A Lonely Star

Made after a night of despair, during which I got remembered: Never keep your self-esteem in somebody else’s cupboard. And through this window, a star cast its pure, celestial ray.
Perhaps it sees all sad and estranged people.
Perhaps it sees happy couples (but more likely, they have their drips and curtains down).
And perhaps it sees a lonely artist, whose friend since childhood once supported him but now has joined the Dark Side.

The Dark Side is right now incarnated in the form of a shady publisher. The friend is so grateful for at last having a job, the job as an assistant there. So the Dark Side has no trouble telling the friend: Hey you! Coax the artist into working for free!

“It’s good exposure…”
“Do this work without time limits and you may one day belong to our staff.”
“We might pay you later, it’s the same for everyone…”

Alarm, alarm! If you have worked with culture for a few years (or, in my case, a pair of decades) you get sick, furious or experience heavy allergic reactions every time that you hear such preludes to a real scam.

The friend, who recently knew all about this, now got started on such a tale anyway.
And after some polite attempts to remind the friend about everything he has told through the years, the artist lost his temper totally and then had a cute little mental breakdown.

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Being August, I painted the last remaining flowers in our garden. This, I’m kindly informed, is Malva Sylvestris.

And this, of course, is a lily, one of umpteen varieties. Two things make my little cardboard painting interesting.
The first thing is that you could see all of life, from hopeful buds to tooting flowers in their prime and lastly, sad, shrivelled ex-lilies. All in one plant.
The second thing is that the August clouds were sort of Impending, brooding. As if they knew how the month was going to end.