3 Bags Full

I sat in the hall outside my therapist’s office waiting for a session to begin. A middle-aged woman and a masseuse stood nearby talking. The woman whinged, “We had a Viking cruise to the Mediterranean. We were supposed to stop in Israel, but now that won’t happen! Couldn’t Hamas have waited a couple of weeks before they attacked? Now the cruise line is going to reset the itinerary, but I don’t know if I’ll get a refund for that portion of the trip.” I gave silent thanks when the woman took her complaints behind a closed door.

The next day, I vaguely heard a rumbling garbage truck pull up in front followed by the muffled thumps of yard waste cans being emptied. An ear infection made me dizzy and tired, so I didn’t run out to haul the cans away from the road. When I retrieved them that evening, I found three bright blue bags of dog crap dumped in one of the cans. I tipped it up and deposited the crap bags at the curb. I didn’t want the contents fermenting at the bottom of a can meant to hold leaves, trimmed branches, and magnolia seed pods.

As I stood glaring down at the blue bags bulging at the seams, I plotted acts of revenge against dogwalkers who decide that others are responsible for dealing with their messes. None of the plans seemed practical. Most would have led to unpleasant confrontations.

Later that evening, I rounded up the kitchen and household garbage, took the bag to the curb, and put the dog crap into it. I dropped the bag into my regular garbage can. Now the doggie deposits could grow rudely aromatic among chicken bones, vegetable peelings, and a container full of yogurt gone bad.

My earache subsided over the next few days, but my throat started to feel scratchy. I spent a night coughing and choking in my sleep and couldn’t talk above a hoarse croak the next morning. I took a Covid test on Sunday and Monday to make sure that my recent infection hadn’t returned. They came up negative.

When I taught class on Monday, I sipped from a huge coffee-filled thermos to keep my throat clear. I managed to cover proportions and anatomy for portrait drawing but noticed that I had to work hard to remain kind and polite. I got brusque and blunt on a few occasions and shout-whispered a general apology at the end of class.

As I drove home, I realized that human decency, on my part at least, requires energy, patience, and persistence. When I run short, my attitude festers like three bright blue bags steaming at the bottom of a trash can.

Monster Ball

I’ve been working on a demo drawing for a class at Valencia College. I’m going to have students draw still life objects in black and white. They’ll layer colored pencil over the top. This technique echoes a painting technique used by old master painters such as Velazquez and Rembrandt. They glazed transparent colors over monochrome underpaintings.

Benefits of the technique: the artist can work out light/volume/texture issues before dealing with color; the resulting work looks convincingly three dimensional; the artist can fully explore the potential of using light effects to set a mood.

Drawbacks: the color looks duller; tonal dominance limits the range of colors; as the image ages, the thin layers of color fade.

Hobbema Monet

If you compare a landscape by a Dutch old master to one by Monet, the difference between the two styles becomes obvious. Hobbema followed the glaze-over-a-monochrome underpainting practice, while Monet applied dabs of color directly to his canvases. Monet’s work looks brighter and more colorful but does not create a convincing depiction of three-dimensional forms. And Monet paintings uniformly look cheerful and peaceful. He doesn’t bother to create a range of emotion in his work. Hobbema’s approach allows him to suggest a more complicated and brooding relationship between humankind and nature.

I’ve worked with both techniques and find them rewarding for their own merits. I chose the old master method for my class to give students an easier transition from tonal to color drawing.

I set up a monster ball toy in front of an orange box on my dresser then started with a line drawing. I added crosshatched tones with a soft graphite pencil. I successively applied thin layers of yellow, red, and blue. I adjusted colors and developed details until I got a fairly accurate depiction of the objects’ appearances.

I don’t always enjoy working on demonstrations instead of my own projects. But I found pleasurable moments while working on this drawing. I might use this technique again during busy times as I can finish one of these much faster than a painting.

A Halloween Rat and Its Use in Drawing Classes

CLASS A

“Today, we’re going to use compressed charcoal to draw a rub-out of an animal skull or a giant plastic rat. I started to work on my rat during another class and will continue today. I want to honor my plastic buddy, Mr. Bigglesworth. He was my trustworthy companion when I was a boy. I used to snuggle with him in bed to keep away nightmare monsters. Yeah, Mr. Bigglesworth and I have been through a lot together.”

Mr. Bigglesworth, compressed charcoal, 17×14″, 2022.

CLASS B

“You’ll know that I’m in a bad mood if I bring in my giant Halloween rat and make you draw it. See a rat, watch out!”

CLASS C

“You have a choice of drawing the horse statue, the carved wooden cat, or the Halloween rat…I’m not sure I’d recommend drawing the rat. He has a bad influence on people…I used to hide that rat in my teenage son’s room. He’d open a door on his computer desk or look under his bed, and there it was. I’d hear a loud squeak and think, ‘Mission accomplished!” Got him two or three times, but then he started to expect it…Nothing good lasts forever.”

