The Subjectivity of Art

The Subjectivity of Art

"It's my latest masterpiece! Tell me what you think," Sokka said to her, his voice mixed with the rustling of paper.

Because she was Toph, and because Toph was blind, she said nothing.

Usually, whenever her friends forgot that she couldn’t see, she retorted with sarcasm, or a withering insult, or sometimes even a blatant display of picking her nose. Sometimes, she even did all three. This time, though, she decided to be lazy, and simply stayed quiet. Sokka sat across the table from her, waiting anxiously, from what she could sense of his heartbeat. They were alone in one of the Fire Palace's little receiving chambers, enjoying one of the rare occurrences when they were both in the same nation and not busy actively mopping up after the war, with the usual ambient sound of life muted by all the expensive decorations that rich homes were obligated to contain.

In her head, Toph started counting, "One badgermole, two badgermole, three badgermole," while she waited in the silence, and it wasn't until, "Twenty-seven badgermole," that Sokka finally wised up.

"Oh, sorry! I forgot!" The paper he was holding rustled once more. "Here, I put it down on the table. Go ahead and feel."

Finally, Toph allowed herself a smile, and reached out with her hands to the low table that sat between her and Sokka. She brushed her fingers over the paper and dried ink, investigating the shapes. When she had been a little girl, still trapped in her parents' care, her mother had tried to teach her something about art, but it had been a frustrating experience for both of them, and then Toph's Earthbending had manifested and the old boring art lessons had been replaced by new boring Bending lessons. Still, despite Toph's best efforts, some of the lessons had stuck.

"It's a person, full body depiction. Not just lines, either, but really filled in with paint. Nice job on the feet, this time; they don't feel anything like a koala-otter's flippers. I'm not sure what the pose is supposed to be, but it feels strong. You have the limbs very tightly arranged. And..." Toph frowned, feeling something odd. She moved her hands back to the figure's main body, where the ink was heaviest, and ran a finger back and forth across it. The ink didn't feel quite like it usually did. There was more pull to it, against the surface of her fingers. Sokka must have used something other than his usual stuff. Was that because of availability, or was he making one of those 'artistic statements' he liked to go on about?

Toph stuck her finger in her mouth and gave it a good, deep licking.

The truth came out and gave her taste buds a pleasant punch. "The ink has metal in it!"

"Right!" Sokka's voice squeaked with his excitement. "I mixed some metal shavings in with the ink, just enough to give it a silvery shiny sheen. I call this piece 'The Metalbender.' It's a new experiment in making the medium part of the art." He paused for a moment, and then added, "It's a picture of you."

That old unwelcome feeling made her heart skip a beat, but she kept her voice flat and her expression still. "Oh, great, how much are people going to be laughing this time?"

"Hey, no, no laughing. Master Piandao says my painting actually looks like painting now!"

Toph knew that, but when Sokka had first started with his artistic endeavors just after the war's end, everyone's reactions had been so hilarious that she never wanted to let the joke go. "At this point, I think he'd say anything to be done with you." She gave her most superior grin. "Still, if there's any subject that could inspire you to actually make something halfway decent, you chose right. I can make anything look good. Even your painting."

She heard the paper rustle again as Sokka yanked it away. "Sure, sure, make fun all you want, but my next Metalpainting is going to be a sword, and then when everyone says it's better than my painting of you, I'm going to make you drink a jar of my new ink."

"It's a bet!"

By the end of their visit together, Toph and Sokka had added another six bets to their friendship on top of that one, none of which they would remember the next time they saw each other.

---

Six months later, Toph was on the other side of the world, and she had no idea where Sokka was.

Her search for Metalbender candidates had once again taken her away from her friends, and as much as she enjoyed walking across the Earth Kingdom with nothing to her name but the sweaty, dusty clothes on her back, traveling across the wilderness to discover new places to visit and new people to punch sometimes got tedious. She had been passing close to Ba Sing Se, and heard a rumor that the Avatar and his entourage were staying in the city, so she made a detour and began thinking up snarky lines to explain that she didn't really care about spending more time with Sokka, but as long as she had randomly run into him, there was no point to not seeing what kind of trouble they could rustle up in the Earth Kingdom's capital.

