She appears in my dreams. My nightmares too, and sometimes I even see her where there isn’t anyone at all. I couldn’t tell anyone, that was the worst part. What would they do when they found out I was crazy? Would I be locked up with rats and the sickly smell of sewage waste?

Momma told me that’s where my crazy cousin went. I couldn’t be locked away, no matter what. To contain what was left of my...

The atelier smells of oil and fumes, and specks of paint coat every wooden surface. Paintings of purple hued dragons and lush forests hang on the chipped walls, each baring their own price tag. All except the paintings under the white covers.

My hands move in delicate circles, occasionally looking over at the young woman across me as I trace her onto the canvas. Her eyes, heavy with makeup, conve...

They call me eccentric. They think me mad! They say she’s not real. That she’s my mother, sister, aunt, lost lover. Alas! The face that haunts my dreams. The face that will bring death! How many times have I painted her? Her portraits pepper my studio. I could fill galleries! I have seen her! I have seen her power! The hour of our doom- what’s this now? Footsteps? Who’s there? If that idiot boy of...

I've been drawing the same face since I was a child. A raven-haired woman too tall to guess. She often crowds the paper, bent over like she didn't quite anticipate her inability to fit. And she's always crying. Never the same way. crying, sobbing, weeping, wimpering. Some sad, some angry, some filled with relief. But she's always crying.

She changed as I did. When I broke my arm falling off the sw...

“Liv, you finishing up yet?” Pete shouted from the door, hovering around to lock up.

He’d owned this studio about 10 years and was still the only one with a key, despite the four other artists he allowed inside. Once, I nearly convinced him to give me the spare, but he failed to find it in his bag and he never mentioned the conversation again. So, no matter how long I needed, we had to finish whe...

Today’s my birthday

And you are still here.

What do I say.

You are always there....

Some people say that one moment, one action, can change a person’s life forever. That’s exactly what happened to me the second she walked into my life.

It was a slow Saturday afternoon on the 17th floor of my New York City studio apartment on Park Avenue. I was staring out my window, desperately searching for inspiration, hidden amongst the gorgeous New York skyline. All of my life as an artist,...

Dashing one final stroke against the bursting canvas before me, my eyes began to feel heavy. A throbbing headache formed behind my eyes as I left The Zone and suddenly became aware of the fact that I hadn’t had any breaks for the past eight or so hours.

I was working.

I can’t predict when my strokes of inspiration will arise, they just do. Sometimes when I’m sleeping I’ll have to jump out of b...

“Maeve?” The young woman will strawberry blonde hair says. “I-Is that you?”

The woman darts her head to the direction the voice came from. Her eyes welled with tears. “Bella. I-It’s me.”

“Maeve!”

“Bella!”

The two young women ran to each other and embraced as tears streamed down both of their cheeks.

“I-I thought you were dead” Bella says when they finally pull away.

“No no no. I was framed ...

Eden grabbed the pile of papers sitting by the door and started walking back to her canvases. It had gotten colder in Wisconsin so she had to set up heaters as the heating in the studio was broken. Because of this there were cords everywhere that she wasn’t yet used to. She tripped over the cord and went to catch herself, the papers slipping out of her hands and flying across the floor. A couple p...