The other day, although I had been driving all day long to get home and really should have been busy packing my bag to fly to Vancouver the next morning, I drove another two laps across the city to see a painting that Marion, an artist amazing in her abilities, was just about finished.
I found her house and thought, “Oh, this is what the outside of the house of an artist looks like.” There were garden decorations and she shares a driveway with her neighbour. That’s really all I learned, but I was nosey. Are you as curious as I am about how creative people live?
In less than two minutes after ringing her bell, I was sitting on her couch and in front of me was an easel with a painting of Brent propped on it. This was not her studio but a good viewing room with plenty of light.
Marion and I were in a moment of the painting creative process that I didn’t expect, when the artist invites you in, and you and her kissy-huggy dog gaze together and decide if there are any changes to be made, before it’s too late. It’s too late, I gathered, after the protective finish is put on which is the next step after this viewing.
I sat on her couch and he sat on our old couch, at our cottage, one hand holding open the book he is reading in just the way he did, and the slipcover for the couch, meant to cover wear and tears but always wrinkled with a hundred folds, bunched up around him. That thing never did stay on straight or for long.
I looked at him.
He looked at his book. His favourite guitar hangs on the wall behind him, where in real life, there is a lamp. This painting is set at the cottage but also a dream-like cottage space where reality blurs into memory and time melts between how it was then and how it cannot be again and there is beauty and grace and thankfulness and space. That’s what art can do.
I bought him that guitar when he graduated with his doctorate in preaching. The kids and I held our secret closely. We created a scavenger hunt for him with clues hidden all over the house until he landed, if I’m remembering properly, (but one thing you lose along with your person is at least half the story), at the sleek case hidden in the bathtub. He was so happy.
His painting hair is silver and tousled and I think perfectly rendered, a bit messy, like it would be on a slow morning reading on the couch.
“What kinds of changes would people normally ask for?” I asked Marion, because I didn’t want to squander this opportunity. But neither did I believe she wanted me to ask for Brent to be moved to the other end of the couch.
Marion gave me a couple of examples having to do with colour or shading or missing small things. I mentioned the far shore out the cottage window and across the lake and how in real life there’s more green and it’s all a little wilder looking. I hesitated to mention this tiny, small thing in the light of the beauty in front of me, but she asked and I respected her and her work too much to not give that question full consideration and honest answer. But, I trust her and so I left it up to her.
Next week I will go and bring the painting home.
Marion sat down beside me on the couch and we talked about Brent — who was a champion of artists of all kinds. Brent and Marion liked each other a lot and that made this all the more precious to me. But we also talked like two old men meeting up in the aisles of the hardware store sharing updates about our projects. We discussed revision and layering and how as writers and artists you can reach a point where you start going down the other side of the high mountain you’ve climbed. Too much tweaking and things get worse and not better. It’s easier to fix writing, I learned. Too much tweaking of paint can muddy the work.
As Marion and I wrapped up our time together, I told her I thought it was a masterpiece and that this painting would be a family heirloom. I am believing that between us all we have made a treasure.
I know exactly where this piece will hang in our home. A space big enough for only one piece and this is it. Someday, I assume, it will go to the cottage. “I’ve been here for 50 years,” Brent would tell strangers at the marina, whom he was always befriending whether they wanted that or not.
On this night when I am between seeing the painting and bringing the painting home, just thinking of it is reminding me of the power of art to capture and then release beauty, and how people can be so good at something by practicing it for years and then with complete openness and humility ask, “How can it be better ?” for the sake of you and the sake of art and the sake of the treasure.
How can it be better? And then knowing when to stop.
I’m thinking of Marion dipping her brush again and again and again, and just look at what can be made when you ask, and you risk.
And also, just the fact of supporting artists and how good that is to do, and how it’s actually possible!
So, if you go to one of those spring and summer art and craft shows this year that happen in all our towns and cities, go right up to a table and tell the artist you like their work. “Did you make this?” I like to ask, or “Are you the artist?” And almost always the person loves to answer and we have a little chat. (And yes, this might mean you buy a crocheted avocado with a face because you couldn’t quite get away, but that’s not the worst thing in the world). You can also be confident that just showing an interest and asking a few questions is a gift to the artist sitting at her table.
But also, often at these shows artists sell smaller pieces that can be easier to buy than large pieces. I’ve bought lovely wedding or graduation gifts that aren’t expensive, are unique and support the working life of an artist (and also liberate me from the tyranny of a bridal registry.) We’ve also discovered that artists — like most people — are open to a bit of bartering or swapping of gifts and labour to get their work out into the world. And…most artists will accept monthly payments. For $50 a month spread over time, some of us can sometimes buy art and keep an artist in coffee beans, or whatever. (Here’s an article I wrote on “Unnecessarily Owning Art,” part of which I used in the Beauty chapter of Holiness Here).
The one thing we can all do, even if we can’t or don’t want to buy, is to tell. Tell the artist how grateful you are for the beauty they are bringing into the world. Tell other people about the work that has moved you, whether it’s a book, a painting, a song, a poem, a clay pot or a crocheted avocado.