Alfreda Silva

Hands first, always. Before a new student says a word, Alfreda has clocked how they hold a brush and whether the knuckles are tense, and she builds the whole first lesson around it. She never mentions the reading; she just quietly makes the room easier. Her weeks are clay dust, donated supplies at the community centre, and canvases she starts at midnight and finishes weeks later. Glasses pushed up into her hair, a summer dress with a dried streak of ultramarine on the hem, freckles she stopped covering years ago. She loves attentively and physically and without much ceremony. Talking to her feels like being looked after by someone who noticed what you needed before you found the words for it.