CLASS D

“I want you to work on that rat until you bring out its inner essence. I want to see beauty shining from the surface of your drawings, the beauty of Ratness. Become one with the rat.”

CLASS E

“You can find wonders and mysteries in almost all subjects. I once painted a landscape of a cinder block house, its driveway, and the backyard tree–a truly mundane subject. But the more I looked at it, the more colors I saw, the more delicate shifts in tone revealed themselves. So today, as you’re drawing the giant black rat, I want you to look carefully at the subtle changes in tone on its claws, on its fat belly. I want you to see the exquisite curves along its back and around the hole where the tail broke off. I want you to look for the magic of light as it crosses over the wrinkles on its snout…Art can be a voyage of discovery. Bon voyage!”

Who Are They Talking To?

I sometimes get students who react badly to just about anything I do or say in class. Even if I ask them an innocuous question (“Howya doin’?”), they snap. They believe that I’m probing for information to be used against them. I understand that they are not really glaring at me. Their hostility is directed at someone who resembles me. Or they’ve made assumptions based on my age and appearance. I look like I fit into a category of people they fear and despise.

I’ve learned to give edgy students space and distance, to interact only when necessary. However, their guards remain up, so they carefully watch me giving personalized instruction. They usually make one of two choices after seeing classmates’ work improve. A hostile student may gradually relax after realizing that I mean no harm, that I’m there to help. They tentatively accept input. Or a hostile student might decide that I’m playing favorites. I’m nice to some students but not to him or her.

Several years ago, one student would lunge forward to cover her drawing whenever I came near. I saw that she dreaded my feedback, so I moved on. One day as I passed by, she complained to another student that I never gave her instruction. I retraced my steps and told her that I simply respected the cues she had given me, that I’d happily tell her what I thought if she’d let me see her work. The student stared at me for a few seconds, then turned away. She couldn’t process the news that her attitude had dictated my responses. Her behavior didn’t change. She still covered her drawings whenever I came around.

On the other hand, I’ve noticed that people see me more accurately when I’m present in the moment. When my mind is relatively clear, folks look me in the eye and sometimes smile. I’ve consequently begun to wonder whether hostile students are reacting to more than their preconceived biases. Instead, they might be responding to my mental energy. They sense stormy weather regardless of my external actions.

If, for example, I’m brooding about some past injustice, anger and resentment ooze into the space around me. Instead of misinterpreting my intentions, sensitive hostiles might be responding to subtle signals.

If I engage them in the present moment, then the directness of the interaction weakens their preconceived notions. An open attitude encourages openness.

I Don’t Have to Go Anywhere

I don’t have to go anywhere today. Not having to drive to school or go to a treatment feels like a luxury.

I’ve been trudging to doctors and therapy the last few weeks. But my therapist had a conflict for the coming week’s appointment and bumped me forward to the following week. (Yeah!) And I felt relieved yesterday when the periodontist’s receptionist called to reschedule an afternoon appointment. The two cancellations gave me a sense of space and freedom. The installation of a crown can wait! I can stuff childhood memories and trauma for a few extra days!

Last night’s class in perspective went well except for a few moments when I had to redirect students who were trying to draw two-point perspective halls while facing their subjects head-on. One woman told me that she wanted to draw her interior in one-point seeing that the wall facing her looked parallel to her position. I told her that she had to move so that it didn’t look parallel to her position. Starting with an edge where two walls met was the basic set-up for the exercise. The light dawned in her eyes.

Left: one-point hall. Right: two-point interior.

I also had time yesterday to finish a colored pencil drawing that I had begun while waiting during an appointment with a vascular surgeon. My GP had referred me to Dr. Wladis after an ultrasound detected a DVT in my right calf. I had been dreading the consultation fearing that a surgeon would automatically recommend surgery. Working on the drawing gave me something to do while sitting in an examination room.

Wladis, colored pencil, 5×3″

Wladis started off with a few jokes. He said, “I’m afraid that an amputation is necessary.” “That’s interesting,” I said. He upped the ante: “From the neck down.” I deadpanned, “That’ll be an improvement.” The surgeon turned to his PA and complained that I wasn’t playing the game properly.

The news turned out to be good for the most part: no surgery is necessary; I can engage in strenuous activities; my chances of dying from a PE are the same as getting hit by a car; I have to stay on an anticoagulant at least until four months have passed; I should shun chainsaws and sharp, pointy objects in the meantime. He added that relapses, if they occur, pop up at four months.

