WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.160 --> 00:00:08.519 Hollo, I moalcan stories all the time. Glad you are here. 2 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:10.039 Let's get into it. 3 00:00:10.839 --> 00:00:13.080 The way the light falls on the river front just 4 00:00:13.119 --> 00:00:16.600 before the museum opens always reminds me of the classroom clock, 5 00:00:17.039 --> 00:00:21.760 soft directional and oddly revealing. There's an hour half way 6 00:00:21.800 --> 00:00:25.440 between morning coffee and the first burst of schoolbus traffic outside, 7 00:00:25.760 --> 00:00:28.640 when the river mist still hovers on the glass. On 8 00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:32.399 days I volunteer, I have that hour to myself. There's 9 00:00:32.399 --> 00:00:35.719 nobody yet peering over the front desk or thumbing through 10 00:00:35.759 --> 00:00:39.920 the visitor brochures. The building, an odd cross between an 11 00:00:40.039 --> 00:00:44.399 Edwardian municipal hall and a converted flower mill, sighs and 12 00:00:44.479 --> 00:00:47.600 creaks in its old beams. This is when the hush 13 00:00:47.640 --> 00:00:52.200 feels thickest, like the moment before a story begins. I 14 00:00:52.240 --> 00:00:55.240 had signed on as a volunteer after three cautious months 15 00:00:55.240 --> 00:00:59.079 of retirement and approximately fifty seven failed attempts to teach 16 00:00:59.119 --> 00:01:04.799 myself relaxed idleness. My formal title is museum Support Collections, 17 00:01:05.079 --> 00:01:07.640 and I imagine it suits my lifelong itch for well 18 00:01:07.680 --> 00:01:12.079 labeled shelves and sortid patterns. Sometimes my former students spot 19 00:01:12.120 --> 00:01:15.079 me gently brushing dust from the iron work or checking 20 00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:19.000 the inventory tags, and I get a polite, faintly amused wave. 21 00:01:20.120 --> 00:01:23.719 I'm older, grayer, but I still crave new things to classify. 22 00:01:24.760 --> 00:01:27.040 That morning, there was a low resonance in the hallway, 23 00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:30.079 the kind you get when old heating pipes are cooling fast. 24 00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:33.480 I was assigned to the North gallery, newly re arranged 25 00:01:33.519 --> 00:01:38.120 to showcase portraits from the museum's eccentric holdings. The official faces, 26 00:01:38.239 --> 00:01:41.719 the prominent benefactors and military men hang sternly near the 27 00:01:41.719 --> 00:01:45.400 front door. But the quirks, the regional odd balls, the 28 00:01:45.480 --> 00:01:49.359 unknown sitters, the one off experiments in paint. These live 29 00:01:49.439 --> 00:01:52.760 deeper in the side galleries, where the light isn't so proud. 30 00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:56.560 I know the collections well. When I set down my 31 00:01:56.599 --> 00:01:59.799 clipboard and started my circuit, it took only a glance 32 00:01:59.840 --> 00:02:04.760 to realized something was different. Tucked along the galley's far wall, which, 33 00:02:04.920 --> 00:02:07.519 if you know the building is half shadowed by the 34 00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:11.639 tall poplar trees outside, a new row of portraits glimmered 35 00:02:11.680 --> 00:02:16.879 behind polished glass. At first glance, they formed a chronological muddle. 36 00:02:17.319 --> 00:02:20.560 Here a loose water color from the late nineteenth century. 37 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:25.159 There a stiff, varnished panel crowded with gold leaf midway 38 00:02:25.199 --> 00:02:28.960 down a surreally elongated Modernist sketch in what I guessed 39 00:02:29.080 --> 00:02:33.680 was Conte crayon. The labels I noticed were still being updated, 40 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:37.840 so some bore no identification at all or caught. My 41 00:02:37.879 --> 00:02:40.800 attention was not the dates or the jumble of frames, 42 00:02:41.080 --> 00:02:43.800 but a kind of optical stutter. Each time I scanned 43 00:02:43.800 --> 00:02:47.400 across a canvas, I'd never seen so many unfinished portraits 44 00:02:47.439 --> 00:02:52.080 grouped together, not simply faded or cracked by time. Unfinished, 45 00:02:52.479 --> 00:02:55.680 the faces hovered in a peculiar state of almost speaking. 