Mistaken Identities

Oliver Sachs’ book, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat”, told stories about neurological disorders. He included the case of a man who could not properly identify faces or objects. The unfortunate victim was an extreme case of a common condition. We all mistake one thing for another.

People have mistaken me for my father. An aunt accused me on several occasions of being drunk at family events. She saw me as a version of her younger brother, a man who sincerely enjoyed his whiskey and beer. My mother’s mother sometimes glared at me with the distaste she felt for my father. I neither looked like Dad, nor had the same interests as Dad, nor drank as much as he did. But in her mind, I did not exist as a separate individual.

I know now that her behavior had a defensive side. Grandma was wired to recognize danger and to act preemptively. After unpleasant encounters, we all look for warning signs of similar trouble from others. From an evolutionary standpoint, our brains overreact for safety’s sake. According to the scientist Robert Wright, gray matter does not care if we are happy or experience the world as it really is. It just wants to be.

I realized lately that I unintentionally give people mistaken identities. Someone’s look or carriage trigger subconscious reactions. Conflicts with loved ones escalate whenever I crosslink a current argument with a memory of a past dispute. I sometimes argue with my wife the way I argued with a former enemy. I could avoid having to make contrite, post-argument apologies by remembering that Judy is Judy.

I have learned to wait to make judgments about new students. If I give a student time to fully present him or herself, I learn more about character. Then I can appropriately tailor my teaching to individual needs.

I pay a price. When I give difficult people breaks, they sometimes mistake patience for weakness. They think that I am a patsy and try to extend the scope and range of their wrongdoing.

But I surprise them. They do not notice that their bad behavior, while not drawing a strong, initial response, has attracted my attention. I analyze and prepare. If one of them tries another stunt, then I summon my father’s sternness and push back. (Dad was a deceptively quiet bear that folks regretted poking.)

Now I choose how and when I could be mistaken for my daddy.

She Wasn’t Alone

I used to resist working from photographs. They filter out information and present biased records of reality. Painting directly from life gives an artist the opportunity to gradually find richer details, tones, and colors. One discovers worlds within worlds, information hiding in plain sight. But I’ve recently found that good photographs can also be rich sources of exploration. They also offer surprises.

A student recently commissioned a double portrait. She gave me a photo of a friend holding her granddaughter. I began with a brush drawing and a block-in of basic color shapes. I diluted the oil paint to make it semi-transparent. The canvas had been a rejected portrait by another artist, so some features from the former painting peep through (notice the two staring eyes on the girl’s neck). I worked on the grandmother’s face next, then developed the woman’s hair. After that, I worked on the girl’s head and body correcting proportions as I moved down the canvas (note the smaller hand in the last photo). Finally, I worked on the woman’s arm and the background.

The halfway point is near, and as usual, some parts please while others worry me. But I have time to fix mistakes, to make final adjustments in colors, contours, and proportions. I know from experience that a portrait rarely reaches completion before periods of struggle.

A student told me yesterday that her drawing had turned out better than anticipated. She said that the early stages had left her discouraged. A good drawing snapped into focus during the last half hour. I told her that most complicated projects look bad at some point, that faith in the process leads to good results. I also said that even if a drawing turns out badly, it paves the way for better work in the future.

I added that I still go through moments of doubt. I pointed to a demo portrait of Robert Mitchum I’d been working on for a while. I said that I had finally figured out and fixed three mistakes. The changes made the portrait come into a better likeness.

Mitchum, compressed charcoal, 17×14″

She seemed relieved: she wasn’t alone in doubting her work and abilities.

Not That Bad

A friend of mine played defensive end in high school. He described battling a huge lineman on an opposing football team. He said, “I could hold my own if I hit him straight on. But every time I did that, he’d twist me sideways, turn my feet, and pancake me.” Although nothing he did worked, my friend couldn’t find a successful tactic for dealing with “Big Boy”. The other team ran the ball over the top of him repeatedly.

My friend could have gone to his coaches and asked for help, but then he’d have had to admit that he couldn’t handle the situation. He got through most problems by presenting a stoic front, by trying hard and persevering. That didn’t work against Big Boy, but my friend never asked for a double team. He didn’t tell the outside linebacker to move up to help fill the gap.

I’ve felt trapped, at times, when bad times loom and threaten to engulf. I can see the 300 lb. lineman across the line, but I’ve got nowhere to go, no way to avoid getting crushed. And I feel like the game will never end. And if the misery has already gone on long enough, any attempts to change my approach seem worse than the current state. I get locked into a mode of operation that once may have been beneficial but no longer fits circumstances.

