On Renfrew Street: Day Eight

Butterflies swooped and swarmed in her stomach, and she smoothed the front of the plain dark skirt that she’d chosen to wear

Norah closed the door behind Henry McCallister and turned to Ellen, her elegant eyebrows raised.

“It seems you have an admirer there,” the artist and her new lodging mistress said.

“Oh, no, I don’t think . . .” Ellen began, mumbling in her embarrassment.

“Never mind, it is of no account. You have come all this way to study, Ellen, and I meant what I said about not being distracted. You are aiming for a diploma, are you not?”

“Yes.”

“Then you will have to work hard indeed. Only half of the candidates last year were granted a diploma. It is not a thing to undertake lightly.”

“Oh, I assure you, I won’t,” Ellen said quickly. “I wish to devote all my time to studies. I didn’t know Mr McCallister was going to meet me at the ship.” She bit her lip, embarrassed again at revealing too much. Norah’s mouth twitched in a small smile. “Henry has always been too impulsive for his own good,” she said with a sigh. “It is, at least in part, why he is a trustee and not an artist. Now, I will show you your room.”

Incredibly nervous

Just 48 hours later Ellen stood in front of the mirror in her bedroom at Norah Gray’s house, gazing at her reflection.

Today was the first day of term, and she was incredibly nervous. Butterflies swooped and swarmed in her stomach, and she smoothed the front of the plain dark skirt that she’d chosen to wear along with a white shirtwaist.

She knew her clothes would be covered during lessons with a large smock, and Norah had told her that sensible, plain clothing was best.

“We create art, we don’t wear it,” she said with a smile, and Ellen thought of the dresses she’d bought in New York that would never likely see the light of day.

The last two days with Norah Gray had been illuminating and nerve-racking. After Ellen had rested, they’d walked the few blocks to the School of Art’s home on Renfrew Street, an impressive building with huge windows that Charles Rennie Mackintosh had designed.

Norah had shown Ellen the library, the studios with their strange smells of paint and turpentine, the long, sashed windows letting in streams of sunlight.

Ellen had tried to imagine herself standing in front of one of the large easels, listening to one of the instructors and actually putting paint to canvas.

“Fra Newbery has insisted that women be allowed to attend life drawing classes,” Norah told her. “You will not find us backward here.”

“Life drawing?” Ellen had repeated blankly.

“Of nudes, my dear,” Norah said, almost gently, as if she expected Ellen to be embarrassed, which of course she was.

“How else can you draw the human form with any accuracy?”

After they’d toured the art school, Norah had taken her to a tearoom run by the formidable Miss Cranston on Buchanan Street.

Ellen had never been in such a place. The walls were hung with paintings done by the “Glasgow Boys” – a group of painters that had come out of the school – and she was fascinated by their colourful depictions of various subjects, almost all from around Glasgow.

While some were realistic, others gave no more than an impression of colour and light, a hint of emotion, and yet they were powerful all the same. Ellen had never seen such artwork before, and she spent several minutes simply standing in front of the walls, gazing at it all.

The tearoom itself was decorated in the latest arts and crafts style; the separate ladies’ room was large and comfortable and there were plates of cakes and scones. Ellen was enchanted.

“Miss Cranston is a patron of the school, and of Charles Mackintosh,” Norah explained. “These ladies’ rooms have provided places for women artists to meet together. She is really remarkable.”

Ellen was fast getting the sense that everyone in Glasgow’s art world was remarkable, except for herself. Norah had told her about the artistic vision of various instructors and pupils, the exhibitions they had put on and the awards and commendations they had received.

She felt rather ridiculous with her little portfolio of pencil drawings, and now that the first day was actually here, she was terribly afraid she would humiliate herself in front of all the other students. Norah rapped on the door of her bedroom. “Come, Ellen. We don’t want to be late on your first day!”

An hour later Ellen stood by an easel in her first painting class; there was a jug of daisies and a few oranges on a table in the centre of the room.

The instructor, the newly appointed Maurice Grieffenhagen, had lectured them for a quarter of an hour on the importance of composition, most of which had gone right over Ellen’s head.

There were a dozen pupils in the class, both men and women, all of them very serious-looking in their voluminous smocks. She stared at her blank canvas trying not to panic.

“Miss Copley, is it?”

Ellen tensed as Maurice Grieffenhagen came to stand by her.

“Most of the others have made a start, Miss Copley. Is there a reason why you are staring at a blank canvas as if a painting will magically appear?” He smiled slightly to take some of the sting from his words, but Ellen still felt scorched by humiliation.

“I was just considering how best to start,” she said, trying not to stammer, and Grieffenhagen nodded.

“The muse is fickle, Miss Copley. Perhaps, for the sake of our lesson, you could at least pick up your brush.” He handed her a paintbrush and moved on to the next student, leaving Ellen cringing.

By the end of the class she had, she hoped, managed to make a decent start. The next week, according to Grieffenhagen, they would begin attempting life models.

Ellen gathered up her things as students streamed from the classroom, and she stilled when she felt a hand placed on her arm.

“Don’t take what Mr Grieffenhagen says to heart,” a woman said.

Ellen looked up to see a plain-faced, freckled woman with a pompadour of ginger hair smiling down at her. She was dressed exceedingly well under her smock.

More on Monday.

On Renfrew Street was previously a serial in The People’s Friend. For more great fiction, get The People’s Friend every week, £1.30 from newsagents and supermarkets.

Artwork: Dave Young