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  More commotion inside. Sara waves from behind the counter. My whole body takes a deep relaxing breath. Wait at the end of the long line. Leave for camp tomorrow morning. I’ll miss her.

  “May I get you something, gent?” She uses a fake British accent.

  I do the same. “Actually I have something for you, lady.” Tyrell and Sean would bust out laughing if they heard me talking like this. Hand her a page from my blackbook. Rolled and tied with twine.

  “Liam.” She carefully removes the tie. Unrolls the sketch. “Liam, this is beautiful.”

  “Your very own coast guard cutter.”

  “It looks so real,” she says. “This is really great.”

  “Thanks. You’ve got your boat. Now you have to be a Coastie.”

  She hurries around the counter. Hugs me like she means it. “You’re an amazing artist. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. See you in two weeks.”

  “Oh.” Her smile disappears. “I thought you were driving back and forth every day.”

  “We are, but we have to leave by eight every morning and we won’t get home until late.” I hug her. “But I’ll think about you all the time.”

  She laughs. “That’s probably not a good idea. Shouldn’t your brain be filled with creative thoughts?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you’re my muse.”

  “Right.” She tilts her head to the side. “Are you messing with me, Liam O’Malley?”

  “Seriously. All the great artists have a muse. Picasso definitely. And Basquiat.” At least I think so.

  Shaking a can of spray paint at arts camp

  CLIKCLAKCLIKCLAKCLIKCLAK. Love this sound. Looking at the label. Molotow Premium. Of course. What all the pros use. I’m not a pro. Cliff Green. Green signifies new life in Catholicism. Stomach queasy. Push down on the nozzle.

  Wait.

  Not sure about this. But we have to show an example of our work. First class of the first day at camp. Other students are standing in front of their easels. Using paint. Charcoal. Pencils to do their thing. I feel all alone in this crowded room. Graffiti is my thing. All I know right now. What if this piece is crap?

  CLIKCLAKCLIKCLAKCLIKCLAK. Push down on the nozzle. Spray.

  Not yet.

  Never done this in the light of day. Never in front of anyone else. Especially not at an academy of arts. Standing in a painting studio. Staring at a white canvas. Not a concrete wall this time. Visual arts students. Teachers. Do they know I don’t belong here? C’mon, O’Malley. Now.

  PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSST.

  Feeling like everyone is watching me. I’m watching the Cliff Green invading the white surface. Doing a new piece I’ve been practicing in my blackbook. Pretending it’s just the can and me. Graffiti writing is a solitary art. Painting my piece. Introducing my work.

  TRYING.

  Opening my artist toolbox

  Every visual arts camper got one. Feeling like a little kid on Christmas morning. Checking items off the list.

  1 angular watercolor brush

  1 angular acrylic brush

  1 bright acrylic brush

  1 flat all-media brush

  Set of 15 soft pastel sticks

  Set of 12 studio drawing pencils (6B through 6H)

  Set of studio colored pencils

  Set of basic ceramic tools

  Pack of 8 Sharpie fine point markers

  1 Sharpie Magnum 44 marker

  1 flash drive for digital storage

  Very cool. No. Exceedingly cool.

  Learning how to be an artist

  Studying the masters of painting. I already know most of them from Kat’s books.

  We look at slide after slide after slide of old stuff.

  I almost fall asleep. This feels like school.

  “Study and learn.” The teacher keeps clicking the humming projector.

  Okay. But my favorite work isn’t hanging on a perfect wall in some fancy gallery.

  She turns on the lights. “Now, let’s talk about what we just saw.”

  Hands fly up.

  Teacher claps. “Let me hear. No hands necessary.”

  Everyone starts talking.

  “Impressionism.”

  “Symbolism.”

  “Renaissance.”

  “Fauvism.”

  “Constructivism.”

  “Where’re the contemporary paintings?” Can’t believe I said that.

  She looks at me. “Contemporary?”

