Friday, November 16, 2012

Artist



“I have to explore this building”, that’s what I thought after seeing an abandoned building on the other side of the Lawrence highway. The building architecture is unique when compared to the surrounding buildings. I'm an artist; so I could easily identify the artistic sense in any building construction. My name is Aryan and working as a senior designer in an advertising company. My job is to design the company's brand logos. Most Fortune 500 companies are our clients; I received an “Innovative design” award last year for my logo design to a software company. It was not the first time, earlier I got several similar awards for my work. However, that's all past. Now I'm running out of ideas. Somehow I'm not getting “innovative” thoughts to design the company's brand logos. As per my boss's advice, I took a long break from work. But still, even after I return from vacation, there is no use. I felt something has happened to me. Probably that's because of my marriage, which came to end, and I got a divorce. I got disturbed a lot by that divorce. I felt empty, and my mind was not as sharp like before.

I visited many places for inspiration. I studied my previous work and other people's work, but still, those things have not ignited the spark in my mind. I knew if I notice something unique and brilliant then I get inspired, and I’ll be back to normal. But never happened so far since my divorce. 

I'm working on a project. The company that gave that project decided to renew their company logo as one of their key partner left that company. An earlier logo was used to resemble the culture of both companies, but now they need a new symbol. It's almost 3 months; I couldn’t come up with any satisfactory designs.

After noticing that abandoned building, I felt it might have some paintings or something, which might inspire me. 

In one weekend, I decided to explore it...

It was a beautiful and truly innovative construction. Until a few years back, the caretaker was taking care of that building, heard from one of my colleagues. After him, no one was there to take care of it. Govt was thinking to renew it and make it some kind of tourist place, but those things never happened. People say they heard weird sounds coming from that building during the night and some even say they have seen shadows. I didn’t believe those things.

It's quite far from the highway and located on top of the hill. There is a path to reach that house, but that path has totally deteriorated. Somehow I managed to reach it in my car until the gate. I entered inside and opened the building door. Luckily there is no lock. And it's a huge hall and many paintings on the wall. I'm slowly walking and looking at all the paintings. There is so much creativity in those paintings. I sat on a chair and opened the laptop. There are few designs on my laptop, which I didn’t like at all. I looked at the paintings on the wall to see if any of the paintings would inspire me. In parallel, I'm studying about the company again. The more you know about the company then the more you can come up with simple, yet perfectly suitable logos for them. A company logo should reveal its culture, work, passion, principles, and commitments. I knew the value of the brand names and logos. I spent around 4 hours, but none of the designed logos are satisfactory. Those paintings on the wall were not actually helping me to come up with any new ideas. People might think the company logos are straightforward, and it shouldn’t take much time to design. But in reality, that’s not correct. One has to spend a lot of time and even months to come up with different designs.

I was frustrated. I felt dead tired as my mind was constantly thinking about it. I slipped into sleep. Once I woke up, I realized that I had slept around 2 hours. I closed the laptop and left the building. That day night I emailed a file with that list of drawings to my manager and asked him to submit it to the client for approval. I knew that they wouldn’t like those, but I didn’t have any option as I had already crossed the deadline long back, so I couldn’t prolong further.

The next day morning I got a call from the manager. He said they were extremely pleased with a few designs, and they have chosen one for their company logo. He said I did an excellent job after many months and disconnected the call. I was surprised as I didn’t expect that response.

I opened outlook and saw an email from a client appreciating my work. They have sent the selected designs as an attachment to it. When I opened that attachment, I was shocked as those were not my designs. Those were truly excellent, but those were not mine. I looked at the sent folder and checked the attached file. Those designs are indeed part of that single file attachment. I didn’t know how come those designs came there. The file was in my laptop until yesterday so no one could have updated it. Even if someone had modified it, I don't think anyone here has that much talent to come up with those designs. It was a total puzzle to me how could that have happened.

A few days later I got another project. The situation was alike. I struggled to come up with proper designs. I decided to visit that building and work there. I went again and sat in the same place. It was no use as I couldn’t come up with any new designs. After a while, I slept while my back was resting on the wall. When I woke up, I observed my laptop was not closed. I looked at my design file. It was supposed to be 5 pages, but it got now has 15 pages, which means, 10 new designs were added to that file.

Who has added those designs? A big question mark in my mind. I looked around. I didn’t observe anyone. I recalled the stories about that building and paranormal activity. I usually don’t believe those stories. But, the question had arisen in my mind again, who did those drawings on my laptop?

While thinking, I went further inside and noticed a room, which was not locked. It was a library room. No books were in the racks. I reckon those were stolen or sold. 

There was a large picture on the wall, which I understood could be the owner of that building. 

Sir Arthur, I read the name. 

While I was staring at that painting, all of sudden it fell down. 

I stumbled for that. I grabbed the painting from the floor and tried to put it back on the wall, and then observed a shelf on the wall, which was kept hidden earlier from that painting. 

I put the painting on the floor and opened that shelf. There was a dairy inside. Sir Arthur's name was written on it. It's a pretty old diary looks like. I opened it. The first few pages were empty then onwards it has drawings. 

I recognized some of the drawings as they resemble the logo designs that I found new on my laptop. That means … Did Arthur sketch those designs? 

My hands became wet with sweat. I closed that book and ran back to the place where I kept my laptop. I took it and came out of that building as fast as I can.

After reaching home, I can't believe what I saw. I double-checked those designs in that book. I discussed it with one of my psychology friends. He told me it was coincident that those drawings were matched. He also told that I might have drawn the designs unconsciously as it happened to many people. In any case, I was not sure exactly what was the truth? I didn’t visit that building again, later found out, it is demolished for a house project. 

But I kept Arthur’s diary with me as that's my inspiration for all my future designs.

This story is published at yourstoryclub.com

2 comments:

  1. Welcome back writing stories.Nice story and ending differently.

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  2. A small and interesting story. But my genuine doubt is that how an Artist can design a picture in a
    subconscious state , that too in a few hours? As said in the earlier para, for a good Artiist, it requires
    about a few months to draw picture of his satisfaction and to the Company. We have to believe some
    supernatural power was there at the place where the Artist tried to depict picture/design. Any how, the
    story is simple and it is a STORY itself.

    ReplyDelete