46 00:02:56.319 --> 00:03:00.400 Some bore rough sketched outlines pigment abruptly trailing off at 47 00:03:00.400 --> 00:03:04.400 the nose or brow. Others were exquisitely painted up to 48 00:03:04.439 --> 00:03:08.759 a single abrupt void, a pal ellipse an emptiness where 49 00:03:08.800 --> 00:03:12.719 the central feature should be ringed by completed detail, as 50 00:03:12.759 --> 00:03:16.960 if the artist had carefully avoided some invisible shape. It 51 00:03:17.039 --> 00:03:19.520 was the sameness of the missing that froze me, not 52 00:03:19.599 --> 00:03:23.599 the ordinary randomness I expect the way students, when tackling 53 00:03:23.639 --> 00:03:27.000 self portraits, often drift into abstraction if they tire of 54 00:03:27.039 --> 00:03:30.960 lips or struggle with symmetry. These empty regions were precise 55 00:03:31.560 --> 00:03:35.800 each face, no matter the style nationality or age lacked 56 00:03:35.840 --> 00:03:40.120 exactly the same segment, a narrowed almond shaped field, cutting 57 00:03:40.159 --> 00:03:44.639 mid cheek bunt to temple. Sometimes the void was raw canvas, 58 00:03:45.039 --> 00:03:49.919 sometimes blank jesso left smooth and untouched, sometimes a cloudy 59 00:03:49.960 --> 00:03:53.199 scumble of half raised pencil, as if the artist had 60 00:03:53.240 --> 00:03:58.080 tried but backed away mid gesture. I circled slowly, aware 61 00:03:58.120 --> 00:03:59.960 that at least three of the faces seemed to peer 62 00:04:00.120 --> 00:04:03.520 back short of being permitted to smile or frown. I'd 63 00:04:03.520 --> 00:04:07.000 never filed these works before, nor written their labels. I 64 00:04:07.120 --> 00:04:09.520 was sure of it, a feeling in my bones from 65 00:04:09.560 --> 00:04:14.080 decades of cataloging school projects and reviewing museum surveys. My 66 00:04:14.159 --> 00:04:16.759 finger tips itched for a pencil, the way they do 67 00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:19.800 when I realize a lesson plan has skipped a key point. 68 00:04:20.399 --> 00:04:24.720 This was no scattered coincidence. It was a silent census 69 00:04:24.759 --> 00:04:29.519 of blanks, one that no previous documentation or impromptu school 70 00:04:29.600 --> 00:04:33.920 tore through here had ever mentioned. I pulled my stool 71 00:04:33.959 --> 00:04:36.800 closer and sat. From here, I could see the whole 72 00:04:36.920 --> 00:04:40.079 row reflected blurry in the glass of the opposite display. 73 00:04:40.600 --> 00:04:43.759 I remembered a phrase I'd used a hundred times with students. 74 00:04:44.120 --> 00:04:47.319 Look for what isn't there. For a moment, this felt 75 00:04:47.360 --> 00:04:50.519 like stepping behind a half remembered story, or waking in 76 00:04:50.560 --> 00:04:52.879 the middle of a lesson where the punchline was missing. 77 00:04:53.399 --> 00:04:56.319 The room seemed to contract, and with each glance the 78 00:04:56.439 --> 00:05:00.439 uncanny repetition drew me deeper. It would have been easy, 79 00:05:00.600 --> 00:05:03.279 I told myself to pass this off as a fluke, 80 00:05:03.680 --> 00:05:08.120 but the coincidence was too finely engineered. Had any other 81 00:05:08.199 --> 00:05:12.279 volunteer or staff member noticed and simply not commented, or 82 00:05:12.399 --> 00:05:15.560 was this arrangement as new as it appeared. I was 83 00:05:15.680 --> 00:05:19.000 left with the solitary, peculiar thrill of being the first, 84 00:05:19.439 --> 00:05:22.560 at least in this hour, in this quiet museum, before 85 00:05:22.600 --> 00:05:25.160 the world wakes, to wonder at the mystery of the 86 00:05:25.240 --> 00:05:30.519 unfinished faces. I kept circling my shadow, wabbling over the parquet, 87 00:05:30.639 --> 00:05:34.160 and felt the first tingle of real, sharp curiosity. The 88 00:05:34.199 --> 00:05:37.279 strangeness was too specific to ignore. I had lived for 89 00:05:37.319 --> 00:05:40.680 traces and half patterns all my life, half written poems 90 00:05:40.720 --> 00:05:44.279 tucked into note books, the unfinished shelves in the English 91 00:05:44.319 --> 00:05:48.040 class room, old family letters with torn off signature lines. 92 00:05:48.519 --> 00:05:52.120 I had always forgiven things for remaining incomplete, and yet 93 00:05:52.399 --> 00:05:56.480 every instinct said there was more to this. These portraits, 94 00:05:56.600 --> 00:06:00.439 reaching across centuries and hands, were each missing the same window, 95 00:06:00.920 --> 00:06:05.240 a mask shaped field, stubbornly blank. What could possibly tie 96 00:06:05.240 --> 00:06:09.560 them together? In this silent conspiracy of omission? No one 97 00:06:09.639 --> 00:06:13.040 came through the entryway. I allowed myself one, two, three 98 00:06:13.079 --> 00:06:16.759 minutes more, letting the question grow teeth, and then, as 99 00:06:16.879 --> 00:06:20.560 naturally as breathing, I set to work, not simply to record, 100 00:06:20.720 --> 00:06:25.160 but to understand. I suppose that, in some gentle way, 101 00:06:25.600 --> 00:06:29.319 this is how every really good story