When she arrived at their usual meeting place, the Jasmine Dragon, she felt nothing but strangers on the premises. Iroh was away on a tea purchasing trip, the acting manager told her, and the Avatar's bison had been spotting flying out of the city that morning.

That was disappointing.

Toph didn't need anyone but herself, not since long before she had run away from her parents and joined up with her friends to end the war, but that didn't mean she didn't like having other people to rely on.

To justify the trip to herself, Toph visited the same spa that Katara had taken her to, all that time ago, and let the staff there doll her up minimally. During the baths and wraps and arguments about foot scrapings, Toph had felt the usual reminders of her excessively pampered life back under her parents, but they were brushed away easily enough, and instead she focused on the memories of her times with her friends, and how even putting Sokka in the fanciest get-up Ba Sing Se had to offer couldn't hide what a dweeb he was. Then, she went back to the Jasmine Dragon and ordered the Full Tea Experience, a two-hour drinking session with a series of blends from all around the world that turned out to be a lot less fun when done alone. Toph was considering just leaving the city and hitting the road again, but elected to make one more stop before coming to a final decision.

The Jasmine Dragon wasn't just a teahouse; Iroh was making it into a cultural icon that would draw people from all over, and his latest addition was a small art gallery of specialty pieces in one of the building's side rooms. Toph liked the sculptures best, since she could actually perceive those with her Earthsense, but there was one group of paintings that always drew her attention even though she couldn't see them.

Alone in the gallery, Toph stood in front of a display of Sokka's art, and reached out to once again put her hands on 'The Metalbender.' Maybe it was her imagination, but she liked to think she could make the picture out better by sensing for the metal in the ink.

There was the sound of footsteps behind Toph, and she sensed a woman in heavy silks entering the gallery. Before Toph could react, the woman let loose with a screeching cry of, "What are doing, putting your hands on those?! Get away from there!"

The voice rattled Toph to her bones, and not just for its volume. It was a voice Toph had not heard in a long, long time. The last time that voice had spoken to Toph, it had called her weak, and incapable, and misguided. Toph pulled her hand back and did her best make her voice both squeaky and mumbling as she said, "Sorry, ma'am." Then, with a grace and posture she never showed her friends, Toph tried to make a quick retreat while keeping her face just out of view of the other visitor.

She should have known she was going to fail. She always did with this voice.

"Wait... Toph?!"

Toph sighed. "Hi, Mom." She let her body slump comfortably once more.

"Oh... I... I didn't realize... I'm sorry... I thought... oh."

"No problem. I'll just be going."

"Wait!"

Mom's screech made Toph wince, but she did as she was told. She didn't want to make a scene, running out of the Jasmine Dragon with her hysterical mother chasing after her. If it came to that, Toph resolved to Earthbend the ground into a pair of ankle cuffs for Mom, but she was hoping to deal with this in a way that wouldn't eventually get back to Iroh and have him asking awkward, stupid questions the next time she visited.

Mom stepped over with a feathery hesitation in her feet. "How... how are you?"

"Great. Thanks for asking."

The gallery went silent.

Mom cleared her throat and asked, "I... heard you've started a school, in the former colonies. For a new kind of Bender."

Toph gave a nod. "Metalbenders. It's like Earthbending. But with metal. I invented it."

"Yes. That's what they say." Toph felt her mother moving once again, but instead of drawing closer to Toph, she instead moved deeper into the gallery.

To Sokka's paintings.

"I came to see this one, 'The Metalbender.' The stories say it was inspired by you."

Eventually, Toph nodded again. "My best friend made it."

"It's beautiful."

"Yeah," Toph grunted. "That's what I'm told."

"Your best friend, you say?"

"That's right. Sokka. From the Southern Water Tribe."

