The way we was

Thank you for tuning in to my very public self journal. This is a very long and ramblish entry but one about the sense of self I’m experiencing at the moment.

Sometimes I do miss being able to stay up late and play video games, drink a six pack, and wake up with five hours of sleep ready to play ball. That’s not really me anymore. I do think in a lot of ways I am healthier and more ready to deal with what life throws at me, I’m just not entirely willing to hurt my body for fun or spend a bunch of money on something with so little return.

That is to say, I don’t enjoy it much anymore. I also don’t love cookouts or loud bars, or empty movie theaters, or even solitary walks at the park. I still love the feeling of moving my body and counting calories or checking off a box after a good workout does something nice to my brain. But time, alone, in my studio is less wholesome and more bothersome to me. I’ve hired models to paint simply so I’d have someone to talk to while I’m working on my palettes or ideas, that’s a truly enlightening moment.

There is something that becomes Too me-centric when I don’t have people to talk to about loftier art ideas. I truly am uncomfortable being introduced as “an-capital-A Artist.” I don’t mean that I mind it but that’s sort of just a vehicle through which I express my understanding of a subject. The big folly of modern academic art is that it underscores the myth of the artist as opposed to the truly beautiful thing about it. The thing that I love about it that has kept me studying the damn thing for half of my life. The humanity of it, the failures of it, the down right repetitive nature as folks move through their lives and rediscover parts of themselves time and time again. And that journey in itself carries so much meaning.

But the journey is not always enough. It is not always quite what a person needs to sustain themselves. To bring up a key phrase, alone. I love when people say, “my current fixation”, because it implies that they are really involved with something to the point of, on reflection, a potential over exertion of focus. To focus, to give mind to, to pray, to serve, to think of and about, to keep in your thoughts, to live and die for, to consider. It all has potential and drive and keeps the blood flowing and the brain moving and the heart from sinking. What it does not do is feed the internal being. The great source behind the engine, the plug that zaps into the mind, behind the eyes, in the center of the forehead, and there underneath the skin. The jolt of two bodies connecting is called fucking. When the minds are there and locked in step and the hearts beat as one, well that’s making love.

So what is it when there is a well known acquaintance sitting in a thinly veiled shawl, watching me work, preparing her body to be observed as we pick at each other’s minds? That is work. Always compensated, always quite ready and aware. There is a moment that stands on the edge of my mind, the first time you ask someone to pose for you. It is best described as terror. To be so naked in a process where someone can could and would have every right to reject your proposal and in a young artists mind, you. But in the brightest moment where they consider, laugh, bite their lip, and shyly look at you and a whispered “sure.” comes across. Well then, that’s excitement. And it’s true and there is so much internal pressure to get it god damn right now. After all, there is this body laid bare before your eyes and mind and here they are offering to subjugate and become a part of another’s purpose.

And there in lies, the first time. Now after the third or fourth, there is another modality. The artist is established in their practice, their colors are premixed, the gaze focused only on the shapes and lines, the dithering lack of a connection. But there exists an understanding. A true dedication to the model from the artist. They speak with the brush and subtle communication.

“Ehh, could you move that arm?”

“This arm?”

“No, the other one”

“Lik-“

“Perfect.”

And that is all the more sharing that shall be presented for a seeming few hours. Now the painting is taking shape and the deep compulsions of readjusting will be taken away. A stout cup of tea and longer periods of observation. It takes me back to my studio. Suddenly I am me again and there is my well known acquaintance and here am I ready to talk. She is not knowledgeable in my work or me so it is gentle. We are able to talk about the influences that I have, how her body responds to the light, I tell her not to worry about some sections, they’re still being touched up. But there is a smile deep across her face and a small exchange.

“You made me look stupid pretty.”

“I did not, you just are.”

a pause.

“Do I really look like that? My eyes always look so dull in photos and things kind of…hang.”

“I just draw what I see and cover it in paint, it’s as much a truth or lie as a picture.”

“Who?” She asks

“Who?” I replied

“Who or what. I just don’t understand how you see these things.”

“I just do, I don’t really know what you mean.”

And it drags on like that for awhile until I have to say, it’s 90% looking and 10% acting. Just knowing when the right moment is. And I feel like a mythical and powerful practitioner who has alchemized and imbued rocks with the power to shift someones heart.

But that’s when I felt it. Something missing. Someone not there. Not a person but a shape that was supposed to help me interpret this moment. Some part of the moment was begging to be shared and there, they were not.

In the past I could ask or talk to a peer about it but most recently I have been isolated from the part of me that feeds the best parts of my soul and in truth and indelibly I have been pulled away from anyone who could plug their own designs and thoughts into a process and peel away the meaning between two.

The models job is different, though very tangential. Some models are artists, it is never a prerequisite. And that’s the conclusion, the easy one anyways, that drives each decision moving forwards. I don’t need a friend or a lover to help me with my art and my studies, I need peers. My heart aches for the way I was when I was surrounded by peers and students and bright voices to cut through the feeling that is too long in the studio alone.

But I know that in moving forward, the peers will emerge again, the shows will lead to drinks at a silent little pub where we can talk about ourselves but always circles back to art. And I can bring myself to these conversations and be the self that wants out, at least for awhile. The bitter taste of coffee will shine through and each day will shone in different colors. But it comes at the cost of late nights playing games and drinking six packs and having enough salsa to ruin my week. And those nights may still come occasionally but they can not be the focus. The focus is an acquaintance in my studio, the voices at the gallery, the scraping of souls against each other.