starts. When you're 102 00:06:29.360 --> 00:06:32.839 a retearee in a river town, time seems to drift sideways, 103 00:06:33.040 --> 00:06:36.759 not forward. My afternoons no longer tick loudly along, lesson 104 00:06:36.839 --> 00:06:41.000 plans or shrill end of period bells. Instead, there's the 105 00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:44.759 slow choreography of the museum, unlocked cabinets in the morning, 106 00:06:45.120 --> 00:06:49.800 smile at Miss Bellamy's latest display, brainstorm, catalog things twice, 107 00:06:50.079 --> 00:06:53.759 even when the database is working. Answer school kid's oddest 108 00:06:53.839 --> 00:06:58.399 questions with faked authority. After four decades as a teacher 109 00:06:58.720 --> 00:07:03.000 English literature, mostly with a ball punt addiction to underlining motifs, 110 00:07:03.319 --> 00:07:07.120 I'd always fancied myself a pattern person. I once kept 111 00:07:07.120 --> 00:07:10.680 a running tally in my grade book margins, stories abandoned 112 00:07:10.680 --> 00:07:15.439 mid sentence poems trailing off after an irresistible but still life, 113 00:07:15.519 --> 00:07:19.879 sketches halted at the left eye. There's a restlessness in incompleteness, 114 00:07:19.879 --> 00:07:24.920 something I find paradoxically soothing. My husband calls my fascinations 115 00:07:25.120 --> 00:07:29.000 barnacled curiosities, the things that stick. It's not that I 116 00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:32.360 find answers relaxing, exactly, but that I like when a 117 00:07:32.439 --> 00:07:36.040 question drags its feet. The museum seemed like the natural 118 00:07:36.079 --> 00:07:38.680 extension of this habit. As soon as I gave up 119 00:07:38.759 --> 00:07:41.399 grading essays, I signed up for a slot at the 120 00:07:41.439 --> 00:07:46.079 region's oddest institution, the River Wind Museum of Art and Heritage. 121 00:07:46.399 --> 00:07:50.720 Housed in its high ceilinged riverside building, the place is 122 00:07:50.759 --> 00:07:54.519 a delightful shambles, a hodgepodge of regional history and out 123 00:07:54.560 --> 00:07:59.720 of town gifts, old medical supplies nestled beside revolutionary era broadsides, 124 00:08:00.199 --> 00:08:04.959 the world's only claimed a cup carousel, two gestural nudes 125 00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:07.959 by artists with names no one can spell, and a 126 00:08:07.959 --> 00:08:12.240 weary Civil War drum. On my first day, Miss Bellamy, 127 00:08:12.319 --> 00:08:15.800 the curator, pressed a mini clipboard into my hands. She 128 00:08:15.879 --> 00:08:19.199 once ran gallery installations in London, but now delights in 129 00:08:19.319 --> 00:08:22.959 quirky local artifacts and recruits docents like a border collie 130 00:08:23.040 --> 00:08:27.120 herding sheep. Javia, the artist and residence, is all kinetic 131 00:08:27.240 --> 00:08:30.920 energy and charcoal smudged hands, always hunched over new sketches. 132 00:08:31.319 --> 00:08:35.679 Missus Grant, the collection's manager, is brisk, dry, and possesses 133 00:08:35.720 --> 00:08:39.960 an advanced degree in losing receipts. We are supplemented by 134 00:08:39.960 --> 00:08:45.720 a rotating caste regulars who appear most Tuesdays, retired tradespeople, 135 00:08:45.919 --> 00:08:50.159 bird watchers, a former dentist with a taste for Byzantine iconography, 136 00:08:50.559 --> 00:08:54.399 and a quiet local historian, doctor Shaw, who's been collecting 137 00:08:54.440 --> 00:08:58.799 photographs of the river's shifting banks for decades. My routine 138 00:08:58.919 --> 00:09:04.559 is comfortingly grand. Mondays are inventory, Tuesday's public hours, Wednesday's 139 00:09:04.720 --> 00:09:08.600 open collections for school field trips, and Friday's meetings, where 140 00:09:08.639 --> 00:09:12.720 staff debate whether a nineteen thirty's tea cup is truly significant. 141 00:09:13.480 --> 00:09:18.159 I greet students answer wildly confident, erroneous questions. Was Van 142 00:09:18.279 --> 00:09:23.120 Gock here? And file paperwork no one reads but pattens 143 00:09:23.440 --> 00:09:26.799 the ones that slipped under the museum's radar always called 144 00:09:26.799 --> 00:09:30.840 to me. A misshelved de guerotype, A song refrain eked 145 00:09:30.840 --> 00:09:34.120 in pencil in a nurse's diary, a pocket watch missing 146 00:09:34.159 --> 00:09:37.120 its minute hand. I suppose I should have been more 147 00:09:37.159 --> 00:09:40.559 surprised by the new gallery row, but instead felt something 148 00:09:40.639 --> 00:09:44.080 click quietly into place. Some part of me recognized a 149 00:09:44.240 --> 00:09:48.480 kindred riddle. Perhaps it's why the unfinished portraits, in all 150 00:09:48.519 --> 00:09:52.759 their silent half expression, held an immediate magnetic pull. In 151 00:09:52.840 --> 00:09:57.399 my last year teaching, a student, Sofia, always cautious with color, 152 00:09:57.639 --> 00:10:01.000 abandoned her final project. I can't get the eyes to 153 00:10:01.039 --> 00:10:04.399 sit right, she said. I remembered the compulsion to stop 154 00:10:04.440 --> 00:10:09.759 mid gesture, to avoid finality. There's a relief in the blank. Now, 155 00:10:09.799 --> 00:10:12.879 looking from portrait to portrait, I felt the old itch. 156 00:10:13.279 --> 00:10:16.240 What was a blank? In real terms? Does a region 157 00:10:16.240 --> 00:10:19.799 of unpainted canvas of shape or is it simply non being? 