An Art Journey Appreciation (a Short Story) | LMAC FreeStyle Collage No. 169

Lance dropped his boots by the door, then walked wearily toward the kitchen island, his lunch cooler in hand. His muscles ached from a long shift at the chemical plant. Every nerve was frayed. One wrong pressure reading that day could have cost lives.

Before he could place his cooler on the counter, Michelle jumped from her bar stool and hugged him tightly, beaming with excitement. "Grab your jacket. The contemporary exhibit closes in an hour, and the chief curator is giving a live talk!"

He froze, closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and blew out a hard breath.

"What's wrong now?" she asked, fearing the response.

His chest tightened. "Michelle, I’ve been breathing fumes and staring at pressure gauges for the past fourteen hours ensuring a volatile reactor didn't blow us sky-high! I don't have the mental bandwidth to stare at abstract shapes and guess what the artist felt!"

She flinched and pulled away, then glanced at her notes on the upcoming local exhibition. "It’s not just shapes and how someone feels! It's my career. It's how I breathe after a grueling workweek. You're shutting out my livelihood because your bandwitdh can't expand to include art!"

"What has that got to do with supporting me in my venture?" her voice snapped, the built-up rejection of the past few months finally fracturing her enthusiasm.

She shot back quickly, "I’m trying to build a career as a curator. I need to see these spaces, to learn, to network. This isn't a hobby for me. It’s my life, and you treat it like a waste of time!"

"Because it’s a luxury!" he shouted back, the stress of the day exploding. "You want to talk about life? My life is making sure a reactor doesn't breach. I don't have the luxury of over-analyzing splattered paint when my actual life is on the line daily! Your art galleries aren't the real world. They’re recreational arenas. "I just can't deal with this right now. I'm dead tired."

The words hung in the air, toxic and heavy.

Michelle stepped back, her face pale. She didn't yell. She just gathered her portfolio, and walked out the door. Lance retreated to the bedroom to freshen up before dinner.

The silence between them was louder than the argument itself. A cold distance followed, lasting two weeks, creating an icy barrier that blanketed their small apartment.

The television watched him eat dinner alone. The spare room welcomed and watched Michelle as she stayed up late drafting exhibition proposals under the harsh, desk light.

During the silence, Michelle's evenings at the gallery lost their excitement. Standing before a massive, avant-garde sculpture made of twisted scrap metal, she didn't see the work of an artistic genius. She saw structural stress points. She remembered Lance explaining how thermal expansion could rupture a steel pipe if the pressure wasn't vented. For the first time, she realized Lance didn't hate art; he was just consumed by the responsibility of his reality. Shifting her curation notes, she began focusing less on abstract theories and more on the physical labor and elements behind the art.

At the plant, Lance stared through the reinforced glass at a glowing chemical solution. The supervisor had called it a standard exothermic reaction ¹. But to him, watching the deep blues shift into brilliant, dangerous violets resembled a canvas. He now understood Michelle's boring lectures about color theory and how colors interact and combine that leaves a subjective effect on human emotions.².

Finally, he understood. The deafening silence at home was senseless and damaging. He realized his dismissal of her art realm wasn't just unfair; it was insulting. Isolating her threatened their relationship to the point of no return. He also realized that he was survival-driven; she, growth-driven. Without her, his world was just gray concrete and steel.

The next Friday, Lance came home and deliberately left his heavy work boots outside the door, symbolizing a boundary. Michelle was at the kitchen table, surrounded by color swatches.

He breathed deeply. Deciding to execute a tool his best friend shared that worked in his own relationship was the first step. How she responded would be the stress test.

"A 'two-minute download,'" he said softly.

Weary from restless nights, Michelle looked up, surprised. "I'm game."

"The primary catalyst pump³ failed today, and I had to manually vent the line under extreme heat," he said, his voice steady but weary. "I’m physically exhausted, but I am entirely safe and glad to be home."

Michelle closed her binder and followed his lead. The gallery board rejected my proposal today, and I feel like my vision isn't being taken seriously. I'm frustrated, but I'm not giving up."

The acknowledgment of each other's burdens without immediate judgment thawed the freeze. Lance sat opposite her, not looking at the swatches as an obligation, but as a compromise.

"I bought something." He smiled, pulling a heavy paper bag from his backpack. He set down jars of raw linseed oil, gum arabic, and raw mineral powders—lapis lazuli, malachite, and cadmium red.

Michelle’s eyes widened. "What is this?"

It’s industrial chemistry," Lance smiled faintly, pulling up a chair. "And it’s art. Let’s make paint from scratch."

Donning masks, for the next three hours, their worlds fused perfectly. Lance took charge of the precise measurements and temperature controls needed to bind the minerals, explaining how the molecular structure of the oil changed to trap the pigment.

Michelle took over the aesthetic part, explaining how the grind of the powder changed the light refraction and texture on the canvas.⁴

She wasn't forcing a gallery visit. He wasn't ignoring the stress of the plant. They were practicing comprise, utilizing science to create art.

Michelle’s eyes widened, her hands hovering over the jars. She picked up the jar of deep blue lapis powder, tilting it against the kitchen light. "This is how the Renaissance masters did it. Before everything came mass-produced in metal tubes. Understanding color relationships allows you to create harmonious compositions that feel balanced and intentional."

Lance listened intently. "Exactly. But chemically, it’s just a suspension of solid particulates within a polymerizing binding agent",⁵ he explained, measuring out a precise amount of linseed oil with a laboratory syringe.