I’m going to follow his advice. I’ll look both ways before crossing streets. I’ll avoid homicidal clowns bearing chainsaws. I’ll run hard if a car loaded with chainsaw bearing homicidal clowns jumps a curb and tries to mow me down. If I am mowed down by a car loaded with chainsaw bearing homicidal clowns, I’ll immediately stop taking the anticoagulant.

You Are Old Father William

A model came into Studio 1A as I cleaned up after class. I moved boards and stacked drawing horses over to the side but left a heavy wooden stage in the center.

The model said, “Who put the stage in the middle of the room?”

“I did,” I replied. It had been propped against a wall when I came to work that morning. I set it down and moved it before my class started.

“Why did you do that?” the model asked.

“I do it before every class. I have to.”

I wondered why he cared. The stage was in a convenient spot for the upcoming life drawing class. Then he spoke in a patronizing tone when he said, “Well gooood on you!”

He thought that I was ancient. My lined face and nearly white hair added ten or twenty years to my appearance, so he had given the old coot a pat on the back for being able to shift a heavy object.

I answered him coolly, “I’m still capable.”

People have mistaken my age for a long time. At fifteen, I’d already sprouted a few sprinkles of silver at the temples. At 23, a man jeered as he passed by in a car. I was walking with a 20-year-old girlfriend. The man yelled, “He’s too old for you!” When I first met my wife, I had just gotten off a third shift and looked tired and slumpy. She assumed that I was too old for her and dismissed me as a possibility. She soon found out that I was four years younger. I walked my daughter into school when she entered kindergarten, and one of her classmates identified me as her grandfather. I was 34 at the time. When my wife and I started attending a new church a few years ago, folks assumed that she worked and that I had retired. She still sported an undyed head of brown hair. They believed, given our appearances, that Judy was my trophy wife.

At 63, I’m starting to worry about being able to function. If I wake up with a sore knee, a stab of anxiety runs through my gut. Is this the first sign of a decline into immobility? If I forget to do a chore, I wonder if I’m taking another step toward absentminded dotage. If I look critically at current strengths and weaknesses, I easily arrive at the negative assessment that my looks and sense of age are rapidly approaching a meeting point.

But until it becomes obvious that I can no longer mow lawns, haul heavy garbage cans, work through a list of chores, and keep lesson plans in mind, I’m going to plow ahead. The doddering coot might as well keep on surprising them while he still can.

Keeping Score

I sometimes tell my students to do a walk-around, to circle the room and look at other student drawings. I say, “Don’t compare your work to someone else’s. Don’t worry whether Bob or Ted or Alice drew better or worse than you did. The point of this is to steal from each other. If you see something great in a drawing, then use that idea or technique in your next drawing…And then claim that you thought it up yourself. That’s what Picasso did…It’s the Artist’s Way.”

I tell that joke to get them to relax. Then they can learn from each other while avoiding the trap of making competitive comparisons. If they focus on the drawings, they share the benefits of taking a group class. If they turn each other into markers of success and failure, then they lose the opportunity to see clearly and learn.

One of my relatives makes her life miserable by making constant comparisons. She feels superior when acquaintances, friends, and family members suffer setbacks and failures. She enjoys a good downfall but gets jealous and resentful when she sees other people feeling happy, functioning well, and gaining success. She believes that achievers work hard and make good choices in an effort to outshine her. And if they stray across her path, she makes cutting remarks to undermine their self-confidence and to ruin their good moods. If she isn’t happy, then no one else should be.

I’ve noticed this tendency in other people too, though most don’t develop this attitude to such a malignant extent. They forget that we are interdependent and interconnected. They see life as a competition that divides folks into the groups of winners and losers. When I make this mistake, I earn the punishment of pointless misery. Suffering increases in direct proportion to the number of times I turn people into markers of success and failure.

One antidote to this malady is to do a personal walk-around. If I look at the best and worst moments of my life, then I might find a pattern. What makes me happy and content? What leads to pain and frustration?

My best memories are tied to moments of connection. I felt more alive when I turned down the noise in my head (resentments, jealousy, etc.) and immersed myself in the present moment. Then I melted as I received a loving look and embrace. Then I lost track of time while working on a painting or walking in the woods. Then I felt the happiness of others radiate outward to include me.

Whenever I stopped keeping score, I enjoyed the game a whole lot more.

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.

“I Have a Right to Say What I Think”

Me: Judy and I went to the Easter service at Winter Park Presbyterian. The choir sang Handel’s “Halleluiah Chorus.” They did a good job weaving all those voices back and forth. And the church was packed!

Sal: You’ve been going to all these churches. Have you ever considered coming back to the Catholic Church?

Me: No.

Sal: Why not?

Me: I don’t like the organization. I don’t like the scandals. I don’t like the experiences I had in parochial school.

Sal: Well, you got married in the Catholic church, didn’t you?