158 00:10:20.440 --> 00:10:22.519 That's the kind of question I would have saved for 159 00:10:22.559 --> 00:10:27.000 a Thursday's class discussion. But here it was all mine, alone, 160 00:10:27.120 --> 00:10:30.559 with the morning light and the muffled clunk of radiators. 161 00:10:31.200 --> 00:10:33.399 I made a mental note to quiz missus grant on 162 00:10:33.440 --> 00:10:36.039 the provenance later in the day. If any one could 163 00:10:36.039 --> 00:10:39.200 trace the donor history, it was her. Javiere could be 164 00:10:39.240 --> 00:10:42.639 trusted for impressions. He seemed attuned to the vibe of things, 165 00:10:42.960 --> 00:10:46.919 sometimes to the neglect of strict facts. The historian doctor 166 00:10:46.960 --> 00:10:50.120 Shaw might know if there were local traditions explaining a 167 00:10:50.200 --> 00:10:53.960 run of unfinished art, And of course Miss Bellamy would 168 00:10:53.960 --> 00:10:57.360 have her own gleeful theory. She thrives on the unexplained. 169 00:10:58.399 --> 00:11:02.120 Sometimes I catch myself missing the performative certainty of teaching, 170 00:11:02.559 --> 00:11:07.039 delivering a clean, complete answer to students. But retirement gives 171 00:11:07.039 --> 00:11:10.440 you the luxury of not pretending to know. Now relishing 172 00:11:10.519 --> 00:11:13.679 the question is enough, and the blankness of those faces 173 00:11:13.679 --> 00:11:19.039 seemed to say ask, but don't demand. After lunch canned 174 00:11:19.080 --> 00:11:23.000 soup in the break room, punctuated by Miss Bellamy's staccato laughter, 175 00:11:23.519 --> 00:11:27.000 missus Grant handed me the inventory ledger. I perched at 176 00:11:27.000 --> 00:11:31.679 the old library table, faces swimming before me, and started cataloging. 177 00:11:32.679 --> 00:11:34.960 With each scan of a label or cross check against 178 00:11:34.960 --> 00:11:39.600 the acquisition log, my certainty deepened every unfinished face, even 179 00:11:39.639 --> 00:11:43.919 the most stylistically incoherent. A lurid pastel with blocky gumby 180 00:11:44.080 --> 00:11:48.039 like features beside a meticulous Dutch miniature left precisely the 181 00:11:48.080 --> 00:11:52.240 same almond shaped blank. I tried to dismiss it, imagining 182 00:11:52.360 --> 00:11:55.759 artists called away mid session or losing heart at their work, 183 00:11:56.120 --> 00:11:59.559 perhaps distracted by illness or the theater, or the smell 184 00:11:59.600 --> 00:12:03.120 of dinner wafting from the kitchen next door. But a 185 00:12:03.159 --> 00:12:08.000 third of the pieces had meticulous documentation, names, dates, sometimes 186 00:12:08.080 --> 00:12:11.960 even correspondence from the original artist or family member. It 187 00:12:12.039 --> 00:12:16.720 made no sense statistically, the dozens of unrelated artists, separated 188 00:12:16.759 --> 00:12:20.559 by centuries and genres, should all neglect the same facial region. 189 00:12:21.279 --> 00:12:25.399 The oldest, mid fifteenth century oil, dusted with spiderweb cracks 190 00:12:25.399 --> 00:12:29.000 and gilt, terminated midbridge on the sitter's nose. The void 191 00:12:29.120 --> 00:12:33.320 smoothed clean, as if masked off. The most recent and 192 00:12:33.480 --> 00:12:38.080 nineteen seventies guache left a cartoonish gap mid brow, fuzzy 193 00:12:38.159 --> 00:12:42.440 pencil lines looping around but never settling. I pulled my 194 00:12:42.519 --> 00:12:46.320 glasses lower and began tracing the boundaries onto a transparency. 