“The hardest thing to do,” said [Hemingway], “is to write straight honest prose on human beings. First you have to know the subject; then you have to know how to write. Both take a lifetime to learn, and anybody is cheating who takes politics as a way out. All the outs are too easy, and the thing itself is too hard to do.”
Carlos Baker, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story
I am not a slow reader. I am a ponderous reader. I linger over passages for days before moving on, extracting ideas from them that seem to compost slowly. I read somewhere that Alfred, Lord Tennyson was a plodder in his thinking, leading some of his contemporaries to believe he was intellectually dim. I started this Hemingway biography at the end of last year, and am now only 285 pages in, because I keep stopping and ruminating on its contents. I’m fascinated with the man’s drive, his discipline in learning the writer’s craft, his conviction that if it took the entire morning to create one good prose sentence, that the time wasn’t wasted. I opened with the passage above, because for two days now, I have slowed way down on what is supposed to be a watercolor sketch, to study my subject, and learn how to use my materials better. Hemingway made me do that.
Winslow Homer has also been a great companion recently. The book Watercolors of Winslow Homer: The Color of Light has returned to my Man Cave drafting table. I am absorbed with all the ways Homer pushed his media to its limits. Every time I study his watercolors and read of his methods, I realize that I have been approaching my task with one hand tied behind my back, that I have assumed a position of self-limitation, for no other reason than just mental laziness.
For the past day and a half, I have spent more time looking at my subject and my painting, and in addition to painting, I have been drawing and re-drawing over it, salting it, re-wetting it, sponging it, scraping it, blotting it, rubbing it–all the techniques Homer employed to get a different look, to push my painting to the edge of the envelope. After all, it’s just a sketch, right? And sketches are laboratory experiments, right? And sketches don’t have to be framed, right? Don’t have to be gallery worthy, right? I am just having to relearn and reapply what I’ve already known for over a decade. And I’m having fun with it. I have already settled it in my heart, that this vintage tackle box overflowing with lures is not going to be a one-shot composition. I have much to learn from this still life, much to figure out about form, composition, color arrangement, and who knows what else. And I have the time, the space and the interest to pursue it.
I received word also tonight, that my private art student from last year, who entered the Booker T. Washington School of Performing and Visual Arts, took first place with the oil still life that I posted last week! The exhibition that I viewed last week during its reception was actually a competition. I did not know that. And this remarkable 15-year-old took first place! Words cannot express my pride for her. I look forward to our next time together to make art. She is going to go far, and always inspires me with her drive and focus.
The hour has gotten late. The past two mornings I have risen between 4 and 5 a.m., to get an early jump on the school task, and now I feel the energy beginning to wane. I have a heavy teaching load tomorrow, and am already concerned about potential regrets. I cannot let that happen.
So, thanks for reading, for staying up with me, with Hemingway, with Homer.
I paint in order to remember.
I journal because I am alone.
I blog to remind myself that I am not alone.