There wasn’t one private spot to escape from the crowd in the whole two-story glass-enclosed art gallery. Instead, every few minutes Ana stepped back against the center wall, hoping the others would pass by without paying her any attention. Her head pounded and her toes had gone numb over an hour ago. A sense of being overwhelmed left her breathless. Since arriving, she’d not thought of one thing to paint. All the chaos and splatter of colors wherever she looked mixed in her head and she couldn’t see the stark beauty hidden behind the noise. She longed to paint a tree or a statue, but any time she’d grabbed her sketchbook, other lines and elements pulled her out of the picture. “Oh, Henry, check out this basket.” A tall, willowy woman pulled a sharply dressed gentleman over beside Ana. She glanced down at the hand-woven basket entwined with red, blue and yellow dyed vines atop a white cloth. Her vision blurred.