195 00:12:46.960 --> 00:12:50.120 Each time the outline matched down to the curve at 196 00:12:50.120 --> 00:12:53.399 temple and the faint dip above the cheekbone. Once or 197 00:12:53.399 --> 00:12:57.279 twice I doubted the alignment and redid it, still perfect, 198 00:12:58.360 --> 00:13:03.639 retracing provenance. The contradiction sharpened the database, never the museum's 199 00:13:03.639 --> 00:13:07.240 strong suit revealed that the paintings were sourced from auctions, 200 00:13:07.600 --> 00:13:13.279 estate donations, gifts from local families, sometimes even entire regions apart, 201 00:13:13.960 --> 00:13:19.320 Yet the anomaly persisted, untouched by origin. Curious, I slid 202 00:13:19.360 --> 00:13:23.159 my tracing under a lamp and overlaid three faces. They 203 00:13:23.200 --> 00:13:26.559 fused along the missing regions, seamlessly, as if the same 204 00:13:26.639 --> 00:13:30.080 invisible mask had been held over the canvas at each attempt, 205 00:13:30.519 --> 00:13:35.759 enforced by something outside of paint or style. Tuesday afternoon, 206 00:13:36.240 --> 00:13:40.200 I raised the topic to missus Grant, interrupting her labyrinthine 207 00:13:40.240 --> 00:13:44.000 recounting of missing shipping receipts. What do you make of 208 00:13:44.039 --> 00:13:47.799 these blanks, I asked, Not just one or two, every 209 00:13:47.879 --> 00:13:52.279 single one falls away at exactly the same spot. She pursed, 210 00:13:52.279 --> 00:13:55.679 her lips, flipping to the next page. Artists, you know, 211 00:13:56.039 --> 00:13:59.480 they get distracted, sometimes the money runs out, or the 212 00:13:59.480 --> 00:14:03.120 sitters store sworms off. Besides, there's a long tradition of 213 00:14:03.200 --> 00:14:06.799 leaving things unresolved. Thought it made them look clever, or 214 00:14:06.799 --> 00:14:11.159 it's some fashion I missed in school. Javier hovered nearby, 215 00:14:11.440 --> 00:14:16.639 fingers gray with graphite. He peered over my shoulder uncharacteristically still, 216 00:14:16.879 --> 00:14:21.279 then laughed. Maybe it's like that. Thing with composers never 217 00:14:21.320 --> 00:14:24.559 writing the last chord, or writers not killing off a 218 00:14:24.679 --> 00:14:27.559 character so the story can keep going in your head. 219 00:14:28.600 --> 00:14:32.000 But the familiarity in his voice was thin. He bent low, 220 00:14:32.200 --> 00:14:35.600 scanning a modernist pastel. You ever notice how if you 221 00:14:35.679 --> 00:14:39.000 draw from memory sometimes you can't remember what you left out, 222 00:14:39.480 --> 00:14:43.440 Like your hand just skips a patch, I asked Miss 223 00:14:43.519 --> 00:14:46.759 Bellamy about the new acquisitions. She waved her hands in 224 00:14:46.799 --> 00:14:50.080 the air as if conjuring yet more blanks. It's a 225 00:14:50.159 --> 00:14:53.120 quirky collection, isn't it. We've always had a taste for 226 00:14:53.159 --> 00:14:57.200 the odd here. Maybe unfinished faces are trendy again, there's 227 00:14:57.240 --> 00:15:01.000 a cycle. Did you know every fifty years the unfinished 228 00:15:01.039 --> 00:15:05.879 comes back in? I pressed further. Was this a thing historically? 229 00:15:06.200 --> 00:15:10.480 She shrugged, eyes sparkling. Oh, let's just say some patterns 230 00:15:10.559 --> 00:15:13.600 like to hide until they're ready to be noticed. Besides, 231 00:15:13.639 --> 00:15:16.519 it keeps the visitors talking. You're not going down the 232 00:15:16.559 --> 00:15:19.399 conspiracy route, are you. We've got enough of those in 233 00:15:19.440 --> 00:15:23.879 the old medical wing. I let the conversation lie. Nobody 234 00:15:23.879 --> 00:15:26.480 else in the building seemed to feel the mathematical chill 235 00:15:26.559 --> 00:15:30.360 of so many identical blanks. Late that afternoon, I made 236 00:15:30.399 --> 00:15:33.080 a vow and packed my note pad. I would document 237 00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:37.200 them myself, tracing precisely frame by frame to see if 238 00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:40.840 the pattern persisted. If it did well, then I'd need 239 00:15:40.879 --> 00:15:44.679 to think again about what these faces really were. Three 240 00:15:44.759 --> 00:15:48.320 evenings in a row I carried home scanned photos and notes, 241 00:15:48.600 --> 00:15:51.519 spreading them across my kitchen table under the steady ledge 242 00:15:51.559 --> 00:15:54.960 lamp like a would be detective. It felt furtive, but 243 00:15:55.039 --> 00:15:57.799 my husband was used to my late night research from 244 00:15:57.799 --> 00:16:03.159 grading days. After dinner vegetable stew relieably bland, I set 245 00:16:03.200 --> 00:16:06.320 out the copies, each portrait's missing region marked with a 246 00:16:06.399 --> 00:16:10.720 fine black pen. The results startled me. No matter the 247 00:16:10.759 --> 00:16:15.639 stylistic abandon parchment, medieval smeared oil neon ink, the omitted 248 00:16:15.679 --> 00:16:20.159 shape persisted. I measured scale and angle, overlaying transparent paper, 249 00:16:20.440 --> 00:16:24.200 aligning each portrait by brow line and chin. Every blank 250 00:16:24.279 --> 00:16:27.440 matched not merely in placement, but in its precise curve 251 00:16:27.480 --> 00:16:30.639 and length. A lens shaped wedge spanning from mid cheek 252 00:16:30.720 --> 00:16:33.440 to the start of the temple, never overlapping the eye, 253 00:16:33.480 --> 00:16:38.039 but grazing just beneath the backs of some princes revealed old, 254 00:16:38.360 --> 00:16:42.320 aborted pencil lines, the suggestion of an ear the ghostly 255 00:16:42.399 --> 00:16:45.679 trace of a jaw, but always at the fateful region. 