The Writer, An Artist

I like the texture of words; they can roll off your tongue like marbles or stick to the roof of your mouth like peanut butter.  They play structured or sloppy, poignant or passé, languid or lethargic �" all within the writer’s frame of mind.

 

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When my dad and I painted in our garage, I chose watercolor and he chose oil. I was young enough to entertain a doll at the same time and often turned away to hold her. With one free hand, I washed my canvas using a wooden brush with thick bristles, in broad strokes, just like my dad showed me. Swirling it until the fibers were thick with primary blue, I wiped it over the soaking canvas, back and forth, guiding it across my sky. It floated into pastel air and landed on a cloud at the bottom of the canvas.

 My dad scraped oil hues of royal blue and indigo with his chisel, wiping them on a slab of white. He chopped them to lumpy bits and then smoothed the clump into a stream of colors that became one hazy blue sky, ideal for an afternoon.

 Strokes and colors, texture and shape �" all the details are hints. This is how I perceive the sky. The picture reveals the artist; what do you see?

Sometimes our work exposes our ignorance. We paint our sunsets where the sun should rise, or we write a repulsive flaw into our protagonist �" this reveals a blind eye on the author’s face, or point of view. This is not to say it cannot be corrected. We learn what is true and we try it again, as a new picture, framed by understanding. And those words that spread thick over the page will melt into one beautiful sky, true to the texture of our language.