Patron

She trailed her fingers through the air between herself and the great works. Kept well back from the velvet ropes and security features, content to look, to be in a place of amazement. She didn't want to touch, to create the beauty for herself. She wanted only to look, to gasp, to think, to be transported without ever being the artist herself. Almost vulgar to press brush to paint, to trail and smear it across a virgin canvas, to decide where which color would evoke emotion. And with what? She imagined herself whispering to the canvas, reassuring herself as well as it that they would always have this moment, that others would see but by then it would be another experience, another time, another reason. To create art is to be entangled with art, to press flesh to bristle, liquid to yielding surface unforgiving in its eternity. She wanted no part of that. But to look, to imagine, to feel—oh that, that was sublime.