256 00:16:45.960 --> 00:16:49.919 The line weakened, the pigments stuttered, as if some force, brime, 257 00:16:50.039 --> 00:16:55.639 or psychological tug intervened. Stranger. Still in the freshly acquired 258 00:16:55.799 --> 00:17:00.200 unsigned sketch, unlisted, still lacking a label, the void was 259 00:17:00.240 --> 00:17:03.879 not blank canvas, but an area deliberately lacquered with nearly 260 00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:08.079 invisible gloss, as if to mask a failed attempt. When 261 00:17:08.079 --> 00:17:10.880 I lifted the paper with tweezers near the lamplight, the 262 00:17:10.960 --> 00:17:15.799 shape flashed, unmistakably the same. I began to wonder if 263 00:17:15.799 --> 00:17:19.599 this was a conscious act by artists, a self propagating tradition, 264 00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:23.400 or an act of blind imitation. But the periods were 265 00:17:23.400 --> 00:17:28.519 too scattered, The artists by signature when present, unrelated, the 266 00:17:28.599 --> 00:17:34.119 mediums unrelated. Every possible excuse that seemed probable collapsed under scrutiny. 267 00:17:35.079 --> 00:17:37.480 Having traced the patterns, I turned to the rest of 268 00:17:37.519 --> 00:17:40.640 the records in our collections room. Miss Bellamy allowed me 269 00:17:40.680 --> 00:17:45.599 back into the small, overcrowded archives, cramped shelves, half labeled boxes, 270 00:17:45.839 --> 00:17:48.559 the ever present odor of floor wax and time. I 271 00:17:48.640 --> 00:17:53.519 pulled file after file, unearthing conflicting paperwork, mismatched donor lists, 272 00:17:53.759 --> 00:17:58.680 acquisition years that contradicted themselves, footnotes about partly documented sales. 273 00:17:59.279 --> 00:18:02.559 For at least three portraits, the story changed depending on 274 00:18:02.599 --> 00:18:07.559 which inventory book you checked. Some missus grant confirmed seemed 275 00:18:07.559 --> 00:18:11.279 to have appeared overnight in the storage vault, unclaimed until 276 00:18:11.319 --> 00:18:16.279 Bellamy put them in rotation for spice. The curiosity mutated 277 00:18:16.319 --> 00:18:19.640 at that point, less a mystery about one set of portraits, 278 00:18:19.880 --> 00:18:23.359 and more a ripple through the entire museum's oddities. On 279 00:18:23.440 --> 00:18:26.799 a hunch, I surveyed the textile room following a vague 280 00:18:26.799 --> 00:18:31.079 footnote in the last quarterly report referencing an unfinished tapestry. 281 00:18:31.759 --> 00:18:35.680 The tapestry Woven in eighteen thirty four depicted a mythical 282 00:18:35.759 --> 00:18:39.920 hunt bored a bristling with bright minotaurs and leafy curls. 283 00:18:40.599 --> 00:18:43.440 At the center, a woman's face half addressed, and then 284 00:18:43.839 --> 00:18:47.640 exactly at the familiar spot. Her features dissolved mid thread. 285 00:18:48.240 --> 00:18:51.839 Even where the dye still held bright, the blank region glared, 286 00:18:52.240 --> 00:18:56.200 a skein left wild, the warp visible, no attempt at closure. 287 00:18:57.200 --> 00:19:00.359 Back in the painting's gallery, an eighteen twenties map caught 288 00:19:00.400 --> 00:19:04.279 my eye. Intended as a decorative province chart, it included 289 00:19:04.279 --> 00:19:08.440 a mythic cartouche. Again, the visage inside stopped short at 290 00:19:08.480 --> 00:19:11.480 the mask like gap in quirk, trailing off into nothing. 291 00:19:12.160 --> 00:19:15.720 My pulse thundered gently in my ears. Had nobody else 292 00:19:15.759 --> 00:19:20.279 ever commented on this pattern? Maybe I thought tradition can 293 00:19:20.319 --> 00:19:24.680 propagate accidents. But these objects were acquired from distant sources, 294 00:19:25.079 --> 00:19:28.119 one from an attic near Florence, another at a farm 295 00:19:28.200 --> 00:19:32.039 auction in Quebec. The tapestry unspooled from an old trading 296 00:19:32.119 --> 00:19:36.839 post on the Northumberland coast. The timelines and geographies refused 297 00:19:36.839 --> 00:19:41.559 to unite. Feeling the need for intellectual company, I cornered 298 00:19:41.599 --> 00:19:43.799 Harve Air as he tried to sketch one of the 299 00:19:43.839 --> 00:19:47.880 faces from memory, dropping his pencil after the second attempt, 300 00:19:48.119 --> 