  I nod.

  “Did you have a specific artist in mind, um …?”

  “Liam.”

  “Were you looking for someone in particular, Liam?”

  “Jean-Michel Basquiat?”

  Everyone turns and stares. Somebody laughs.

  Feel like I’m back at Saint Al’s.

  Hiding in Kat’s studio

  Told her I was sick. Couldn’t go to camp today.

  Not going back. Not after feeling like a fool yesterday.

  Send my ship out, huh, Kat?

  Right.

  Questioning who I want to be

  “I’m not like them.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kat shoves tubes of paint out of the way. Sits on the table.

  “The kids at arts camp.”

  She shakes her head. “Why would you want to be?”

  “I don’t know any of the terms they used in Masters of Painting yesterday.”

  “Like what?”

  “Fauvism, Constructivism, other stuff.”

  “Big deal.”

  “It is for me, Kat.”

  “You can easily learn terms. What you already know instinctively about creating art—most of them will never be able to learn that.”

  “So?”

  “So get over it and move on.”

  “Nice attitude, Kat.”

  “Listen. You think you’re the only kid that’s been given the short end of the stick, Liam? Come on. Plenty of kids have dads who are drunks. And maybe even older brothers who make dangerous decisions. But they don’t give up. You know? They don’t just sit around feeling sorry for themselves.”

  “That’s not what I’m doing.” Am I?

  She shrugs.

  I don’t want to be here. “It’s not that.”

  “Then maybe you should figure out what it is and stop throwing away your chances.” She walks out of the studio.

  I’m so tired of hearing crap like that from everyone. Kat said she’s not my mom. She sure sounds like it now.

  Transitioning from tagger to artist

  Going from wall to canvas like Jean-Michel Basquiat?

  That’s what I’m supposedly trying to do at arts camp. Maybe. Maybe not. But I’m back here anyway. On the shore of Lake Michigan. Campus used to be an old US Lifesaving Station. Wonder if Sara knows that’s how the coast guard started.

  First class of the morning is Painting Aesthetics. Teacher explains the characteristics of oil-and-water-based media. We get to work with whatever type of paint we want. A stack of canvases on the corner of my table. Intimidating.

  Tell the guy next to me, “I’ve only really been using Sharpies or spray paint.”

  “Usually watercolors for me. But it’d be decent to try something with acrylics.”

  He’s from Los Angeles. Nice to meet kids who are into art. Just like me.

  The teacher walks around the studio while he talks. Encourages us to create imagery that showcases our personal concepts and ideas. Tells us to embrace our strengths so that our work will become more mature and developed.

  Learning to develop my own concepts and ideas. Hard to do here in this beautiful classroom. My aesthetic is grounded in street art. Gritty. Loud. Connected to the city. I get ideas by observing what’s around me. What’s real. Struggling with what it means to be an art student. Studying the work of the masters. Okay. But my favorite work isn’t hanging on a perfect wall in some fancy gallery. Want my art to be open to the public. On some alley wall in the hood. Possible? Is that
a real artist?

  Maybe.

  More mature and developed? I’m working on it.

  My mind’s ready to explode.

  Paying attention to Kat, aka Ms. Sullivan

  I’m in her Beginning Sculpture class.

  We study the sculptural processes of addition, subtraction, manipulation, and substitution. She tells us to move out of our comfort zone.

  “I’d like to move closer to her comfort zone.” Painter from LA elbows me.

  “What?”

  “She’s hot.”

  Never thought of her that way. I don’t look at him. Or Kat.

  “Are you blind?”

  “Whatever.” Don’t want him to know I live with Kat. “That’s your opinion.”

  “Guys?” She points to the whiteboard. “You understand all of this?”

  Silence.

  “Pay attention, then. You don’t want to miss anything.”

  “I totally agree with you, Ms. Sullivan.” He smirks.

  I shake my head. “Get your mind back on sculpture, man.”