"Yes, I've heard about him, too. His style is rather unsophisticated, but this metallic ink is breathtaking. Rather innovative, for someone from the Southern Water Tribe. I've heard their civilization was hit especially hard by the Fire Nation's actions."

"Yeah, he's kind of clever, for a stupidface."

"Your best friend, you say?"

Toph frowned. She could sense the lecture coming now, about her choice of company, and how her supposed friend was off doing whatever while Toph ran her school alone, and that she should come home, and deny everything about herself that-

"Toph," Mom interrupted, as if she could read minds, "I ask because this painting he did of you is a nude."

"...what?" Toph felt her face warming, and her heartbeat was going like a badgermole in the rainy season.

"Oh, it's tasteful enough, but the figure is clearly not wearing any clothes." Mom actually giggled. "It's a classic artistic choice, but no doubt your friend doesn't understand the levels of art criticism going on these days. It's now popular to consider the artist's life when examining a piece, and your ' best friendship' will no doubt come up."

"I see," Toph said, because it was the only thing she could think to say, even though it was normally the type of thing she would tease Sokka about saying.

"I do understand what he truly intended, though. Come here, and I'll show you."

Toph hesitated, remembering those art lessons from her childhood. She did not consider them good memories, but one thing they proved was that Mom knew her stuff, and Toph's desire to understand Sokka's painting was strong. She walked over and held her hands out, and Mom took them in her own and guided them to the painting. Toph fingers once again brushed over the metallic ink, the depiction of her own body, and this time her mother's voice narrated the experience:

"The point of a nude is to showcase the natural beauty of the human body. The ink is heavier here, here, and here, to show the tightening of the muscles. The figure is displaying great strength as she bends, and the pose matches the movement of the metal around her, drawing a parallel between the two. They are drawn in the same ink, with the same sheen, so they obviously share a nature. They are both strong, and both everlasting, and both beautiful. The lack of clothing is also a natural state, one shorn of civilization, meant to represent a connection between the elements of Earth, Fire, Air, and Water, and how they are the essence of even the human body. The pose actually reminds me of a painting by Wu Daozi, of a figure holding up the heavens, so I wonder if your friend is making a deliberate allusion?"

"Uh... I don't know."

"Well, I'll assume he is. I'm not sure of the precise statement such a choice is meant to make, but there's no doubt that the Metalbender in this painting is meant to be a similar being, something stronger and greater than mere humans. Able to stand quite capably on her own, and carry others besides." Mom sighed, and let go of Toph's hands.

Toph let them fall, and stood beside her mother, pondering everything that had just been said. "Thanks for explaining. You've always been good at finding that kind of stuff in pictures."

"You're welcome, dear, but don't put too much weight on my artistic insight." Mom laid a dainty hand on Toph's shoulder. "I couldn't see these things until they were put into a painting for me to find. The artist is the one with the real insight. What he saw, I was blind to for many, many years."

Toph's heart was hammering again, but she decided that it was a good kind of hammering. "I'm going to be in the city until tomorrow. Do you want to have some dinner? We can talk art some more."

Though her Earthsense, Toph felt her mother's body relax in a way it never had before. "I would like that, very much."

They moved as one to leave the gallery, but the sound of heavy footsteps brought Toph to a sudden halt. She knew that precise kind of tromping, a clumsy heaviness that came from a certain pair of Water Tribe boots. Then Sokka's voice sounded as he strolled into the gallery, saying, "Hey, there you are! I just got back from helping Aang do this crazy thing for the Earth King over at the place, and I was going to see about dinner but Katara went to the spa and she said that they said you had been in so I figured if you were anywhere you'd be here, so I came to ask if you wanted to get something grilled to eat and- oh, that's your mom."

Toph gave her prettiest, most delicate smile. "Yes, this is my mom. We were just going to get dinner ourselves. You're welcome to join us, of course. While we eat, you can explain why you painted a picture of me naked!"

Sokka's voice hardly ever squeaked anymore, but it did this time as he said, "Artistic choice."

Mom laughed.

END