Writing about art with your friends pt. 1

A fictional exercise based on a chosen work of art. Hello, Marc Chagall, and turning 35!

❥ This email may be truncated in your inbox. To make sure you are reading the entire post, please move yourself along to a web browser!

More from me + Absolument can be found in these places:

Website | Instagram | Shop Absolument | Book Recs - Merci, thank you tons and tons for reading!

---

---

I read and write a spellbinding amount of non-fiction about art! Specifically, the modern era of painting. These histories have always enchanted me, and I’ve sturdily built my life and identity around them. While working in museums—and even in casual conversation—I’ve always noticed that there’s a slight fear in talking about art. And writing about it? Even more touchy!

So, in an effort to make writing and reading about art more accessible, more friendly, and more fun, I thought: let’s do it with friends!

I asked some of my super long-time friends, new-ish friends, internet friends, and complete strangers to write with me. The plan was to assign the same painting to everyone and for each author to write a 250-word or less fictional story about it. The response I got from the call for writers was more enthusiastic than I anticipated (!!!!), so I’ve split up the exercise into two different paintings, spanning two newsletters. A third exercise might be in the works!

One writer agreed to this writing experiment because it “terrified” her, and what came from it was a story that made both of us emotional. One admitted outright to despising the artist, which unfurled a demonic story (stay tuned for her writing in the next installment). One wrote it in another language, and then translated it to English for me. One writer is…me! The person who chose the painting! Maybe that’s cheating, but I was magnetized to this work of art and haven’t been able to get it out of my head. What felt most energizing was that many of these people are not used to writing fiction (like me), and some never write at all. It was a creative exercise and challenge worth tackling.

Through these stories, you won’t learn about the art itself. You’ll learn—seven times—something about being human. My hope was to expel the idea that writing about art has to feel like a stuffy chore or that it’s saved for the elite. A piece of art can carve out so many conflicting narratives, like we do as people. Sometimes a visual can bring more than one person to similar conclusions, too. It’s powerful!!!

The painting!

Marc Chagall’s The Birthday, 1915. Museum of Modern Art.

It’s my 35th birthday today, April 11th! So it seemed fitting to present you with our first painting-and-fictional-story extravaganza: Marc Chagall’s The Birthday, created in 1915. I excitedly made sure to write something before the other stories began pouring in. Thank you for spending my birthday reading these stories with me. More importantly, thank you to our authors for enthusiastically participating!

**

I.

16-26

I was sixteen when my cousin brought me to his house. He was twenty-six, and he liked me so much he wouldn't let me leave. My mother worried sick but didn't look for me; she had four children to feed—three of them boys—and my father was at war. So. She later said that a woman told her I had married the Pavlov boy which is what I had done. He was such a good singer. I really wanted to.

His mother gave me her dress for the wedding. Before we walked to church that Sunday, I washed the mud off my rubber shoes—the same ones I wore to milk the cows. The priest blessed us before service so people wouldn't talk. And they didn’t. But they looked at me the whole time and I stood there wishing she had let me wear my own dress and given me her shoes instead. 

When I got sick, he got mad at me because he knew I was going to die. I told him — you can’t be mad at me for dying. And he brought me watermelon, watched me eat it and then sang to me until I couldn’t hear. Before I took my last breath, I thought of those rubber shoes and knew he’d loved me even though he never said it. But he sang for me, after I was gone. 

Petya K. Grady

Petya K. Grady writes A Reading Life. She lives in Memphis, TN with her family.

**

II.

She bought herself the flowers as a birthday present. They needed a home, deserved a home. The flowers must have a vase. But she lacked a nice enough vase. Ah, there was a cup beside her uneaten cake. Yes, she was proud of this idea. Today wasn’t just her birthday, after all. It was the flowers’ birthday. Were they not born by her mere acknowledgment of them?

Heading toward the cup, a strange sensation caressed her lips. A quiet wind blew him in. She stopped. Now the room was bursting with the taste of a memory, as if he were dancing around her.

She forgot the flowers, the cake, and the cup. This night was supposed to be full of him. Perhaps she should crush the flowers, punish them. The world needed balance. Could she tip the balance by hurting the flowers so the world gave him back? Would the flowers pay the debt for the ghost of him? Or was his death the way the world balanced the birth of flowers? She took a whiff and was once again visited by his ghost.