  “Okay. Time to do some work in your sketchbooks,” Kat says. “I want you to incorporate what we’ve been discussing this morning into an idea that’ll translate into clay. I’ll walk around and take a look at your sketches. They need to be clear and complete.”

  All the teachers here stress the importance of being able to work proficiently in our sketchbooks. Kat says it’s vital to our development as visual artists.

  I already know.

  My blackbook has been my only teacher until coming to this camp.

  Investigating the meaning of colors

  Thinking about how they can communicate mood and emotion. That’s what I tried to do by using Midnight Black, Shock Blue, and Tornado Red on my bathhouse piece. Guess I knew something about colors without having to learn it from someone else. But I’ll take notes anyway.

  Red = excitement, ambition, impulsiveness

  Orange = assertive, dynamic, fearlessness

  Yellow = hope, wisdom, happiness

  Green = harmony, security, peace

  Blue = openness, wisdom, masculine

  Purple = dignity, restfulness, wit

  Brown = restfulness, dependability, conscientiousness

  Gray = caution, compromise, sense of peace

  White = safety, perfection, innocence

  Black = dignity, mystery, hiddenness

  Everything I’m learning is useful. Helps me to think like a painter.

  Like an artist.

  Goofing around

  It’s free time. Going to play Ultimate Frisbee. Do something physical for a change. Usually we just keep talking shop. Waiting with a guy from one of my classes. He’s a printmaker.

  “With a name like O’Malley, you have to be Irish,” he says. He has an accent.

  “Yep. Are you from Ireland?”

  “Belfast.” He pounds his heart with his fist.

  “Wow, Belfast. Pretty violent, huh?”

  “It was during the Troubles. Not so much now.”

  “Are you Catholic or Protestant?”

  “Let’s just say that I’m a huge University of Notre Dame fan.”

  “Cool. Me too,” I say.

  “And I have this.” He pulls a Saint Patrick holy medal out from under his shirt.

  “Ha!” I do the same with my Saint Brendan medal. “Good Catholic boys, right?”

  We bump fists.

  A bunch of other guys join us. Enough for two Frisbee teams. We head over to the field. Pass a group of girls on the way.

  They wave. “Hey, guys.”

  “Dudes. The girls are checking us out,” someone says.

  “Hi, Liam.” A dancer says. Waves.

  Another guy shoves me. “She likes you, Liiiiiiiiaaaaaaam.”

  Everyone laughs. Including me. She’s beautiful and … so is Sara. I keep walking.

  “What are you doing, man? That dancer’s flirting with you. You’re dissing her.”

  I wave back.

  Painter from LA looks at me. “That’s it, O’Malley?”

  “Yep.” I think of Sara’s smile. “I have a girlfriend.”

  “Damn. I’d be all over that.” He shakes his head.

  “What? And cheat on Ms. Sullivan?”

  He starts dancing. “In a heartbeat, bro!”

  Kid’s a clown. Can’t help but laugh.

  Troubling my mind

  Worrying about art stuff. Trying to sleep. Hoping the sound of the waves will help me relax.

  Camp will be done in a couple of days. It’s been incredible but also stressful. Been bombarded with so many things. Words race through my mind constantly. Form. Volume. Plane. Line. Space. Texture. Surface. Oil. Acrylic. Watercolor. Things swirl together like an abstract painting. What if I forget everything I’ve learned?

  Painting teacher told me about a graffiti-mentoring program in Minneapolis. Said I should check it out when I get home. Don’t even have time to think about that.

  And all the teachers emphasize the importance of bringing contemporary and traditional art aesthetics into our studio sessions.

  What the …? Does that mean I have to move from street to studio with my work? Can I still be a graffiti writer and be considered a visual artist?

  The work I love to create shows my aesthetic to everyone. Out in public anytime and anyplace.

  Then there’s all of the drawing, drawing, drawing. And then drawing some more.

