I have limited skills- I am very organized and I am a good bookkeeper.
Those skills have kept me in pretty good shape professionally and personally for many years now, but I have always wanted to be an artist of some sort, not an organized person who can add and subtract!
I have tried my hand at acting, singing, directing, writing and painting, yet I would never call myself an actor, singer, director, writer or painter. I have done it all, but have no confidence that any of it was any good.
Art is so subjective and so imperfect. Organization and keeping someone’s books depend on perfection. The two worlds don’t seem to go together. For a stickler for the rules, like me, it is hard to break them as an artist. An artist must be original though, which means breaking rules.
I have a few art pieces that I have done displayed in my house. I have given away a couple of works but am hesitant to show or share what I do.
Last year I did a piece for a silent auction and although it sold, I don’t know how good it was or wasn’t. This year I told my friend I would do another piece for her auction because I had been inspired by an odd canvas I had found months before.
When I finally had time to work on the canvas, I put on the first layer of my idea and it went well. I had Tim cut a metal component for the center and then I began to work on the actual writing that would make up the last part of the art.
After I wrote the first word I realized I had not done what was in my head. Instead of starting to write where I had, I should have started at the edge, about 3 inches further back. It threw the whole thing off. I stopped in a panic.
For the next few days I went to every hobby and art store I could think of to find another canvas like the one that had inspired me, but no one had one or had ever seen one just like it. I needed to start over but had nothing to start over with.
I began to work on the canvas, trying to salvage the piece, but more and more it went in a different direction than what I had wanted. Eventually I just stopped and propped it up in my office.
Every day for a couple of weeks I looked at it. At one point Tim looked at it and said it wasn’t so bad. Tim is not necessarily known for his tact- he is usually brutally honest. In this instance I felt sure that he was being tactful. I had to tell him that in looking at it for a couple of weeks, it had grown on me.
Eventually I just resigned myself that I had no choice but to put it in the silent auction as I had promised.
Last night I helped to emcee the event that included the auction. I had realized as I put the piece on the table for others to see, that while I had had a few weeks for it to grow on me, this audience would have only minutes.
I had carried one of my checks and planned to bid on my own item ( we had numbers so no one would know) hoping to buy it and save face when no one else wanted it. When I went by the item it had a couple of modest bids so I decided to wait until closer to the end to place a bid if necessary.
In changing costumes for the second act, the auction ended and I never went back to the table to see what had happened. Working on little sleep and only a bowl of oatmeal all day, I powered through the event, tired, hungry and disappointed in myself.
My friend kept telling me to stop when I made jokes to her about how awful the art piece was, but I learned a long time ago to joke about myself before someone else could.
After the show I was running on fumes trying to speak to people and help get the event cleaned up. As I walked through the lobby, a woman approached me with my art piece tucked under her arm. I didn’t know her at all and figured she had no idea I was the person who had created the canvas she carried.
I was wrong.
When she was in front of me she said that Tim had told her that I was the one who had done the art work she had purchased. She wanted to tell me that the conglomeration of sheets of music, a metal musical note and my written words had inspired her. She told me that she played piano and that she planned to hang it above the piano so she could see it when she played. It would remind of her of the talent she had just seen on stage, the good cause we were doing it all for and the piece itself that brought up feelings that would inspire her every time she looked at it.
I stammered and stuttered, not knowing what to say. I thought of all of the beautiful art that had been on that stage and yet the only piece she wanted was mine, a piece that at times I considered throwing in the trash.
As I tried to form words, she looked me in the eye and made a simple request- “May I hug you?” I was able to say “of course” as she gave me one of those hugs that leaves you knowing that you have been hugged. That the person doing the hugging means it. Not a silly side hug or an arms length hug, but a for real hug.
And with a few tears puddled in both of our eyes, she said “thank you” again and left.
Art isn’t perfect. It almost never turns out the way we start it. It is never seen the same way by any two people. It fills a space in us or it doesn’t. The fact that one person, even when it is the artist herself, can’t see the value in it doesn’t mean someone else won’t see it. Just because some people don’t see the love and inspiration behind it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
I don’t always understand art. Not even my own. Oh, but what a blessing when someone else does!
