The spring internships were about to be announced, and most of my classmates were buzzing about Jackson. Jackson this, Jackson that. If I believed everything I heard, he had single-handedly saved the avant-garde American art scene from its inevitable irrelevance.
Truth be told, there were several local artists and studios which took interns from our academy each spring, and I was excited about the opportunity to work with any of them. It just seemed that Jackson was the fascinating character who most captured the imaginations of my young peers.
"Did you read the New York Times' review of his MoMA show?"
"Did you know, every intern he's ever chosen has gone on to a successful career?"
"Did you hear, he has work in his loft that nobody has ever seen?"
"Haven't you ever seen him walk on water?"
OK, so I made that last one up, but it's not much of a stretch. Me, I wasn't getting caught up in all the fuss - I just felt lucky to be at the academy. I would be happy with any internship placement I got, because it would mean my first steps towards becoming a professional artist. It's all I'd ever wanted to do since leaving behind my small town life, my small-minded family.
The morning the internship announcements were to be posted, I calmly sat down on a bench at the end of the hallway outside the academy's main office, my coffee cup in hand and my art supplies resting at my side. The rest of the students gathered in a bunch outside the office, the guys trying to look cool and the girls nonchalant, as they watched out of the corner of their eyes for the director to emerge with the single sheet of paper which would reveal the next few months of their future.
After fifteen or so minutes of tense silence, the office door opened, the academy director emerged with the paper, weaved his way through the throng of eager students, pinned the paper to the bulletin board outside his office, and as quickly as he could, retreated again into the safety of his office, closing the door behind him.
I waited and watched as the other students dove in, pushing each other aside to get to the information, some of them crying out in excitement, and others just crying. I jotted down a few quick sketches in my notebook of the mob before finally getting up myself, walking towards the bulletin board as others walked away, and moving my eye over the page until I finally saw my name:
Tatiana: Jackson
Wow. Without any lobbying, without any political maneuvering on my part, Jackson had chosen me. In just a few days, I'd be meeting the notorious character, completing whatever tasks he saw fit to expand my potential as an artist, starting on my way towards my dream career. I could only smile as a few jealous students gave me dirty looks on my way out of the building. I'd worked hard, I'd put in my time, this was the reward.
******
I was just a little bit nervous as I knocked on his door at the appointed hour on the appointed day. I'd done enough research about his quirks to know that it was vital that I arrive on time, professionally dressed and ready both to show him samples of my previous work and answer any questions he might have about my background. Anything less would be disrespectful to someone of his standing in the art world: successful, but also mysterious and unpredictable.
I expected an assistant to open the door to his loft studio, but instead I was greeted by the man himself. Jackson was a handsome and athletic man in his mid-late forties, and was dressed in the uniform of a self-confident artist - clothes which were at one time expensive and tailored, but which were now untucked and splotched with oddly shaped stains in various colors of paint.
He took my outstretched hand in both of his, gripped it firmly, and with a smile but no words, motioned for me to have a seat on a sofa at the far end of the huge room, while he returned to his work of the moment. I sat down and watched as he added stripes of red to what was already a multi-layered and multi-colored canvas, an abstraction of incredible depth. I soaked in the whole environment, not just his artwork but also his slow, even movements, the eclectic mess of the large room, even the view out the windows of the top-floor loft.
He didn't speak a word for at least an hour, occasionally stopping his work to look towards me, but always seeming distracted, as if he couldn't begin to acknowledge me fully until he'd finished the artistic thought on the canvas. When he did look in my direction, it wasn't just my face he studied, but also my body, and that in a way that cut right through me, making me aware of every inch of my skin.
I had no way of knowing whether he was seeing me as a grouping of lines in motion, as any great artist might, or whether he was ogling me as a beautiful young woman. My mind wandered, wondering how many students had sat on this sofa before me, whether he'd looked at them in the same way, whether they'd felt as self-conscious as I did now.
I uncrossed my legs and sat up straight on the edge of the sofa. My petite 22-year-old frame was dressed in what I'd spent a few hours deciding was the ideal aspiring-artist-meeting-the-great-artist outfit: perfectly fitted jeans (classy but not afraid to get dirty) and a white blouse (professional but reminiscent of an artist's smock). I'd left my long brown hair down that day, so it cascaded down past my shoulders, framing my face, as I continued to study Jackson with my big hazel eyes.
After a few more moments, he looked towards me once again, this time finally speaking in a voice which surprised me with its combination of affected British accent and kindness, "Don't just sit there, make yourself at home, look around."
Chuckling to myself at his impatience with me - that he was somehow disappointed I hadn't made myself at home, snooping through the loft of a world-renowned artist, I nonetheless obeyed. I stood up and walked slowly around the room, stopping every few steps to admire some new discovery - from works of art which were familiar to me from my studies to a conglomeration of dirty dishes in the sink, remnants of days' worth of meals enjoyed by a man at once king of his genre but also unable to perform basic household tasks.
I looked back at him once again, and finding him still engrossed in his current project, walked further towards one end of the room, where my attention was drawn in by a section of wall covered with what looked like old-fashioned poloroid photographs. From a distance, the content of the photographs was mysterious. As I came closer, I could clearly see that they were photographs of naked women - primarily torsos, focusing on their breasts, but also the occasional face or curve of a hip or leg - each caught in the perfect light and adorned with a design in some sort of white paint.
In any other setting, the dozens of pinned-up photos would have struck me as pornographic, perhaps even disturbing in the sheer number of women depicted. But in this room, in the studio of this great artist, I was tremendously intrigued. Each picture was perfectly staged, perfectly lit, and I studied them each individally and as a collective, unable to quite ascertain a pattern or purpose, but fascinated nonetheless.
