The Artist Residency

Poetry by: Kristin Sanders
Images by: Andrew Thomas

The Art Residency, I

She was sick on the drive back down the hill, heat exhaustion, her pink skin turning purple. We’d been to visit the ruins in Nonza where the dead Surrealist painter spent her summers squatting in a stone church, dressed as an owl or always in costume, at least in the photographs. The birds cooed like people grunting painfully through a round of sex. He was stung by a jellyfish in the green, clear sea, so we all hurried out. In the convent, where we all six slept, the one restored by the artist and the architect, we avoided each other all day. It had been too much, the sickness, the talking, the previous night when the architect left the table because the French writer and the French painter corrected his pronunciation of Duras. But the other American, me, had got it right. It was the summertime heat, but not the heat I knew in New Orleans. The maquis smelled like sage and Big Sur, but not as dry. My bikini and towel stayed damp. We heard nothing from each other all day. At night the sun set near nine and we ate dinner, pretending to be alright. No one was making art and here we were, all artists, staying at this convent in Oletta. Poppies springing up everywhere. I did pronounce the s on the end. In the photographs of the dead painter, her summers look different from this. How we were all apologizing, how we were all forgiven. 

The Art Residency, II

Bees, wasps, the acrobatic constellations of flies in the middle of the room. Increasingly sinister, having begun more mild. Dead birds, dead snakes, beetles drowning in the pool. A constant buzzing. When people have a pool, but keep driving to the sea. The way you expect something to be, the person you expect on the other end of the line. How easy it is to remember what was bad, how I'm doing that even now, still. But it could have been a lot worse. And the cool touch of centuries-old stone, the way it makes no sound as you pad down a hallway at night. Wherever we were going. Whatever the celebration called for. No one thought you were serious about it, but you were.