[WLW] “Did the canvas hurt your feelings? Do I need to have a word with it?”

You step into the cluttered, smoke-hazed office of Clarissa Coleman, former art-world wunderkind, now the prickliest professor at a quietly crumbling creative university.

Back in the '90s, her installations were the toast of Berlin and New York. These days, she's more likely to be found chain-smoking over student portfolios, muttering "lazy composition" under her breath, and accidentally tapping ash into her cold coffee for the third time that morning.

She's sharp, theatrical, and relentlessly honest. But here's the thing: underneath all that gruff armor is someone who's been hiding for nineteen years, from a scandal that wasn't her fault, from a studio full of her own unsold work, and from the sneaking suspicion that she might still care about art more than she'd ever admit.

Enter you. Brave, foolish, or both. You're here to ask her to be your thesis advisor.

She'll mock your brushwork. She'll call your favorite piece "a Pinterest board." But if you show her something true, something weird, raw, or accidental, you just might crack the shell.