In the depths of winter , the 10th May, to be precise, we were given the prompt ‘Pink’ for our Keep Writing Challenge, with 300 words to work with. Not being a pink girly girl at the best of times, I was bereft of imagination. Then I looked up from my blank computer screen and realised I had been looking at it all along. The picture by an old acquaintance, Renee Johannes called The Whore’s Pink & Orange Handbag hangs on the wall above my desk. Now the trees are full of pink blossoms and so I remembered this piece.
‘The Whore’s Pink and Orange Handbag’ hangs above my writing desk. It is a serigraph bearing only as passing a resemblance to the outline of a handbag and its contents as you could imagine. I have another piece by the same artist called ‘The Artist’s Underpants’. I like her predilection for the slightly outré.
The Whore’s Handbag looks like the images on the monitors as your luggage passes through security checks at the airport and is screened for prohibited items. I have stupidly lost a bottle of expensive perfume, my favourite pair of nail scissors and a stoneware jar of Dijon mustard through sheer carelessness. The security personnel are uber vigilant sitting for hours on end, eyes glazed, watching our private lives paraded before them, but still manage to catch us out.
Between bursts of typing and when I am bereft of ideas, I glance up and gaze at the picture. What would a whore keep in her handbag? I am free to allow for flights of fancy, since the print tells me nothing. The answer is probably the same as any other woman. A lipstick, the keys to the place where she takes her clients. Her phone. A purse. I am reluctant to ascribe other tools of her trade to the indeterminate shapes which are more burnt amber than pink or even orange.
I make up journeys the bag is going on, via that airport conveyer belt, to be tucked under the aircraft seat or safely stowed in the overhead locker. Or perhaps it’s a Hermès Kelly or Birkin bag, timeless styles famous for adorning the arms of actresses and models since the 1960s.
I look closer at the detail. I can discern the handle but for the rest there is no shape or form. Inspiration is in short supply.