She couldn’t crush the flowers. She would put them in the cup, and tomorrow morning, she'd wear a bright dress and buy a proper vase. She would show the world that she valued life, that she valued the balance that brought these flowers to her, even if that balance took him away. And she hummed happy birthday to herself as she reached for the cup.

Luka Benegas

Luka Benegas is a Paraguay-Puerto Rican writer from Philadelphia with a deep love of history, art, and books. When she isn't collecting vintage dresses and vinyl, she can be found obsessing over a piece of art or her dog's perfect existence.

**

III.

The sky was clear when I left LA.

From my bed, my body was warm but anticipating warmth’s looming withdrawal, as my destination was forecasted to be gray and rainy. And the guy beside me now wouldn’t be there. He felt like my sole source of warmth in moments like this.

He kissed my left hip before he said, “You’ve gotta get going.”

“I know, I really do,” I replied, sinking deeper into the layers of blankets.

I was headed five hours up the coast for a weeklong writing retreat, and he was headed thirty minutes south to his mom who was recovering from a minor surgery. He needed to be there to make sure she was watching movies instead of TV.

From my hip, his feet rooted into the ground and his legs lifted him up and away. I quickly followed, pulling myself off of my mattress behind him, careful not to linger in my loneliness.

Our bodies lay whole-heartedly entwined moments earlier, not a single limb left unsupported. My mind mostly took refuge in the physical comfort, though it would occasionally rebel and attempt to address the fact that this lover was not in a place to love, that I needed to loosen my hold on him. My therapist had validated a week prior, “You’re not ready yet,” — not ready to let him go, she meant — and so, as his breath swayed back and forth across my bare shoulder, I held onto that mantra, “I’m not ready yet.”

Molly Haas

Molly Haas is a photographer and writer born and based in California, currently finishing a manuscript of nonfictional vignettes. You can read her brand new blog of writing on Notes on Living, and you can follow her photo work on Instagram.

**

IV.

Before he died, Ernesto had made sure to impregnate every soft surface in the apartment with the smell of tobacco. Isabella, easily prone to headaches, was sure it was deliberate—an olfactory haunting designed to keep him in her mind—and it did. Before he died, Ernesto would stop daily at the flower shop on Avenida de Los Jaguares and buy tuberoses and jasmine, placing them in the crystal vase on the table by the window in an attempt to cover the scent of smoke from his pipe.

Isabella only felt their effect now that the flowers’ heady fragrance had faded. Still, the lingering scent of tobacco sat in the cotton linen armchair that he used for reading, in the muslin drapes that he would quickly shut when he sensed that the pair was about to make love, and in the silk pillow on their bed that still held the dent of his head.

On her birthday, Isabella baked a perfumeful orange cake soaked with gardenia syrup—the type of cake that her abuela assured her could sweeten the air around her grief, or at least postpone it. She placed the finished cake on the table by the window to cool, a breeze carrying its redolence to the bed where Isabella laid down and closed her eyes for a moment. The rich scent of tuberose and jasmine roused her from her shallow sleep.

Across the room, the flowers settled into the crystal vase on the table by the window, sweet-smelling, and impossibly fresh.

Nolan Beck Rivera

Nolan Beck Rivera is writing from Richmond, Virginia. He finds inspiration from Latin American magical realist writers, and likes to think about food, pretty spaces, and sensory experiences. You may find Nolan on Substack and Instagram.

In case you need a visual refresher. :)

**

V.

They always flew in secret. A single kiss would set their hearts aloft, and soon their feet would follow.

The window became a doorway and out they sailed, a soft evening breeze fluttering their clothes as the city rooftops formed a ruddy patchwork quilt beneath them.

When they reached the place where shingles turned to leaves, the birds came to join them, delighted to soar with their human friends. As they wafted on the thermals together, feathered wings brushing against them with affection, she knew this was how it once had been, and how it was always meant to be.

In the daytime the birds would perch on their windowsill, inquisitively checking on them, and it was always with deep regret that they had to decline the avian invitation. The neighbors already thought they were strange enough because of the vibrant colors in their home and their penchant for playing the violin. To discover their most dangerous secret? Unthinkable!

