Nov 1, 2023 - Oct 31, 2024 first place winner by John Irving Clarke

A Thousand Apples in a Bowl

It was shortly after the meeting with Dr Kramer that I made up my mind. It was a good plan and I would do it. Dr Kramer had been very positive if not actually inspirational but the nuts and bolts of the plan had been mine. I mean, the vision and the process of how I would make this thing work: how I would draw or paint, a thousand apples in a bowl.

Now I’m being slightly disingenuous and you’re being over-literal. No, not actually one thousand separate apples, but I would create a piece of art every day for a year and in front of me now, I’m looking at a bowl with three apples in it. Draw or paint those apples every day for a year, well do the math for yourself, that’s over a thousand apples with nearly a hundred to spare. And yes, I will change the apples occasionally, this isn’t going to be some kind of metaphysical meditation on ripening maturity and then wizened decay. No, I’ll keep changing the apples to retain the fruitful symbolism.

That’s why it has to be apples. They run right through our myths, history and cultural identity, don’t they? An apple for the teacher, an apple a day keeps the doctor away (no offence, Dr Kramer) “apple-cheeked” and an apple as the source for scientific advance. Where would Isaac have been without his gala?

Of course, you can flip this one over as well. A poisoned apple was the weapon of choice for countless fairy tale villains. It only takes one bad apple, doesn’t it?

Nevertheless, I will cover the whole range of emotional responses with delicate watercolors, detailed pencil sketches, sweeping lines of charcoal on sugar paper and vibrant acrylics. Bring on the bramleys, granny smiths and pink ladies and I will present to you the human condition through a thousand apples in a bowl.

And now I’m pausing because I’m thinking of William Tell. What kind of a trick was that? Shoot an apple off your own son’s head? I forget the full story but at its heart is the worst kind of sadism; causing someone to imperil their own kids.

Dr Kramer’s kids were smiling at me in the surgery. Two bright youngsters in one of those trendy, informal photographs, as though they’d been caught after some spontaneous horseplay. Good kids; honest and open. For an instant, I wanted to be Mr Doctor Helen Kramer, partnering in bringing up those kids. It was just after she’d told me my best-case scenario was twelve months.

It struck me then that George Orwell had it wrong. It didn’t lie with the proles, if there is any hope for the future, it lies with the likes of Dr Kramer’s kids.

For myself, I’d draw those thousand apples in a bowl.

John Irving Clarke worked as an English teacher for many years and now concentrates on tutoring adult education creative writing classes. He lives with his wife in Wakefield, U.K., w

here they plot annual visits to see their son in Brooklyn, N.Y.