It’s morning, I think. The alarm says 3:00 a.m. I don’t really want to get out of bed, but the alarm clock has already pulled me a few feet away from the warmth of seconds ago. Cheated, I stumble in the darkness and search for thick socks, black sweatshirt, and jammies – the uniform for this artist. My head refuses to go into an arm hole. A T-shirt scrunches awkwardly inside my sweatshirt. I’m sure it’s backwards. Grunts and groans leak out of my mouth.
Ugh.
A jumbled mess of dream recollections evaporate into foggy reality. Eyes don’t work – even in the dark. Robotic feet shuffle a cold body out of the bedroom, through the black living room and into the kitchen. A switch flips on blinding lights. One eye refuses to open, and the other takes the hit of lumens too numerous for grumpy vision. But I am awake. Sort of.
I did not always do this. There was a time when I existed as do normal people. There was a time when I stayed up late and got up later. There was even a time when I slept as much as I could and cared little about what got done, but the passing of time has a way of reminding me that the sum of things left undone in life is growing into a mountain. To make matters worse, these hands – obedient as they are – simply cannot keep up with the demands of my mind.
Start the vineyard in a week or two. How long... Crucifixes in summer. Gotta get that print shipped.
I have a long list of art pieces I’d like to see to fruition. Each one can chew up the better part of the year. I don’t want to do the math. So I get my butt out of bed in military fashion, and lie to myself that sleep is highly overrated.
In the kitchen, I force down some cereal and promptly forget what I just ate. Confronting an underpowered espresso machine, I coax it to life and walk away with a concoction that is more dessert than coffee.
Gross. Needs more sugar.
This routine is repeated daily, and I mentally flog myself when I fail to do it. Days off are time lost, and it eats at me.
A door opens to a stairway and a light switch gets flipped.
Ugh.
More lumens. The stairway gives me time to adjust to daylight-balanced track bulbs as I ascend to my lair. On the way up I pass walls of dusty, forgotten awards – some stacked on a ledge; all ignored and meaningless. I turn the corner at a landing holding a Norman kite shield overshadowed by a grumpy self-portrait, and I ascend a few more steps. I enter a ten by ten-ish room crammed with trappings of my craft. I flip two more switches – miss-matched drawing table lights that allow me to see the colors on my palette. Now the extra lumens are welcome. Another switch brings a radio to life with a near whisper. The cup of coffee finds a home, and the mighty warrior – full-time artist and sometimes workaholic – surveys his battlefield.
Sigh.
Parking on the lone seat – a reconditioned office chair without a back – I look up at the painting again, scan recently-worked areas and refresh my memory of where I wanted to work on this particular morning.
Ah, yes.
With the morning’s detail before me, I turn to an organized jumble of paint tubes and an encrusted palette, and start choosing colors to use. It’s a shopping trip using a mental list of ingredients. But I’m not making lasagna – I’m painting pine needles on a forest floor. Yellow ochre, Naples yellow and Titanium white for the highlights; Burnt umber and Prussian blue for the deep darks; Burnt sienna for variations. For reflected light I’ll use Prussian blue and Titanium white, with a touch of umber to tone down the blue. I won’t use green. These are old needles, bereft of their color, and brittle. All this for a bit of detritus.
Small dabs of the paint are squeezed on the palette. I pick up a tiny liner brush, mix a bit of paint with the brush and get a measured amount of color on the hairs where I want it. It is a loaded weapon. Warily handling the brush, I reach for a long mahl stick. Holding the stick in my right hand, I gently put its cloth-covered knob on an area of the painting – to my upper left – where the paint is dry. The stick will be a rest for my left hand. That is its only job in life.
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| The artist at work. (Courtesy of the 'Mudge') |
In early stages of my projects I ignore the mahl stick and paint “from the shoulder,” but that changes once the painting is blocked in. Purists might say that qualifies me as less of a painter and more of one who draws with color. I don’t care what they think. My work necessitates working at close quarters in measured detail instead of lobbing massive amounts of pigment from a greater range.
With the edge of my left hand resting on the mahl stick, I begin. This is when the walls of reality dissolve around me. This is when I enter a different world ruled by the tiny business end of my will. This is when colors are told where to go and what to do. They obey me. They are forced into an enormous illusion that has neither depth, nor form, nor reality. Colors bend to the rule of countless brush strokes. In the process, I drag the viewer’s mind along with me.
People can stand for the longest time looking at a flat plane. The blind wouldn’t have a clue what I’ve done.
While I work, my mind and hands delicately dance between reality and layers of consciousness. Random thoughts, fractured memories flying between semi-autonomous instructions to hands and mental tinkering with future projects. I think and I don’t think. For the most part, I just do.
Needs to be a little thinner. More ochre. More. Closer to the edge. Taper the edge. A celesta and snow. More Naples yellow. A tower – a church tower. A German church. NO! TOO MUCH BLUE! Counter with umber. Maybe a touch of sienna. Pull the edge. Yes. YES. Rachmaninoff’s Vespers. The sound of snow kissing a roof. A German tower. Needs more ochre. The third one will have to be a triptych. That’s the only way. With snow falling. Reload the brush. A November morning. A touch more ochre. Perfect. No. Needs more umber. A song. What was that song? Sackbutts. Krumhorns. A bit less blue in that reflected light.
My hands march uncomplaining on, oblivious to ramblings of a brain lapsing into auto-pilot. These hands have trudged endless miles on this project that began long ago....
(To be continued)
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