Free Write -- The Blotch

 We did our Free Write at l'Hostalet today. One of those few perfect weather days as we sat under the mulberry tree.

The prompt was a blotch on a wall.

As usual we were limited to ten minutes.

D-L's Free Write -- The Blotch

Sam stuffed her backpack with her art supplies before leaving for her "work" near the swan boats on Boston Common.

When she was five, she had used her Crayolas to draw sunflowers and bunny rabbits on her freshly-painted bedroom wall.

Her mother, rather than punish her, had asked an artist friend to look at it.

"Samantha has real talent," the friend had said.

After that, Samantha took art lessons like her friends took piano.

At nine there were contests on kid's TV show. A simple line or blotch would be shown and contestants would turn it into drawings. Sam was bared from entering by the judges after she won three times.

As the swan boats floated by, Sam set up her easel. 

Her partner Billy was late. He played clarinet as she painted. He gave listeners a list of songs to select from.

Besides portraits, Sam had people draw a blotch which she would turn into a painting.

WHDH did a three-minute segment on their duo. CNN picked it up and now they had a line of customers almost every day.

"Can you do something with this?" a woman asked handing her a paper with three brown blotches.

Sam looked and saw a dog behind a monkey. Her brush moved quickly. 

The woman and her children went away happy, and Sam was $50 richer.

Sometimes Sam wondered if her mother had punished her for drawing on her bedroom wall, where would she be now.

Rick's Free Write

People see familiar shapes in clouds, in oil stains on the road, in rusted metals.

One of my favorite ‘Rorshach’ tests is a Peanuts cartoon. The erudite Linus, lying on a hillside with Charlie Brown, sees in a cloud formation the Biblical account of the stoning of Stephen, witnessed by Paul, future Apostle. ‘What do you see, Charlie Brown?’ ‘I was going to say a duckey and a horsey, but I’ve changed my mind.’

On one of our trips from Argeles to Geneva, we spotted a cloud shape that looked strikingly like Sherlock. Got the photo.

This ink blot was on a piece of wood at street level in the village. A trio of animals? Maybe all dogs? Or a punk poodle, smoking weed, followed by a prancy pup on his hind legs, with a young bear cub bringing up the rear. You can readily make out the shape of faces and feet, and let your imagination fill in the eyes, mouths, tails, ears.

They’re no doubt foraging for scraps of food leftover from the marchè before the street sweepers scoop them up. Surprising that none of the villagers noticed them on their journey.

P.S. Herman Rorshach, Swiss, invented the ink blot test in 1921.

 Julia's Free Write

Where to start? As she noticed the brown blobs on the wall on the main street, her mind filled with questions: a piece of artwork, representing potentially a little old man and woman walking stooped with age as they made their way to the next store down the line? Or perhaps it was two brothers, the older pushing the younger in their hurry to get to the park? Her imagination runs riot: it almost looks like the far-right figure is reaching down to pet a small whale.

OK stop with the wild theories, maybe there is a more sinister reason for those brown blobs: traces left by the people killed against that wall – she vaguely recalls reading about some such incident recently.

Whatever, she will go on and try and not let those imagines remain in her head to haunt her come nighttime.

Julia has written and taken photos all her life and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/ 

Rick is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices. com

 

D-L has had 17 fiction and non fiction books published. Check out her website at: https://dlnelsonwriter.com