Another canvas, with darker colors. The coal plant. A cast iron gate bars the way with thick, pitch-black lines in wide, sweeping curves. Behind, lit clearly and carefully, are the dim tones of the factory. Two large doors are found on either side, though no windows mar the walls’ surfaces. The building juts straight out of the ground, a typical rectangle, at least four hundred hooves long, two hundred wide, three hundred high, all plain black. It is simple, perhaps made by a mathematician rather than an architect. It appears to be made of brick, albeit a strange black variety. Great black cylinders rise out of the left, right, and center of the massive box, which narrow a bit up until their tops, at which they become amorphous shafts of billowing blacks and greys. Farther up, the plumes meet in a great cloud, with a flat top. The cloud is nearly as wide as the canvas.
And yet, the paint stops there. All the space between is an empty white, and it brings tears. Perhaps it is enough to remember the factory itself, but that is but half of the factory. The rest is found in the city itself, sadly unconsidered. So, what happens to a painting left unrealized? It merely becomes a memory in itself, perhaps a bit sourer. It is not often a piece must be given up. It should hardly become routine. The blank canvas is both the love and hate of an artist. The only difference between the emotions is time. This blankness, to the artist, is rather disappointing.
However, it is for the wayfarer. She will forgive him. Indeed, it is rather gloomy. Perhaps it simply brings back too much for him. As much as she loves the task a canvas demands, she loves him more. She gives it all up, lets go her brushes into the open sky for him, just to see a single new horizon with him. The paint may spill across every last blank canvas as her last works. They are only a single part of her, and though she should mourn them, she has mourned before. That is her vow, after all. All for him. Still, she hopes it is not a decision she must always make.
She remembers it all the more, now. She needs no painting. She still does it for the beauty, for the joy of capturing a scene in full splendor, or in this case, full melancholy. It is a tradition all her own. White is meant for the sketchbook, not the canvas. After all, no artist sets out to capture just a piece of what they see. Everything that finds the imagination must be painted. To draw the sun one day cannot help her remember what she says that day, how she feels. It is just a sun. Disconnected. So, it bothers her. She knows it will subside, though. She may still show it to him, when they leave. If anything, it is even less malevolent without its surroundings. He may still make amends with what is already there.
She must not hold it against him, she understands. That is cruel. There are plenty other venues to paint. She may toss this old canvas away, one day. Perhaps, though, it is worth keeping. Indeed, she can still find something in it. It reminds her of her commitment, that no painting will be worth what she has found in him, what he has done for her. That sounds all right, from where she stands. So, it remains in her mind, a small sacrifice. Just a bit of blank canvas. That is all.
There are many whites that can be found in the world. The purest are the stars, then the moon, born of the purest, brightest whites, all which the Earth only ever sees a piece or reflection of. There are white flowers, roses. Half of every book is white. Snow and ice are a wonderful clear white. It is not necessarily an ugly or disappointing color. It is often considered pure, like a pearl. There can be beauty in white, like the Milky Way, or the marble spires of Canterlot. It is said to be every color at once, but the artist should argue otherwise. She once mixed all her oils, as a child, and only received from it a putrid brown.
White is a mere lack of color. White is pure color as easily as a foundation is pure architecture. If white were all colors at once, she should sell her blank canvasses. They should already hold every scene on Earth, every memory of the buyer, every memory her own, just all at once. It just takes some picking-through, a bit of selective vision, and the viewer should see what they want, she could say. That amuses her. Theorists may talk all they like. There is not so much purity in white as there is vacancy. She will always prefer a bit of color to liven up a sunrise, a bit of glittering sunlight in her snow, a bit of amber luster in her pearls, a bit of red in her rose. That is part of why she loves the wayfarer. He is so lovely to paint, with his vibrant blue against sheer black.
The colors underneath are wonderful as well, she thinks. He truly does love her, first and foremost. He could give up his travels for her. After all, he has been ready before to give up his love just to save her heart. He is love, in that moment. He is all she has ever wanted to love. Indeed, what is a bit of white canvas to love? It is like a short disagreement, easily forgotten, easily forgiven. In the end, she will always choose him, as he chooses her. She remembers, for a moment, what he has allowed her to give up, what he lets her say farewell to. That is something no simple painting can amount to, she knows.