© 2011 by Kelly Hand
A
September 1985
From his distant perch in the faculty apartment block, through the magnifying lenses of his binoculars, then through the smudged glass of his window, Monsieur Touchefeu peered across the scrubby landscape at the crowd swarming about the circular driveway that served as the official entrance to the Desert Academy. The piles of luggage—duffel bags, backpacks, hard suitcases, trunks, etc. in an array of colors—were more fascinating in their variety than the clusters of parents and children. Just as he began to resign himself to a dull year and place the binoculars in his lap, the art teacher thought he saw a creature wagging its tail just a few feet away from the “No Dogs Allowed on Campus” sign. When he reinstalled himself with piqued interest behind his trusty twin lenses, glad he had not ditched them back in France like so many of his other possessions, a glossy black Labrador dominated his circular field of vision.
The animal tugged at its leash impatiently, unfurling a long, pink tongue in slobbering protest against the dry heat. Mildly curious about the identity of the human who dared to flout the no-dog rule, Monsieur Touchefeu traced the trail of the leash until he saw a girl clad in faded black with dusty China girl shoes. Her coiffure was roughly in the shape of a “bob,” but because it was—like her clothing—dingy rather than sleek, it lacked the allure of the glamorous twenties.
The binoculars were a remnant of his bird-watching days. He had been trained as a natural sciences illustrator, and fumbling about forests for elusive owls or rare fungi was the most diverting aspect of his work. He had gravitated toward his profession initially because it seemed to combine perfectly his childhood fondness for rambling about in nature with his talent for drawing. On long visits to his family’s vacation cottage in Normandy, he had hunted for mushrooms, caught snakes, shot at sparrows with a slingshot, and fished in the river with whatever pieces of wire and stick he could wrap together. An only child, he was accustomed as much to spending time alone as to being the center of attention, so he accepted the solitude of his work and sought company when he needed it in cafés and bars, where there was always someone to talk to or bring home.
While he appreciated the mild thrills of hunting for rare birds and other specimens, it soon became tedious to copy from nature the oppressive outlines of reality with a stingy palette of black ink, colored pencils, and watercolors. His extensive portfolio of exact renditions, evidence of a reliable income, haunted and taunted his imagination. Aren’t you capable of anything original? they seemed to ask. During his leisure hours, he began to paint wilder versions of these illustrations in oils. He chose improbable colors, and his forms bore little resemblance to the originals, yet they captured the spirit of the humblest caterpillar and the vainest dragonfly with greater fidelity. Photography had already put natural sciences illustration on the path toward extinction, and there came a time when he felt long overdue for a metamorphosis.
After more than a decade and a half of drudgery, the artist resolved to abandon the applied arts and devote himself to creative work. He craved a change of scenery that would nurture his new passion, but because he was French and lived on the outskirts of Paris, a pilgrimage to that much-vaunted capital of bohemianism would be a meaningless gesture. Even garrets were no longer cheap, and those aloof gatekeepers of the city’s galleries—some of them his former classmates or friends of friends from his days at the École Supérieure des Arts et des Industries Graphiques—had shown only a polite interest in his work when he had brought over his portfolios. Undoubtedly this indifference had something to do with his practical training, which lacked the cachet and purity of a classical training at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. He needed to go somewhere where he would not be bound down by several centuries of cultural baggage. Like Gaugin, who had needed Tahiti, he needed to find his own little island of inspiration, and he was itching to expatriate.
Being both an anglophone and an anglophobe—with a horror of all that is foggy and muted in the English sensibility—he was more attracted to England’s former colonies. For a while he fantasized about moving to Australia, whose history as a penal colony intrigued him. The naturalist side of him was excited about the prospect of painting kangaroos, koalas, and kookaburras in his fanciful new style. However, just as he began to explore the feasibility of his daydreams about the land down under, another desert outpost of the New World staked its claim upon him. Somehow, Larry Tetley, the philistine head of the Desert Academy, had found his way into the Musée Gustave Moreau and sat down on a bench next to Touchefeu, who sat transfixed before the image of Salome dancing before King Herod.
“I guess there’s something more going on there than just a little belly-dancing,” Tetley had said with the confidence of an American who assumes his English will be understood. “Do you not know the story?” Touchefeu had asked, and Tetley looked confused as he said, “What story?” The head then listened patiently to a long discourse about the biblical story of King Herod and Salome, about Gustave Moreau, and about how the painting had been described in a fascinating novel that he just had to read, Á Rebours by J.-K. Huysmans.
A spark of recognition flashed across Tetley’s face when Touchefeu mentioned that Huysmans’ book was the yellow-covered novel Oscar Wilde mentioned in The Picture of Dorian Gray. “That book is on the eleventh grade reading list at the school in Arizona where I’m the headmaster,” he said. With a knowing glance, he said, “It’s a progressive school,” as if to explain how such a risqué book could make its way into the hands of mere adolescents.
After Touchefeu regaled him with some analyses of the other paintings on the crowded walls and offered an account of his own career as an illustrator and painter, Tetley stood up and said, “It’s been a pleasure talking with you. One of our wealthiest alumni just happens to live here in Paris now, and I must be on my way to have lunch with him. In fact, I came here so I would have something to talk about with him since I found out he made a big donation to this place. Now we really do have something to talk about. We’ve been corresponding about the idea of hiring an artistic director for The Desert Academy, so you should think about applying for the job.” Then he handed him the little rectangular business card that turned out to be his ticket to the New World.
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