Me: I didn’t want to. But I thought that it would make a big mess if we got married somewhere else. I would’ve been happy with a civil marriage.

Sal: Oh. But then you went to the Quakers all those years.

Me: We’d still be Quakers if we could find a good meeting.

Sal: I never understood why you would go there just to sit and stare.

Me: It’s silent worship. It’s like praying.

Sal: Well, you could do that at home. Why bother leaving the house? No music, no sermon, no–

Me: Haven’t you ever attended a silent vigil at church, where they do a reading, sing a hymn, then let you pray quietly as a group? Didn’t that mean anything to you?

Sal: I hate all those vigils where people stand by the side of a road and hold up signs and candles and… Wasn’t Nixon a Quaker?

Me: Yes, he was…

Sal: Are you done with teaching yet?

Me: I’ve got finals this week, but Crealde keeps going till mid-May. I’ve mostly got good students this semester, but things are getting weird in Florida.

Sal: Weird?

Me: The governor and the legislature have decided to attack higher education. They’re promoting a conspiracy theory that professors are trying to turn students into Communists. We’re the enemy.

Sal: It might just be me but living seems a lot harder these days.

Me: Hey, good news: I managed to finish a portrait commission yesterday. Remember how I hurt my back and couldn’t work for a week? I had to rush to catch up and managed to hurt my lower back again. But it’s done, and I’m delivering it on Monday.

Sal: Has she seen it yet?

Me: You mean the lady who commissioned the portrait? I attached a jpeg to an e-mail. She liked it.

Sal: Hmm.

Me: She did.

Sal: I always thought that you would’ve been a good pharmacist.

Me: What?

Sal: A pharmacist.

Me: You told me that before. I never considered it.

Sal: Sometimes, a common job is easier in the long run.

Me: There were no jobs for biology majors back then. Even if I had stuck it out, I would’ve had to go on for a masters and a doctorate. Biotech didn’t exist in the early 80s.

Sal: I always thought that you would’ve been a good pharmacist. You wouldn’t have to interact with people much. I know how you don’t like to talk to people.

Me: I never wanted to be a pharmacist. And doing something you hate isn’t easy.

Sal: Still…

Me: That ship sailed forty years ago. And you can’t predict what you’ll pick up along the way. I found out in grad school that I could teach. Teaching is what I do to make a living. Teaching.

Sal: My cousin Ralph, you know, the retired professor, called the other day. He sounded confused. He asked me what my maiden name was. I said, “It’s the same name as your last name.”

Me: Well, he might be getting a little cloudy upstairs. I met great aunt Martha at an opening when she was in her eighties. When we spoke, she seemed drifty. Maybe your cousin inherited the tendency from his mother.

Sal: Aunt Martha never liked me. I said what was on my mind, and she didn’t care for that one little bit.”

Me: Okay…

Sal: She didn’t want to have anything to do with me. But I have a right to say what I think. Don’t I?

Me: Umm…

Two Portraits

A student commissioned a portrait of a grandmother and her granddaughter. I developed it over the last month as an oil on a linen canvas. I found the woman easier to paint than the child. She had more defined forms, while the child’s face looked like a soft glow in the photo. I had to choose either to juice the girl’s definition or leave the edges and contrasts soft and muted. I ended up taking the middle path.

Grandmother and Granddaughter, oil/linen, 24×18″

Painting all the tangled hair provided other challenges: differentiating colors between the two subjects; keeping track of where each strand began and ended; adding muted wisps that fade into the shadows.

I made a few decisions dealing with composition. I decided to leave the background landscape mostly unfinished so that the focus remained on the sitters. I eliminated details from the pillow’s fabric for the same reason but popped the color. I wanted it to act as a secondary focal point that drew attention to the left side of the painting.

I’ve also been working on a demo drawing begun in my portrait drawing class at Crealde School of Art. Teddy Roosevelt started out with a charcoal fog, a line drawing in charcoal, erasures of highlights and light grays, additions of darker tones, transitions blends, development of details, etc. After spraying it with a workable fixative, I enhanced the darks with charcoal and charcoal pencil. I developed it at home and added final touches during a class at Valencia. (I draw my own drawings at the end of the semester to keep myself occupied while students work on independent projects.)

Teddy Roosevelt, soft vine charcoal and charcoal pencil on paper,17×14″

I decided to take the drawing past my comfort end point. I wanted to see if venturing beyond a customary stopping place would blow up the drawing or make it better. If nothing else, it gained intensity. Teddy’s expression developed from a look of queasy discomfort to the calculating glare of a ruthless bastard. All it took was the addition of a few more knots around his brows.

I’m pleased that it retained a painterly feeling. Over-developed portraits tend to take on an embalmed look. A “stiff” portrait looks like the artist squeezed all the life out of the subject while pinning down every last freckle and hair.