  I’m almost sick of my blackbook. Almost.

  Defying expectations

  Eating lunch and discussing street art. It’s me, the printmaker from Belfast, the painter from LA, and a few other guys. Group of girls at the table next to us. We try not to pay attention to them.

  “Seriously, Liam. You should come to Northern Ireland some time and see all the murals. There’re more than two thousand.”

  “Awesome.” That would be cool to go to my motherland. “Were they all created by Catholics?”

  “Catholics and Protestants. Most were painted during the Troubles in the 1970s.”

  “Sounds like the gang murals in LA,” the painter says. “A lot of times they use murals to mark their territory.”

  “Gangs do that in Minneapolis, too,” I say. Haven’t thought about Irish Mafia or Los Crooks lately. “But there’re some other really decent pieces and murals. Created by local graffiti writers.”

  “A lot of the murals in my Belfast neighborhood were put up to make political statements. They used art to force Catholic or Protestant issues instead of guns and bombs.”

  “That’s cool.” Maybe I could make social statements with my work.

  The girls are laughing.

  “Man, I just don’t understand girls. Not in Ireland and not here in the States.”

  “Me either,” painter says. “That’s why I want to be with a woman.”

  “Don’t even say it …” I shake my head.

  “Ms. Sullivan. Hear her name and weep for your loss, boys.”

  We laugh.

  “You’ve got a girlfriend, Liam. School us on all that stuff.”

  “Nope.” I miss Sara. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

  Painter from LA grabs his heart. Pretends he’s dying.

  We’ve become pretty good friends the past couple of weeks. A crew. Like me, Tyrell, and Sean. Going to miss my artist friends like I miss my hood friends.

  Leaving Lake Michigan Academy of Fine Arts

  Riding shotgun in the Rover.

  Heading back to Lakeshore. Camp is officially over.

  “So, what did you think?” Kat says.

  “It was okay.”

  “Oh, c’mon.”

  “Okay. Very cool.”

  “Were you inspired?”

  “Someday I want to paint something like Guernica.”

  “Picasso was brilliant, wasn’t he?” She sighs.

  “I’ve been studying his techniques.”

  “He was such a brave artist. Always reinventing himself.”


  “That’s one of the things I like best about him.”

  She nods.

  Driving along the shore. Lake Michigan’s sparkling like broken glass in an alley. Peaceful.

  “I’d like to paint a mural.” Look at Kat out of the corner of my eye.

  “That would be great. Especially with your, ahem, varied experiences.”

  “I’ve been working on something in my blackbook.”

  “I’d love to see it.”

  “Okay.” Thinking about what I’ve learned at camp. “I feel like I could actually do one.”

  “I’ve watched your work grow exponentially during the past two weeks, Liam. I know that you can paint a mural.”

  Nod.

  “Where are you going to paint it? Minneapolis?”

  “I was thinking about Lakeshore.”

  “Really?”

  “I’d like to find a big wall near the lake,” I say.

  “Liam …”

  “Don’t worry.” Try not to laugh.

  “Oh … I wasn’t worried. I …”

  “I’m just kidding.”

  Kat smiles. “Very funny, smart-ass.”

  We laugh.

  Researching empty walls

  Looking around. Checking different wall sizes. Trying to get ideas for my sketches. Walk up and down Main Street with Sara and Bowzer. Eat cherry muffins from the bakery. Nice to be able to spend the day in town again. Snake around a bunch of tourists. Crowd outside the ice-cream place.

  Hank walks out. “What’s your hurry?” He has a doublescoop chocolate.

  I shake his hand.

  “Haven’t seen you around lately, Liam.”

  “I was at art camp for two weeks.” It’s nice to see him.

  “Yessir. That’s right. Been kind of quiet here. Wouldn’t ya say, Sara?” He winks.

  “It has.” She squeezes my hand.

  Dying to kiss her.

  Hank clears his throat. “So where’re you headed?”