Susan Kirkland (bio)

As I got to know him, during afternoon tea and assorted other outings, I learned he worked summers at a local hotel restaurant. Though his father was a successful architect, Ken was unwilling to accept monetary help for anything beyond his tuition. His annual routine was to work at the restaurant for 3 months a year, gain as much weight as he could and avoid buying anything at the grocery store except for Cream of Wheat. Blah! As any fine artist will tell you, oil paint is not cheap and his apartment offered little comfort beyond a mattress on the floor. He spoke romantically of understanding some of the passionate painters he studied (that painting of the nude to the left is by Jean Baptiste Camille Corot) and frequently painted long into the night until he collapsed exhausted in front of his canvas. His record was 4 days without sleep. Weeks went by when I didn’t see or hear from him even though he lived a block away; but he was hungry for my companionship when he reemerged from his self-imposed hermitage.

One night just a week before Christmas, he asked me if I would model for him. It was the sexually permissive seventies, so taking my clothes off to sit as a model seemed less intimate than some prior acts. It took a different kind of courage to sit naked before an artist as he carefully, though objectively, captured the voluptuous details of my form on his canvas. I posed for about 5 hours, and left with grateful thanks from the artist, a kiss on my cheek and promises of a Christmas Eve get-together.

Christmas was a quiet holiday when you are away at school because almost everybody goes home to spend it with their families. I spent it with a few friends who straggled in; and quietly wondered about Ken, the no-show. A few days later, there was a knock on my door around 10 at night. My art school was in a rough neighborhood, so I was careful about opening the door. It was Ken, all dressed up in a white shirt and tie, a camel hair coat and a ski cap. “I’m pretty mad at you; where’ve you been?” He was apologetic and looked at the ground, “Yeah, I’m sorry. I decided to go home for Christmas after all. Here, I wanted to return these paints you gave me.” I crossed my arms and said, “No, I want you to have those. I’m pretty angry, but maybe I’ll see you next week,” and I closed the door in his face.

A couple of days later, my closest friend came over and asked me if I’d seen Ken recently. I told him about the late night visit and he was surprised. “You’re lucky he didn’t kill you, my dear, because that was his intention when he came over with that knife in his pocket.” They had found Ken in a public phone booth at the end of my street shortly after I slammed the door in his face. He had called a friend back home and accused me of being the devil because he couldn’t get me out of his mind. Then he slit his tongue in two with an exacto knife, saying that he spoke with a forked tongue. He was carted off to the emergency room to get stitches, sedatives, and counseling—then his parents were called to take him back home. He was out of it, as they say, and I had barely escaped being in it.

His parents quietly retrieved his belongings, including over 75 paintings of me stacked against the walls. We never saw him again, but stories circulated for years afterwards. Ken works quietly on his paintings in a small town in Ohio now. I was reminded of these strange happenings and my close call during the news reports about the 32 students at Virginia Tech who were gunned down on Monday by a classmate. Reporters keep asking how it happened and why they didn’t suspect he was a danger.

Let me answer that: Sometimes you know and sometimes . . . you don't know; I know. God bless us all and keep us safe . . . from ourselves.

Thinking of freelancing for a living? Tired of doing the boss' castoffs? Better get some good advice on how to protect yourself from those who would rape and plunder your creative talents. Look for more stories and adventures in advertising design in my book Start and Run a Creative Services Business. It's filled with great links and a full spectrum of experiences. Not an artist? You'll be in stitches as you follow the pitfalls and adventures of self-employment. And if you've been freelancing for a while, you'll find new information and a trustworthy mentor to stand by your side through thick and thin in Start and Run a Creative Services Business. Excerpts are available online at my website.