Art was, seriously, the only thing I'd ever wanted to own. It has

Host: The morning light filtered weakly through the curtains, painting the walls in a soft shade of gold and grey. The city outside was just waking — cars grumbling, vendors shouting, birds slicing the sky with uncertain rhythm. Inside the small apartment, paint tubes, sketchbooks, and half-finished canvases lay scattered like the debris of a restless mind.

Host: A kettle hissed in the background, releasing small bursts of steam into the cold air. Jack sat by the window, his elbows on his knees, a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips, the smoke curling upward like an unspoken question. Across from him, Jeeny crouched on the floor, mixing paint on an old palette, her hands stained in deep blues and reds — like she had touched something sacred and refused to let go.

Host: The room smelled of turpentine and rain-soaked canvas — that intimate scent of creation and ruin entwined.

Jeeny: “David Bowie once said, ‘Art was, seriously, the only thing I'd ever wanted to own. It has always been for me a stable nourishment. I use it. It can change the way that I feel in the mornings.’”

Host: Her voice was quiet, tender, almost reverent — as if she were speaking not to Jack, but to the air itself.

Jeeny: “I know exactly what he meant. Some people need faith or love or money. I just need a brush and a blank space.”

Jack: (exhaling smoke) “You make it sound like art’s breakfast.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Maybe it is. The kind that feeds your soul instead of your stomach.”

Host: Jack watched her for a moment — the way the morning light caught the strands of her hair, turning them into thin threads of fire. His eyes softened, but his words came sharp, deliberate.

Jack: “You talk about art like it’s oxygen. But what about those who can’t afford to breathe it? What does a painting do for a man who can’t pay his rent?”

Jeeny: “Maybe it gives him a reason to keep trying. To believe there’s more to life than bills and noise.”

Jack: “Belief doesn’t pay for paint.”

Jeeny: “No. But it makes the color worth using.”

Host: The kettle whistled — a long, urgent cry. Jack rose, turned it off, and poured the water into two chipped mugs. The steam rose between them like a curtain.

Jack: “You sound like my mother. She used to paint too — until the factory took all her time. Then she said art was a luxury for people who didn’t have to count hours.”

Jeeny: “Maybe she stopped needing it because she learned how to find art elsewhere.”

Jack: “Elsewhere?”

Jeeny: “In survival. In resilience. Even a life of labor can be art, Jack. The rhythm of it, the repetition, the sheer persistence — that’s a kind of creation too.”

Jack: “You romanticize suffering.”

Jeeny: “No, I humanize it. There’s a difference.”

Host: Jack’s eyes darkened. He looked down at his hands — rough, stained, not with color but with years of work that had left no visible masterpiece behind.

Jack: “I’ve built things. Bridges, machines, systems. But no one calls that art.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe they should.”

Host: The light shifted, sliding slowly across the floor, illuminating the chaos of the room — brushes scattered, canvases leaning against walls, each one half-born, like dreams still deciding whether to exist.

Jeeny: “Art isn’t owned, Jack. It owns you. Bowie understood that. It changes you quietly — not in galleries, but in moments like this. The morning after doubt. The silence after loss.”

Jack: “And yet people still treat it like decoration.”

Jeeny: “Because they’re afraid of what it really does — it reveals. It digs into you. It shows you what you didn’t want to see.”

Jack: “You think a painting can do that?”

Jeeny: “It did for Goya. It did for Picasso. It did for every artist who faced their monsters with a brush instead of a sword.”

Host: Her eyes burned as she spoke, the weight of every color she’d ever mixed pressing through her words. Jack listened, the cynicism softening, the weariness beginning to crack.

Jack: “So you paint to feel alive.”

Jeeny: “No. I paint to understand why I already am.”

Host: A moment of quiet followed. The world outside was louder now — sirens, footsteps, the pulse of the day beginning. Inside, the two of them seemed trapped in a pocket of stillness, like a pause between brushstrokes.

Jack: “You know, I think I get it — at least partly. For me, it’s not art. It’s building things. I remember once — years ago — working overnight on a bridge design. Everyone else had gone home, but I stayed. When I finished, I just stood there, watching the blueprints glow under the desk lamp. It was... peace. I think that was my version of what you’re talking about.”

Jeeny: “Then that’s your art, Jack. You just didn’t know to call it that.”

Jack: “But it’s not beautiful.”

Jeeny: “Who said art had to be?”

Jack: “Bowie probably.”

Jeeny: “No. Bowie said it had to change the way you feel in the mornings. Not that it had to be pretty.”

Host: Jack smiled faintly. The cigarette in his hand had burned to the filter. He crushed it gently in the ashtray.

Jeeny: “You know why I think art nourishes us? Because it gives shape to the things we can’t eat, can’t hold — sadness, hope, confusion. We consume them differently. We digest them through color and sound.”

Jack: “So you’re saying it feeds the emotional metabolism.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The soul’s digestion.”

Jack: “Then I guess most people are starving.”

Jeeny: “Most people don’t even know they’re hungry.”

Host: A faint breeze entered the room, carrying the smell of rain. Jeeny dipped her brush again, dragged it across the canvas — a single, slow stroke of crimson over a sea of white. The color bled like truth, raw and unapologetic.

Jack watched. His gaze softened.

Jack: “That red — what is it?”

Jeeny: “Today.”

Jack: “And yesterday?”

Jeeny: “Still drying.”

Host: He laughed, a small, genuine sound — the kind that escapes when a man finally lets go of the armor he’s worn too long.

Jack: “You ever wonder if art is just a way of pretending life has meaning?”

Jeeny: “All the time. But maybe that’s enough — pretending until it becomes real.”

Jack: “So it’s a lie?”

Jeeny: “It’s a mirror. Sometimes it lies. Sometimes it tells the truth too early.”

Host: She stepped back from the canvas, wiping her hands on a rag, and turned to him — her eyes alive, full of color even when surrounded by grey.

Jeeny: “Art isn’t about escaping reality, Jack. It’s about making it visible.”

Jack: “Then what do you see when you look at your paintings?”

Jeeny: “Myself. But only when I’m brave enough to look.”

Host: The sun broke free from the clouds, flooding the room with a sudden warmth. Dust motes floated like tiny constellations in the air. Jack leaned against the wall, his eyes lingering on the unfinished canvas.

Jack: “Maybe Bowie was right. Maybe art is the only thing worth owning — because it’s the only thing that owns you back.”

Jeeny: “And the only thing you can’t lose — not really.”

Jack: “You think even I could find something like that?”

Jeeny: “You already have. You just haven’t framed it yet.”

Host: A long silence stretched, deep and full — not empty, but alive. Outside, the sound of children playing rose through the open window, mixing with the hum of the city.

Host: Jeeny began painting again — slow, deliberate, rhythmic. Jack watched, then walked to the window. He looked out at the world — grey, chaotic, endlessly ordinary — and, for the first time in a long while, it didn’t seem entirely without color.

Host: The light caught on the rim of his cup, scattering tiny reflections across the wall. He smiled faintly.

Jack: “You know… I think I’ll start sketching again.”

Jeeny: “You used to?”

Jack: “Once. Before blueprints became my only canvas.”

Jeeny: “Then welcome back.”

Host: Her voice was warm, almost like forgiveness. Jack nodded, quietly, as the morning completed itself — no longer cold, but humming with the small, unspoken truth they had both found.

Host: And somewhere between the brush and the smoke, between the noise of the city and the stillness of that tiny room, art did what Bowie said it would do — it changed the way they both felt in the morning.