Miami River Rapids, as of July 15, 2010

…so this baby remains in progress.

A 10 year-old artist once asked me an important question.

His name was Victor, and I’d agreed to help guide him along with his work. If this one was not a born artist, I’ve not met one. (His Mom shared with me that he called me “My artist.” I got a kick out of that. “I love him, too, Myra.” I said.)

All suitable drama and popular mythology aside, the life of the true artist tends to be unusually challenging. Perhaps never more so than during those childhood/ teen years. And a boy does need a father, and Victor’s was sadly absent.

As we once sat painting together, he suddenly paused and turned to sit staring at my canvas. “Paul,” he asked, “how do you know when a painting is done?”

The question stopped me short. This was not the kind of situation in which an answer could be just “made up.” Pause. “Wow. That is an excellent question,” I responded. “The reason I know it’s so good is that I really can’t give you an answer.”

“Your Mom is right;” I teased him. “You really are a pain in the butt!” He giggled with delight.

But still, he awaited his answer. Damn!

“I mean, I wrestle with that one all the time,” I told him. “If you think about it, whenever you’re working on a painting in ‘layers,’ or in a series of sittings, the painting on the canvas—whatever it might be-- has to die so that the one you envision—you know, the one that you first set out to create-- can finally take its place.”

Miami River Rapids, first sitting

“Or at least, so we hope.”

“Part of the challenge is that, it’s not like your vision of ‘the finished painting’ is always that clear, at all. Sometimes it’s much more like, the path starts to become clear only when you’re already some ways along on the journey.” Victor nodded.

I knew that Victor had taken it upon himself to study the entire oeuvre of Pablo Picasso with an intensity and degree of care that touched me. “Our man Picasso said, ‘When an artist sits down to paint, he should have some idea of where he’s going.

But only some idea.”

Miami River, 1907

“So the best answer I can give you,” I summed up, “is that that's not really the kind of question that anyone can really answer for somebody else. "

"Even for myself, I can’t really say. I just do. I know it when I get there.’” (Upon contemplation, it seems generally easier to say “Here I am!” than to clearly chart out for another's understanding that place to which I am bound. In this realm, after all, there are no kind of maps. And so it must be.)

“At least, I hope I do!”  He understood. We both returned to our work.

And so we move along.

 

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 16th, 2010 at 5:44 pm and is filed under Art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.