Whenever I paint or draw, it feels like the medium itself is trying to teach me lessons about life. Perhaps art is like prayer – it is a method of attentiveness, a word that Revsimmy uses so appropriately in the comments here.
Art is a hard disciplinarian in a number of areas and if I cut corners or disobey I cannot give birth to the piece of art that hides within the blank sheet of paper. And I fail much more often than I succeed.
The first discipline that I would do well to learn, both in art and in life is to tell the truth. The actual, hard, real, raw truth. If I compromise, flatter or fail to take time to look carefully and represent faithfully, then the art is compromised, marred and dishonest. In my head, I still have the words of my art teacher who was both a fantastic artist and a masterful teacher. “Represent it faithfully, look carefully”.
The process is iterative, a brushstroke – stand back and look, compare carefully, another brushstroke – stand back and look…
If I try to give someone a kinder hairline, a stronger jaw, a less wrinkled face, then not only does it not look like them, but it doesn’t look like anyone. Somehow all the features of our faces are connected, and all the boughs of a tree affect each other, the subtleties of light and shade and the intricacies of the forces that link everything together are too complex for me to fake – the real thing is all I can represent.
Another thing that Art teaches me, that I need to learn in life, is to carry on even through confusion and even in the face of contradiction. Sometimes I don’t understand why the colours are as they are, or the lines and shapes seem strange. It is hard to paint or live when confused. But sometimes it is those areas of faithfulness in the strangeness that are most beautiful. It takes maturity to accept the strange colours or shapes that the piece of art demands. And yet, when I look closely at the grand masters, I find lime green on the forehead or turquoise on the cheeks. And when I stand back it is a rich melody that speaks of a truth that is beyond my smallness.
However, suddenly, the confusion breaks and I am one with the piece. My conscious and subconscious work in harmony and I know in my mind's eye exactly how the feature that I am painting looks – I know where the light comes from, where the shading will fall, the shape of the eye socket, the bagginess of the skin, the shine of understanding in the subject's soul or the depths of their despair. I connect and the paint flows and I am one with the subject, with the brush and with myself.
I suppose I feel like it is these moments that are heavenly, perhaps it is when I start telling the truth and trust myself completely and the editor in my head starts working for me – building myself up rather than pulling me down. I don’t know. Moments like it are fleeting, but the quality of the art is so much better when it is like that.
Finally, and most difficult of all, is the ability to let my subconscious tell the story and to let the art become abstract. The truth telling goes beyond mere representation to the deeper truth of myth, and that is frightening and it is a vulnerable but healing place. I think that is something we reach towards when we say we are spiritual or when we pray. We know there is a deeper truth that our conscious mind can’t access. It can’t be weighed and evaluated, it can’t be grasped or sought, but it finds us in stillness and humility.
Art is never a relaxing hobby for me – it is a discipline in overcoming my flailing self to find my still self and a struggle to refuse my weaknesses in order to embrace my vulnerabilities. Perhaps this explains why I do it so rarely, why it is so tempting not to observe Lent or not to pray, not to face myself in the scriptures, not to listen to the words of those who know me best. Spiritual discipline is hard, and my over-indulgent self wants to turn away.