But moments of insight sometime provide comfort and remedy. My head clears, and I can see alternatives that hadn’t presented themselves before. Even if I can’t fix or fully adjust to a rough situation, I can see my trouble from a different perspective. I realize that almost everyone experiences similar issues, and that melodramatic suffering is the due penalty for an inflated ego. In other words, whenever I bitch and moan, I’m taking myself too seriously. Who am I to think I don’t deserve what I’m getting?

I remember looking into a mirror when I was nine or ten. (Something troubled our family life, but I don’t remember a particular incident or problem.) I stared at my miserable features and wondered when things would get better. I became the star in a tragic play about a boy living in a cruel world. Then a moment of detachment arrived unexpectedly. An older, wiser version of myself made an entrance. The older me laughed at my woebegone expression and said, “Hey, it’s not that bad.”

Back to the Drawing Board

I made two demonstration drawings this week for Portrait Drawing and Drawing 1 classes. Zelda Fitzgerald, F. Scott’s wife, has given me trouble over the years whenever I’ve tried to get her likeness. There’s something mischievous in her expression that promises troubles ahead. Some of my attempts made her doe-eyed and innocent. Others underlined a certain strain of trashiness, an overstatement.

I don’t think that I’ve captured her yet. Her cheek on the left looks too full. The jaw juts a bit too far out over the neck…She may prove persistently elusive.

I also completed a soft vine charcoal rub-out of a cow’s femur. I’ve been trying a variation on my usual technique. I’m chasing tonal shapes, how one patch leads to another, rather than gradually developing broad areas of tones.

The resulting drawing seems scratchier and busier than its calmer, more generalized predecessors. But I’m enjoying the process more. It feels more like a search than an exercise in polishing toward perfection.

I began a self-portrait demo today in my six-hour Saturday class. I taught Drawing 2 a portraiture lesson and wanted to show students how to begin a compressed charcoal self-portrait.

We’re still wearing masks in class and using photos and selfies. In normal times, we would draw each other and look in mirrors.

Steps: I lightly fogged my paper with compressed charcoal; and drew lines with soft vine charcoal to block in basic shapes; and erased highlights; and began to establish shadow shapes. You can see that I didn’t develop the shirt, hair, and forehead very far.

I’m having to fight the urge to slim down my jowls. I tell students to watch out for wishful thinking when they draw themselves. We want to present better-looking versions of ourselves to the world and unknowingly make subtle adjustments. We trim noses, plump lips, enlarge eyes and end up looking like aging movie stars who’ve had too many procedures done.

Shifting Ground

We tell ourselves stories based on experience and family history. These identity tales give us a sense of continuity. They help us understand how we fit into the societal machine.

Sometimes these stories affirm self-worth. Sometimes they reinforce a sense of inferiority. But whether positive or negative, they provide the comfort of familiarity. Heritage is heritage even if our ancestors bequeathed a giant pile of garbage. Hands off. That’s our pile of garbage.

But what if we discover something that shifts the family narrative sideways? What if a genealogist tells us that our eighth great grandfather fought brilliant battles, performed miracles? Our current crumbling state of misery can’t be a result of his actions. The fault must be ours…On the other hand, what if we discover that great grandma was the Empress Of Evil? Do we take some satisfaction in maintaining greater kindness and humanity? How did we escape her dark influence? Are we just determined to be good despite an inherited handicap? Did genes from other relatives tip the balance in our favor? Did we luckily avoid desperate situations that provoke ruthless decisions? If God intervened to set us on a righteous path, why didn’t He (She) do the same for old Gram?

These questions make my head spin. But I do think that benefits come after the ground shifts beneath our feet. First, we can understand behaviors that had mystified us. We can figure out why Uncle Ralph always snapped at anyone who mentioned the town of Piqua. Aunt Betty always flushed scarlet when her cousin Jim walked into a room because…

Second, we learn that family members were capable of a broad range of behavior. A respected great aunt had an affair with a married man. An uncle landed in jail after hunting rabbits out of season. Grandpa hit the bars after work and came home surly. Mom took a young lady under her wing after the girl lost her father. Snappish Ned carried birdseed in his pocket to feed birds and squirrels. Cousin Bob helped a college buddy avoid Vietnam by driving him to Canada.

Third, possibilities open up to us. If all these unexpected things happened in our family line, what lies in store for us? We may be bound by chains of genetic heritage, but a surprising amount of choices remain available. And the identity stories we tell ourselves fall apart when too many sub-stories are added. No coherent narrative can enclose all those contradictions.

The earth shakes as our stories wither and die, but moments of unbalance are preludes to freedom. And we can remain free if we manage to avoid making up new stories.

Things happened. Things continue to happen. We can act.

Abstraction vs. Realism

Greenhouse, oil on canvas, 2020

I’ve been painting abstractions the last three years and find the process intriguing.  Immersion in a state of creative flow comes more easily for me than when I work realistically.  Emotional triggers sometimes fire when I change a color or modify a shape.  A new exploration at the edges of known territory begins every time I start a painting.