For the next three hours, their worlds fused perfectly.

Six months later, the atmosphere inside the Forsythe Gallery was electric. Soft jazz echoed off the exposed brick walls, and the room hummed with the chatter of critics, collectors, and local artists.

Michelle stood near the entrance, looking professional. The exhibition was titled Elements of Labor, a showcase she had spent months organizing. It focused entirely on raw, physical processes—the grit, science, and sweat behind creation.

"Excuse me," a prominent local art critic said, tapping Michelle on the shoulder. He pointed to the centerpiece of the show: a massive canvas filled with deep, mesmerizing blues and sharp structural lines that seemed to vibrate under the gallery lights. "The texture of this blue is extraordinary. The depth is almost primitive. Who is the supplier?"

Michelle smiled, her chest swelling with a quiet, grounded pride. "It’s a custom-formulated lapis lazuli pigment. Entirely hand-ground and chemically balanced to resist atmospheric degradation.""

"Insightful curation," the critic nodded, drifting off to take notes.

Michelle looked across the crowded room. Standing near the back was Lance. He was looking at the canvas, not with the blank stare of a forced spectator, but with the analytical, appreciative eye of someone who understood exactly how much pressure, time, and heat it took to keep that blue from cracking.

He caught her eye through the crowd and raised his glass in a silent toast. The gallery finally emptied. When the doors locked after a successful showing, they walked outside. He offered her a jacket against the crisp night air.

Michelle leaned her head against his shoulder.

"Two-sentence download?" he queried, wrapping an arm around her waist, looking up at the city lights."

"Not tonight. You made it perfect."

He stared down at her for a long moment. "I am incredibly proud of the world you built tonight and look forward to going home to ours."

"Thank you. And I’m also looking forward to going home to ours because I have an unveiling of another type collaboration."

^{Source 1: "Exothermic Process"
Source 2: "What is Color Theory"
Source 3: "Catalysts in Industry"
Source 4: "Pigment"
Source 5: "The Chemistry of Paint"}

My current freestyle collage theme entails an art journey for two distinct personalities who happen to be present in each other's space. The clash is inevitable when two minds don't embrace the same perspectives of each other's goals and aspirations. An enthusiastic art lover and a math oriented mindset. Viewing the world through shapes and colors as compared to numbers and pressure points.

This is my first freestyle design that includes more than 30 images. To portray the numerous designs that may be appealing, I those mostly abstract images. The primary image was the photo of the portrayal of Venice waterway in which hands are propped against a building as though they are holding up the structure through sheer force of will.

I wanted the Venice photo to be the backdrop. For the foreground, I chose the LMAC Contest photo of an alley.

My style of collage is a Freestyle. Although I usually include the current contest photo in my design, I'm not required to. However, if you'd like to join in the current contest, visit: Let's Make a Collage - A Contest for All Creatives on Hive - Round 252 - ✨45 HIVE in the Prize Po.

Below are the images I included to complete my theme.

Item	Contributor	Source
LMAC Contest #252 Image - Alley	Contributed to #LIL by @seckorama	Link
Vienna abstract image - hands on wall	Pixabay	Link
Couple in black silhouette	Pexels	Link
Chalkboard with words "What's Your Story"	Pixabay	Link
Red Moth	Pixabay	Link
Female Clown costume	Pixabay	Link
Stone head in sand	Pixabay	Link
Bird Flock	PurePNG	Link
Abstract Rainbow	Pixabay	Link
Abstract Template pattern	Pixabay	Link
Floral abstract art	Pixabay	Link
Woman in water with red roses in hair	Pixabay	Link
Black Flowers	Pixabay	Link
Geometric machine	Pixabay	Link
Black abstract lined box	Pixabay	Link
Surreal Nautical Fish and face	Public Domain Pictures	Link
Fist	Contributed to #LIL by @alex2alex	Link
Colorful public sculpture in Ramat Gan	Contributed to #LIL by @alex2alex	Link
Coala Eye	Contributed to #LIL by @alex2alex	Link
Public art "The Egg's Costumes" garden-Holon	Contributed to #LIL by @alex2alex	Link
Mermaid	Contributed to #LIL by @alex2alex	Link
Mirror Waves	Contributed to #LIL by @alex2alex	Link
Green Playground equipment Tel Aviv	Contributed to #LIL by @alex2alex	Link
Public art-Sculptures Garden-Tel Hashomer-Statute	Contributed to #LIL by @alex2alex	Link
Purple Stem Flower	Contributed to #LIL by @alex2alex	Link
Serious Face	Contributed to #LIL by @alex2alex	Link
Surreal Face portrait	Contributed to #LIL by @alex2alex	Link
Double butterfly	Contributed to #LIL by @edgarafernandezp	Link
Pure Fractal titled "Stone Fish"	@justclickindiva	Link
Seagull perched on post	Contributed to #LIL by @redheadpei	Link
Bird in flight	Contributed to #LIL by @redheadpei	Link

I utilized Canva to blend the different type images. Below are my steps in which I began with a blank, white canvas, then added layers of elements, removing backgrounds, resizing, detaching elements from their backgrounds, duplicating, colorizing, and repositioning items as needed incorporating the tools at my disposal in my Annual Pro Membership Subscription.

Below is my completed collage design:

Thanks for your visit. I appreciate it. I hope you like my freestyle collage theme.