Real Art Takes Time

In a sunlit studio at the edge of town, where the scent of linseed oil mingled with faint notes of espresso, worked an artist named Lila Montrose. Her easel faced a wide bay window that caught the morning light just right—slanting across her canvases like a blessing. On the wall, a modest sign read:

Real art takes time.

It was a reminder for her clients, but mostly for herself.

Lila had a waitlist that stretched nearly two years. People joked that getting a Montrose portrait was like booking a table at an exclusive restaurant that hadn't even opened yet. Her work—gentle, luminous portraits that seemed to hum with unspoken emotion—was worth the wait. Collectors said she painted souls, not faces.

Still, patience was a rare virtue among her patrons.

Every few weeks, a polite email would arrive:

"Hi Lila, just checking if my painting might be ready earlier? My husband's birthday is coming up."

Or:

"Any chance we could move my portrait up a few months? It's for my daughter's graduation."

And Lila would respond, with warmth and a quiet firmness that made even the most persistent clients pause:

"Real art takes time."

It wasn't a slogan—it was a principle. She never rushed a painting, because rushing meant losing the invisible thing that made it real.

Her process was deliberate. First came the sitting: long conversations where she asked questions not just about appearance, but about what a person loved, feared, remembered. Then came sketches, color tests, small experiments with light. Sometimes she'd start a portrait three times before finding the right beginning.

One afternoon, as she painted a young musician named Theo, he asked her, "How do you know when a painting's finished?"

Lila smiled faintly. "When it stops talking back," she said.

Theo frowned. "Talking back?"

"Every canvas argues with you for a while. It tells you what it wants. But when it finally goes quiet—when it says nothing more—then it's ready."

He looked thoughtful. "And how long does that usually take?"

Lila dipped her brush in ochre and said, "As long as it needs."

There were moments when she felt the pressure to speed up. The world outside her studio moved fast—social media, pop-up galleries, the endless churn of "new work." Younger artists posted their daily progress in time-lapse videos, racking up thousands of likes in minutes.

Lila didn't post time-lapses. She didn't even own a ring light. She just worked.

Sometimes, late at night, she'd glance at the waiting list tacked above her desk—names and dates, some crossed out, others circled. A less patient artist might have felt guilt or dread. But Lila felt something else: devotion.

She believed that art wasn't only about talent or inspiration—it was about attention. A kind of reverent slowness.

When a portrait finally left her studio, it went out into the world like a small miracle. Her clients would unwrap it, expecting likeness, and find instead a strange intimacy—as if the painting had been listening to them all along.

And in time, the same clients who once asked her to hurry would write back saying, "I see now why it took so long."

One winter evening, after delivering a piece she'd worked on for eight months, Lila stopped by a café. The barista recognized her and said, "You're the artist with the waitlist, right? People say you're impossible to book."

Lila laughed. "Maybe. But I like to think I'm just working at the speed of sincerity."

He tilted his head. "That's slow, huh?"

She nodded, stirring her coffee. "The good kind of slow."

And when she returned to her studio that night, the golden light gone and only the hum of her old radiator filling the room, she stood before a blank canvas, took a deep breath, and whispered her quiet mantra once more:

"Real art takes time."

(This writing is donated to the public domain.)