I realize, of course, that communication with the viewer becomes problematic when working abstractly.  People find more reassurance when looking at realism.  A still life, interior, or landscape generally celebrate light, color and texture.  Nothing all that complicated there.  Figure painting and portraits often have narrative qualities that invite viewer participation.  An example:  a painting of a couple sitting uncomfortably on a sofa next to each other could remind a viewer of family dramas past and present.

Portrait of Benny Andrews and Young Woman by Alice Neel

A more interesting element in working realistically becomes obvious after years of practice.  It’s the realization that there’s nothing purely objective about the process of making a realistic image.  Biases creep in.  Habitual assumptions shift the emphasis on a color here, a tone there.  Subtle light shifts (a cloud passing across the sun) create a noticeably different mood when recorded.  One also realizes that a multiple-stage painting or drawing incorporates the changing emotional states of the artist.

Ann Gale’s portraits exemplify the unsteady relationship between an artist and reality.  She allows shifts in pose and lighting conditions to be incorporated in her work.  Her subjects vibrate between existence and nonexistence as they hesitantly materialize on her canvases.  Indecision isn’t the operative function here.  Instead, she’s simply being honest about the changeability of our perceptions.

Self-Portrait, Ann Gale

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle informs experimenters that their acts of observation alter the behavior of their subjects.  My familiarity with the shifting ground of discrimination between real and unreal makes me respond, “So, what’s new?”

All of this became more acutely obvious as I recently worked on a demo drawing for a class. My opinions concerning a sketch of a toy police dog kept morphing as I worked on it. At one point, I had the nagging feeling that I had lost my ability to draw. At another, I thought that I had captured everything as accurately as possible. When I stepped back from my drawing board, however, I immediately saw three areas that looked unconvincing. I eventually took the drawing to my wife and asked, “Does this drawing look real to you?”

I suspect that a return to realism might one day become attractive. I’d have to find a way to combine the sense of open possibilities that abstraction offers with the discipline demanded by realism. Mechanically taking dictation from nature is the height of boredom for me, but spontaneous searches for WHAT-IS might prove interesting.

Just Enough, Never Too Much

I’ve been avoiding the news lately and shunning political commentary.  I’ve realized that a good portion of this agitated chatter is about sales.  Even if I agree with a journalist, he or she is peddling an interpretation, a viewpoint.  A straightforward news report may be factual, but the presentation influences my perception of the depicted events.  I am not experiencing directly but seeing through filters set up by editors and programmers.

I’m trying to better understand what Paul means by, “For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face…” (1 Corinthians 13:12).  How does my personal history alter my discernment of day to day reality?  Of the Divine?  Paul seems to be saying that the lenses in our minds only allow dim sparks of God’s magnificence to shine.

Our hunger for communion with God is whetted, perhaps, by the glimpses we receive.  We get a taste and greedily want more. 

My son encountered ice cream for the first time when he was about nine months old.  He made a face (the ice cream felt uncomfortably cold in his mouth), but then his eyes popped open.  The flavor had struck.  He squealed in anticipation when Judy raised the next spoonful.

He was less enthusiastic when we fed him boiled chicken and mashed peas.  But as responsible parents, we couldn’t give him ice cream at every meal.  And its sweet delight would have faded and become common place.

Perhaps God gives us the amount of light, peace and comfort we can profitably absorb.  Too much too often wouldn’t be useful or good.  Instead, moments of insight are reminders that there is more to life than the daily worries plaguing us.

The news may be tinted, and our experiences further color our perceptions.  We see darkly.  But grace gives us the reassurance that we will eventually know not in part but in whole. 

That promise gives me hope.

Drawing Light

Students often run into trouble when drawing portraits. They obsess over the size of a nose, spend exorbitant amounts of time on eyes and lashes, worry the contours of lips from thin and desiccated to plump and overripe. They try to draw every hair while ignoring how light strikes the head. The coiffure ends up looking like a flat, pasted on shape. Necks often narrow and lengthen until one begins to think about ET’s elongated throat. Ears misalign so that one droops below the lips on one side and rises high above the eyebrow on the other. They’re so worried about getting individual features correct that they forget to see how they relate to each other.

I intervene frequently at the beginning, back off as often as possible as they gain experience. I point out how one side of the face looks wider in a 3/4 pose, that not all noses are narrow and tipped up, that eyes sometimes are small and squinty, that nostrils aren’t open holes, that shoulders on women are wider than they think, that jaws must be solid enough to allow an adult to chew meat, that mouths are wide enough to allow a bite of hamburger to enter.