00:19:52.319 He smiled sheepishly. It's like the more you try, the 301 00:19:52.440 --> 00:19:55.079 further away it gets. I try to fill in the 302 00:19:55.119 --> 00:19:58.000 gap and my mind goes fuzzy, or I forget what 303 00:19:58.119 --> 00:20:02.400 I was doing. When I shared my observations with Missus Grant, 304 00:20:02.720 --> 00:20:06.720 her skepticism was open and practical. You're making a mountain 305 00:20:06.839 --> 00:20:09.680 out of a well, a blank patch. It's a quirk, 306 00:20:10.119 --> 00:20:12.359 like the way every one used to paint saints with 307 00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:17.200 that one raised hand gesture. Doctor Shaw, the historian, was 308 00:20:17.279 --> 00:20:20.599 more receptive, if not convinced. He told me of lost 309 00:20:20.720 --> 00:20:24.279 muse tales, stories in which an artist haunted by a 310 00:20:24.319 --> 00:20:28.359 beautiful face finds himself unable to finish it, convinced it 311 00:20:28.400 --> 00:20:33.680 would bring him misfortune, several versions, all promising ambiguous ends. 312 00:20:34.720 --> 00:20:37.720 By this point, the sheer persistence of the motif felt 313 00:20:37.759 --> 00:20:40.799 like the ghost of a ghost, not quite absent and 314 00:20:40.880 --> 00:20:44.799 certainly not at home. The coincidence was spiraling, and not 315 00:20:44.920 --> 00:20:49.119 simply as a statistical curiosity. The last word of the 316 00:20:49.160 --> 00:20:53.720 evening belonged to Miss Bellamy, who mug in hand winked mischievously. 317 00:20:54.319 --> 00:20:56.559 If you find out it's a cult, let me know 318 00:20:56.640 --> 00:21:01.519 before I put unfinishable face on the Placard's alone again 319 00:21:01.599 --> 00:21:04.599 in the gallery at closing, I stepped back and tried 320 00:21:04.599 --> 00:21:07.640 to see the room as a stranger would. The effect 321 00:21:07.839 --> 00:21:12.160 in aggregate was striking a dozen faces hovering at the verge, 322 00:21:12.400 --> 00:21:14.960 inviting any one to see what the artist couldn't quite 323 00:21:14.960 --> 00:21:18.960 bring into being. I found myself thinking of Sophia, my 324 00:21:19.039 --> 00:21:23.720 old student, and her abandoned self portrait, Something Slips Away. 325 00:21:24.079 --> 00:21:26.599 She had written on the back, if you look too long. 326 00:21:27.720 --> 00:21:30.519 After a week, I asked the museum's staff if I 327 00:21:30.519 --> 00:21:35.279 could access the digital imaging tools reserved for cataloging fragile objects, 328 00:21:35.519 --> 00:21:38.880 but now available thanks to a long desired tech grant 329 00:21:39.160 --> 00:21:43.680 Miss Bellamy had finally secured. I uploaded Hire's scans of 330 00:21:43.720 --> 00:21:47.799 a dozen unfinished pieces and layered them with the software's 331 00:21:47.839 --> 00:21:52.920 transparency function. This time, the overlays didn't simply match. They locked, 332 00:21:53.200 --> 00:21:57.200 as if by some unspoken arithmetic. No matter the orientation 333 00:21:57.319 --> 00:22:00.519 of the face or the scale, the region blank in 334 00:22:00.599 --> 00:22:05.640 every piece was geometrically congruent, an almond shape, neither eye 335 00:22:05.640 --> 00:22:10.559 nor mouth, bridging the cheek bones and vanishing with mathematical discipline. 336 00:22:10.799 --> 00:22:14.359 It was astonishing. I paged through the scans. In Some 337 00:22:14.640 --> 00:22:18.759 faint pencil guides arked precisely along the border, Some halted 338 00:22:18.799 --> 00:22:21.440 mid brush stroke. Pigment pooled at the very edge of 339 00:22:21.440 --> 00:22:24.839 the gap, as though the artist's hand balked. One or 340 00:22:24.880 --> 00:22:28.000 two even showed a kind of regretted attempt. Smudges that 341 00:22:28.200 --> 00:22:31.359 multiplied and brightened looked like the ghost of a feature 342 00:22:31.720 --> 00:22:36.480 drawn and then nearly erased. Again and again. I printed 343 00:22:36.519 --> 00:22:40.200 out a dozen overlays spread across a table. They looked 344 00:22:40.279 --> 00:22:42.839 less like art and more like a record of some 345 00:22:42.920 --> 00:22:48.839 prevailing force interfering in human intention. Previously I'd assumed coincidence. 