After dusk fell, they felt free, and each night they risked once again to be their truest selves. She always marveled that there was a time before this, before they met, before either of them realized what they could do together with the power of their love. It would always be worth the risk.

Sarah Reeder

Sarah Reeder is an appraiser of art and design and the author of the book Ray Eames in 1930s New York. She is also the Co-Host of The Art Elevator Podcast and Co-Editor of Worthwhile Magazine.

**

VI.

The Floating Kiss

The flowers were still fresh, their scent filling the room as she arranged them on the table. Their petals brushed against her fingertips, soft as silk, as she adjusted each stem with quiet care. The air was thick with colour—the deep red of the walls, the pale morning light filtering through the open window, the smudges of paint on the floor. Everything felt alive, humming with warmth.

Behind her, a shadow moved. Not the slow, deliberate movement of footsteps but something weightless, breathless, unbound by gravity. Perhaps it was love. Perhaps it was time itself, bending in the quiet of their small apartment. He rose, as he always did, drawn toward her like a thread pulled by an unseen hand. His body curved through the air, effortless, dreamlike, as if love itself had lifted him.

She turned, startled but smiling, as if she had grown used to his impossible way of loving her, and for a moment, they existed outside of time. The world beyond the window—its wars, its uncertainties—faded into something distant, unreal. Here, in this room, there was only the quiet thrill of his presence, the soft closeness of a moment untouched by anything but devotion.

The flowers in her hands trembled. His lips brushed against hers, suspended in the hush of their small universe. A kiss, fleeting yet eternal, captured like a memory painted in weightless strokes.

Outside, the wind stirred, the curtains shifting like whispers. But inside, love had rewritten the rules.

Giselle

I'm Giselle, an art history graduate. For over a year, I've been writing Giselle Daydreams on Substack about art (especially Surrealism), cinema, literature and occasionally travels and architecture. More recently, I decided to start a minimalist luxury fashion label.

**

VII.

Elated

Elated. The memory of him always arrives spontaneously. On this particular Tuesday, it’s the peppery smell of a daffodil brought to her by the woman who moved in next door. Sixty-something, olive-skinned, brashly talkative—she has nothing in common with Giaco. Last week, it was the staccato-like humming heard over her shoulder in the open-air market. A brisk turn of the head helped to confirm: no. Not him. Sometimes, a stranger taps their loafer-laid feet across the stone path at the train station, matching his impossible bouts of morning-time enthusiasm. He seems to be everywhere.

Those early signs of loving someone—she understood why English speakers called it a “crush.” The one thousand or so thoughts about this other person can make you move through the days like you’re walking through a thick, energetic crowd. As if each set of strange hands grabs at you as you attempt to advance, their force pulling you in for a greeting. This steals your time, even if the smiles are lovely and the words are loudly encouraging.

But, the crush—it didn’t have to feel time-consuming or frantic. Instead, it could mirror a calm, partnered walk through a blooming field, with you two gently aware of the placement of your feet so that you don’t disturb the daffodils. In a pause between his short hums, he asks her, “Can you believe the color yellow could smell this romantic?”

It was a solitary Tuesday at home, and she was elated.

Kelsey Rose (Williams) Barthés

Kelsey Rose (Williams) Barthés is the author of this newsletter, Absolument, and was overwhelmingly happy (elated!!!) with the outcome of this fictional group writing experiment.

Our next entry, which includes mystery painting #2 and a new roster of writers, will be published in a few days!

Shop Absolument x Marc Chagall

If, like me, you’ve unexpectedly fallen (or floated) in love with Marc Chagall thanks to this painting, the newest addition to Shop Absolument might interest you. It’s a 1984 Fondation Maeght French exhibition Chagall poster, directly from its original source! If you make it yours, it’ll be sent through the airways with love from me in France to you—wherever you may be.

Marc Chagall retrospective poster, 1984, via Fondation Maeght.

**

Happy reading and floating!

Kelsey Rose

Website | Instagram | Shop Absolument | Book Recs

*cover image: The Birthday by Marc Chagall, 1915, MoMA.