Exposure • Tamber

Chapter 5: Broken.

"Well the midterm presentations are for all the classes in the visual arts department. Sculpture, drawing, architecture, photography, painting..." Anika looked over at Tara, trying to hide her worried expression, "I just thought we could show our support for the other students before seeing my project."

"Anika, come on." Mindy whined, "We came here to see your work, not a bunch of pots that look like melted goblins."

"Wait, did you say photography?" Tara asked, finally looking away from the pot in front of her.

"You're right, Mindy." Anika sighed, "Let's go see my self portrait."

Mindy and Anika started walking out of the ceramics room with Tara following behind. She figured it was better to just follow along if Anika was finally going to let them see her work instead of trying to ask about the photography again.

They walked into the classroom that held all the self portraits from Anika's class and they slowly made their way around the room. Obviously some students were more gifted than others. A few of the drawings looked similar to what you would find on the refrigerator of a proud parent with a 6 year old. Anika had to swat Mindy's arm a few times to get them to stop snickering.

'Art is about creative expression' Anika chastised them. And she was right. They shouldn't make fun of it just because it didn't fit a specific mold of what art should be. Besides, Mindy had zero artistic abilities, that's why they stuck to science. It was easier for them to measure liquid into a beaker than to draw a face.

"Well, here it is." Anika gestured with her hand to her project.

Mindy and Tara stepped in front of it to take a look. Anika wrung her hands nervously waiting for their responses.

"Wow Anika, how did you do that?" Mindy asked, leaning forward a bit to get closer to her drawing.

"Yeah, that looks really, really good." Tara smiled wide at her.

Anika sighed in relief at the sincerity in their voices, "Really? You think so?"

"Definitely." Mindy beamed at her, "The way you drew your eyes, it's like I'm looking at you!"

Anika felt her face start to heat up, "I was afraid it didn't look enough like me—" she started but was quickly cut off.

"Are you kidding?!" Mindy's eyes widened, pointing to parts of the picture as they explained, "You drew your face! That's your face! Your eyes are beautiful, they like, shine. And I love your hair, it's so.."

Tara took a step back and watched Mindy go into detail about every tiny aspect of Anika's drawing. Basically telling her she was beautiful in every way possible by describing her drawing. It was rather adorable, until she felt like she was intruding on some personal moment. She decided to keep making her way around the room to give the pair of red heads some space.

There were other students walking through the room, looking at drawings, laughing at them, explaining them.. you name it. Tara figured other students had the same idea as Anika and were using the excuse of looking at the other projects to avoid looking at their own.

Tara was just about back to where Mindy and Anika were talking when a picture caught her eye. She stopped walking and turned to face it.

"Woah." Tara breathed out quietly. She wasn't sure how she was supposed to feel about it, but she couldn't look away.

Each portrait had its own uniqueness to it. Some added color, some had backgrounds, or objects included. Some were just of faces, or ended at the shoulders, or showed the entire body. Some seemed more like cartoon characters or comics while others strived for realistic qualities. As long as it was the students' version of themselves, that's what mattered for the assignment. Self portrait. Pretty simple idea. But this one was anything but simple. It was Amber.