346 00:22:49.279 --> 00:22:52.400 Now I suspected a design, but not a design I 347 00:22:52.440 --> 00:22:56.680 could yet name. I tried to devise an experiment. I 348 00:22:56.720 --> 00:22:59.640 asked jrvi Air, with his quick hand and willing spirit, 349 00:23:00.039 --> 00:23:02.599 to sketch any face from the gallery without looking at 350 00:23:02.599 --> 00:23:08.079 the original. He agreed, tongue poked in concentration. After several minutes, 351 00:23:08.119 --> 00:23:12.079 he sat back, blinking. I can't believe it, he said, 352 00:23:12.160 --> 00:23:15.680 holding out his work. There It was the same missing stretch, 353 00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:20.039 unsketched and unregistered by him, until I pointed, I just 354 00:23:20.200 --> 00:23:24.640 forgot to fill it in. Didn't even notice. We both laughed, 355 00:23:24.799 --> 00:23:28.559 but uneasy. The possibility began to shiver at the edge 356 00:23:28.559 --> 00:23:31.880 of my mind that this wasn't about finished portraiture or 357 00:23:31.920 --> 00:23:36.599 abandoned compositions, but something bigger, something that haunted the creative 358 00:23:36.680 --> 00:23:40.880 act itself. Was there a pattern inside our imagination that 359 00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:44.319 always stopped short when none of us could picture, yet 360 00:23:44.359 --> 00:23:48.920 all participated in omitting. The next morning, coffee in hand, 361 00:23:49.240 --> 00:23:52.240 I drafted an email to Miss Bellamy. Could I request 362 00:23:52.279 --> 00:23:56.799 access to any older files past donation records or correspondents 363 00:23:56.799 --> 00:24:02.079 from previous curators. She replied at once. Of course, the stranger, 364 00:24:02.160 --> 00:24:06.440 the better report back with treasures. I was half way 365 00:24:06.519 --> 00:24:10.119 through a pencil sharpening session at the education desk when 366 00:24:10.119 --> 00:24:14.079 it hit me. Not every tradition propagates itself by accident. 367 00:24:14.759 --> 00:24:18.440 Some patterns, I realized might emerge from the very limits 368 00:24:18.440 --> 00:24:20.799 of what it means to represent a face at all. 369 00:24:21.799 --> 00:24:25.400 The local historian, doctor Shaw, agreed to spend a Saturday 370 00:24:25.440 --> 00:24:28.759 with me, burrowing through the museum's back room, hoarde old 371 00:24:28.759 --> 00:24:34.119 exhibition catalogs, stacks of brittle correspondence from past curators, heaps 372 00:24:34.160 --> 00:24:37.799 of yellowed newspaper clippings. It was a ritual of dusty 373 00:24:37.839 --> 00:24:42.039 fingers and muttered exclamations, the kind of research spree teachers 374 00:24:42.079 --> 00:24:46.640 and historians quietly adore. We followed the bread crumbs. A 375 00:24:46.720 --> 00:24:50.640 studio diary from an eighteen eighty nine itinerant painter reporting 376 00:24:50.839 --> 00:24:55.400 an odd sensation of vagueness persistent the features refused to resolve, 377 00:24:55.680 --> 00:24:58.720 as if asking to be left alone. A letter from 378 00:24:58.720 --> 00:25:03.000 a nineteen twenty's waterc colorist overquill cursive twitching at the lines. 379 00:25:03.480 --> 00:25:06.079 I see the missing part move when I close my eyes, 380 00:25:06.480 --> 00:25:10.839 it remains unfinished, as if she were still arriving, even 381 00:25:10.880 --> 00:25:14.319 a few brittle, typewritten memos from a nineteen sixties director 382 00:25:14.759 --> 00:25:20.000 noting incoming donations as peculiarly deficient in completion but captivating, 383 00:25:20.759 --> 00:25:25.519 or these are the works of the unpainted one all incomplete. 384 00:25:25.759 --> 00:25:28.640 Miss Bellamy met us for tea, folding herself onto an 385 00:25:28.759 --> 00:25:32.640 armless chair. You know she confided. Many of these works 386 00:25:32.720 --> 00:25:36.519 arrived through channels that don't exactly spell themselves out. Sometimes 387 00:25:36.559 --> 00:25:40.200 pieces go missing from other small museums, then reappear here 388 00:25:40.480 --> 00:25:44.440 or at another institution, often after decades. We've been gifted 389 00:25:44.559 --> 00:25:48.440 items from anonymous donors, sometimes with no more than a note, 390 00:25:48.680 --> 00:25:52.359 Please give the unfinished a home. The paperwork is always 391 00:25:52.359 --> 00:25:57.680 a mess. Curators before me use phrases like peculiar deficiencies 392 00:25:58.160 --> 00:26:01.960 or uncertain authorial in teens in the files, I just 393 00:26:02.039 --> 00:26:06.599 call it serendipity. I asked about shipping logs, and missus 394 00:26:06.640 --> 00:26:10.480 Grant joined us bristling. If you want confusion, follow the 395 00:26:10.519 --> 00:26:14.160 transit records. Every one of these works changed hands a 396 00:26:14.200 --> 00:26:19.759 dozen times, auction houses, private sales, deaccession from larger museums. 397 00:26:20.200 --> 00:26:22.559 If you can trace two in a row. You should 398 00:26:22.559 --> 00:26:26.079 work for the CIA. We dug up references to the 399 00:26:26.160 --> 00:26:30.400 unpainted one, scattered among the collection notes, sometimes as a joke. 400 00:26:30.640 --> 00:26:34.559 The face best left blank. Sometimes with gentler reverence, she 401 00:26:34.640 --> 00:26:39.240