Carte Blanche

   “The first step is the hardest”

A cliché, that’s true. But he said it so convincing, I couldn’t blame him. He owned a little shop of fine arts and graphic materials in the old center of the town. A place of perished glory, situated near a historic canal. Due to the high humidity the walls of the canal were overgrown with algae and ferns. To get into the store, you had to descend an old, granite stairway with worn-out steps leading you down to a basement. An impressive chestnut tree had chained itself to the rusty banisters of the stairway. Over time, the bark of the tree and the banisters had become one. The massive crown of leaves blocked the sunlight from shining through the only window, creating a mystical atmosphere. Even at high noon in the midst of summer the lantern on the wall automatically lit as if it was midnight.

During weekdays the basements was visited by students of the nearby Academy of Arts. As if it was fixed by a genetically determined dress code, they were all easily recognized by their eccentric clothes and specific hair fashion. As a matter of fact the shop was always busy. The shelves reached to the ceiling. Even the floor was fully used. A colorful palette of graphic materials and hobby tools jammed the last remaining walking space. Pencils and brushes, charcoal and glue, varnish and Arabic gum. There was hardly enough space for more than four customers at the same time. The early Saturday mornings I visited the shop, it was usually very quiet. Thus I dared to ask some unnecessary questions without embarrassing myself.

William, or Bill as most customers called the shop owner, was a tremendous conversationalist. A chatterbox who appreciated and enjoyed the fine art of small talk. Ready to answer a question about the ideal size and thickness of watercolor paper with an exhaustive lecture about the industrial process of making paper which unnoticeably went over into an essay about negative aspects of recycling paper. Ever since the day environmental activists had plastered his window because he sold martyr-haired paint brushes, he had become a notable opponent of anyone and anything related to the word environment.      

We soon found out that we shared the same interest, or maybe I should say we shared the same obsession, for paper. We became friends visiting expositions and galleries. On several occasions Bill told me how he appreciated a certain type of paper. For that reason he had bought some of these papers himself. Without asking I assumed he made watercolors or at least black and white pen drawings himself.

Together we went out to see the real thing in museums and galleries. That’s how I became familiar with the astonishing watercolors of the famous British painter Turner. But our fascination also included completely different styles like the Art Nouveau posters made by Alfons Mucha of early 1900. He talked endlessly about the exposed works. Usually with another point of view, a way to improve the original idea. I think I owe it to him that I can look at my own work in a different way, which enabled me to improve my technique considerably.

I started to question him about his own work. Became curious to see some of his, undoubted, creative and interesting ideas. Cautious inquiries did not lead to results. Not even after showing works of my own, which really was a big step to me, there was the slightest hope that he would let me see some of his works. Until the day I told him that it sometimes caused me problems to work out my ideas just because it scared me to be restricted to a certain shape from the beginning.

   “The first step is the hardest” he said. “It doesn’t matter how you do it, as long as you do it.” I have noticed it before. People talking as much as Bill usually end up in repeating themselves or quoting others. Obvious nobody would ever miss Bill as a great philosopher.

   “Well, how about you?” I asked him. “Do you start drawing, just hoping it will result into the picture you had in mind?”

He sighed softly, creating a gentle vibrating whistle through his nostrils. He closed the cash register, shut the door and waved his hand, asking me to follow him. We took the aluminum stairway in the shop upstairs. Somehow I never realized there would be such a large room above the shop. I was impressed by the clean, white, almost empty room. A bigger contrast with the fully packed store downstairs seemed impossible to imagine.

   “I must confess” said Bill, “drawing causes a lot of trouble to me. For nights in a row I have been sitting at the table, staring at a nice piece of blank paper in front of me. Every night I was sitting here. My mind was filled with ideas. I was ready to create. And every night I was caught by an incredible fear which withheld me to use the white paper in front of me. Possessed by the pureness and virginity of the whiteness. It made me realize that every thought, every theory can be caught on paper and only time will qualify what is worth treasuring.

I looked around me. The walls were covered with hundreds of sheets, white blank paper. From the smallest note paper to poster format. Some of them with a scent of yellow, touched by sunlight, some framed as valuable treasures. And one of them with a signature by Bill. True art.

["Carte Blanche" a short story by Eduard Meinema. Previously unpublished. Originally written in Dutch, July 1989. English translation by the author April, 2015. Words: 932]