About a year and a half ago I started a new hobby: Painting. When I began, I imagined myself picking up the paint brush (I started with acrylics), and immediately discovering a hidden talent. I literally dreamed about being a master artist while I waited for my paint supplies to arrive in the mail, and I was certain that painting would be the one thing I could humbly brag about at dinner parties for years to come. "Oh, you saw my painting in the hall? Why, thank you! I just picked up a brush one day in my twenties and voila! Well, yes, the Smithsonian asked for an exhibit, but I just can't imagine they'd want my hobby paintings for a national exhibit." etc. From the moment I tore off the cellophane wrap to my "art supply" package, I had the foreboding feeling that painting and I would have a bumpy road ahead.
I've always known I'm not the most typically "creative" person in the world in the context of art. I like the boxes that we're supposed to paint outside of. Having inconsistent coverage of paint irks me, and I end up repainting until any imperfection is rectified. In other parts of my life I'm usually annoyingly carefree and easily pleased, but this is not the case with painting.
The first "painting" I finished was my attempted at copying a painted flower on a business card from Mexico. Not only was I copying an imagine (like I said, creativity is not my forte), I was doing so with the precision of a five year old. When I displayed my creation to Eli at the end of the day, he looked at it dumbfounded. I'm sure he was trying to determine whether this was a joke, or if this was the painting I'd been working on for days shrouded in secrecy. After a long pause, he said, "Oh wow...this is the painting you've been texting me about all day at work?" I looked down at the painting, making sure I was holding my masterpiece and not one of the botched first attempt paintings, and was relieved to see I was in fact holding the right one. "You better believe this is it! On a scale from 9-10, how much do you love it?!" To his credit, he immediately wiped off his initial shocked and replaced it with a face I imagine parents have the first time their kids bring home crappy "art" for the first time from school.
Since this time, I have continued painting similar "art" with little progress in the talent department, but with tons of progress in the creativity arena. And if for nothing else, I have a real personal appreciation for the role painting has played in my life thus far. Too often I get caught up in getting certain things to happen just as I want them to, and forget that sometimes the process itself is the most valuable part, and not necessarily the outcome.
I think you should use your blog to clarify "the truth" of Eli's blogs. Where is he exagerating what you said/did. Why is he so obsessed with his hair? Did you really make him sleep on a yoga mat in your Phoenix apartment? So many questions to be answered.
ReplyDeleteI think you should use your blog to write about you. And anything you want to write about. :)
ReplyDeleteI second Jamie's post!
ReplyDeletePICTURES of your Paintings. How wonderful will it be to have a chronicle of your progress in painting?
ReplyDeleteAnd now we need pics of your artwork.
ReplyDeleteYou have probably already thought of this and decided not to do it, but you might really enjoy taking an art class. Sometimes it takes learning the "rules" to be able to discover how you want to break them and create your own style. I don't think taking a class would stifle your creativity.
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