The Artist Who Didn’t Like Silhouettes #writephoto

The Artist Who Didn’t Like Silhouettes (166 Words)

It was a shame, because she specialized in them. She knew how to find that symmetry, that poise, that would bring out the art in any figure. But she told me one time when I was with her in her studio, that she didn’t like them. At the time she was working on the silhouette of a bird poised on a winter branch, a jagged, India-ink blackness over gray Bristol.

“But why not?” I said. “They’re wonderful.”

“Well,” she said. “I’ve been thinking. You know what they say about looking at things in black and white.”

“Maybe…”

She went to a desk. She took out a sheaf of papers. I looked over the various silhouettes, at the head drawn from different angles, the wild hair. I felt my throat tighten.

“Is it Tom?” I asked.

She didn’t answer at once. Her eyes were unblinking, bright with sudden tears. “You see,” she said, quietly. “You only get what’s at the edges. You don’t see who it is.”

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Also written in response to Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo Prompt.