I draw a silly face featuring the usual mistakes to warn them away from endless corrections. It has giant pointy eyes, ultra-long lashes, a narrow slit nose, a small forehead, and a tiny but fleshy mouth. Students usually laugh when they see it but sometimes go ahead and draw its twin.

Lately I’ve been telling them, once they advance beyond beginner’s struggles, that they’re not really drawing a person. Instead, they’re drawing light bouncing at varying angles off a person’s features. I go on: “When you focus on capturing light, how it moves across the surface of the face, the portrait comes alive. Light reveals the spirit of the subject if you follow it closely.” Some smile knowingly at me. They’re thinking, “There he goes again getting mystical.” Others get the point and start to draw more considered transitions in the gray tones. Their portraits stop resembling cartoons, start looking like living, breathing people.

I woke up the other morning with portraits on my mind. It occurred to me that, like my students, I often get stuck on the surface details of my life and lose track of the big picture. I juggle my schedule, watch my temper, worry about exercise and diet. I keep a mental list of how hard I’ve worked, how truthful I’ve been, how many times I lapsed into selfish behavior. But life has no vitality when I keep a close score. One activity doesn’t flow into another. Days feel disjointed.

Things go better when I remember that life is an ongoing spiritual experience. Daily struggles and challenges are just the odd circumstances of my journey. If I focus on the greater goal of heading toward my destination, then the niggling facts and menial issues no longer matter as much. The big picture reemerges, and I can start to see better how the separate elements of my life fit together.

Constructive Doubt

Talked to a student today who doubted her ability to draw accurately. I told her that seeing in depth and capturing visual information on paper get easier with practice. Told her that my teaching was a process of editing, of pointing out misperceptions and missed details. She’d be able to edit on her own after gaining greater experience.

Walked away feeling like I’d left something unsaid. Worked on a demo drawing. Consulted with other students in the class. Came back to the demo and noticed that I hadn’t raised the shoulders high enough on a portrait I’d been developing. I made a partial correction. A thought popped up.

Went back to the doubting student and showed her the portrait drawing. I said, “See, I made a mistake and just noticed it.” She nodded. Went on: “Sometimes drawing well is a matter of constructive doubt.” She gave me a questioning look. I said, “You sometimes have to doubt what you think is correct. Your mind makes assumptions, and you make drawings of assumptions instead of what’s actually there.” She nodded. I pointed to my portrait drawing. “I drew what I thought was there, double-checked and found a mistake. That didn’t bother me much. It’s part of the process…It helps to be skeptical about results and to make corrections. Don’t doubt your abilities. Doubt your assumptions instead.”

She got it. I shut up and let her draw.

Moments of Grace

Several months ago, I paused to study a crepe myrtle’s pinkish purple blossoms. The gray-tinted sky following a rain gave a limpid glow to the street, houses nearby, the mail box at the end of my driveway. I had a stack of flyers in my hand and nothing on my mind as I turned toward clusters of blossoms, round buds and wet leaves. Fuchsia flamed against vibrant jade. I lingered though I had supper to cook and a class to prepare. It’s wrong to turn down a sudden gift of wonder.

I rolled on a mattress and tried to fall asleep. My forty-year-old heart fluttered in my chest. Panic settled in deep as I tried to reason away fear. I thought, “These spells come and go. Nothing dire ever happens.” I wasn’t convinced. A loving but noncorporeal presence entered the room and settled inside my body. I didn’t know who or what had come to visit, but the panic thinned and seeped away. Comfort and peace flowed through me as my heart calmed into a steady beat. I felt the gratitude of a small child for a loving parent.

Twenty-nine years ago I sat with a baby on a blanket. My son crawled to the edge, grabbed a tuft of grass and stared intently at the blades. He crammed a handful into his mouth and got a taste before I plucked green mash off his tongue. He wanted to experience the tangible reality of whatever came before him. An early memory from my childhood popped up: thin clouds in a powder-blue sky vaulted high; purple roses in my father’s garden gave off a dark perfume; the wash fluttered blindingly white on the backyard line; my mother looked like an angel. Everything was new.

Judy told her father a story as we sat at her parents’ dining table. We had become engaged in February, 1984. In April we drove ten hours across Ohio and Pennsylvania so that Dick and Audrey could meet me before the wedding. I said nothing as the conversation darted back and forth between father and daughter. Instead I listened intently to the music of Judy’s speech. It struck me that I would be hearing those notes for the rest of my life.

I stared into the bathroom mirror. Ten-year-old eyes darkened sadly as the mouth sagged in a Charlie Brown frown. “Rats.” Grievances trudged across my mind to offer proof that no one had it worse. Then a sense of detachment interrupted the internal melodrama. The pathetic boy in the mirror looked like a stranger. A more mature voice popped into my head. (It might have been a future me.) The voice said, “Oh come on. It isn’t all that bad, now is it?”