painting one's race.

I came up with this color chart (for lack of a better term) months ago but pulled it from my facebook page after about ten minutes.  I thought it was too much of a soapbox statement and while it still is a bit, I think the merit of the concept behind my somewhat iffy execution is worth posting here.  (I'm especially brave on here because I think I'm the only one reading my own blog anyway!)

Here goes ...

Having an anti-muse in your life.

The Anti-Muse

by Richard Kilroy

Have you ever heard of an anti-muse?  Me neither. that is until I moved into the apartment next to apartment number six.  Anti-muse is a term I coined after living in the unit next to someone who is just that.

Don't get me wrong,

I live in a great building.  Most of the neighbors are friendly and quiet.  My landlady, Minnie, is an 89 year old Japanese lady who gives you fish flavored cookies and a roll of toilet paper when you pay your rent.  I love it here.  I love Minnie and her fish cookies.  

I've lived in the same building for over 15 years.  My mom lived in apartment number one - the downstairs corner apartment.  When she became ill, I moved into the unit above Mom to take care of her.  That's when I moved in to the apartment next to the anti-muse.  

Her name is actually Molly and she doesn't realize she has this moniker but she's certainly worked hard for it.  Molly does laundry five nights a week, three loads per night.  I later discovered that a load of laundry to her consists of exactly five articles of clothing.  "I like to keep things separated." she told me once.  

She shuffles out of her apartment like she's in leg shackles, usually banging her head on wind chimes that she's hung from one of the light fixtures on our shared balcony.  Then there's the ping-ping-ping sound from her set of keys clanking against what must be a large metal key holder.  Then there's some full-throated Broadway-voiced talking to herself:

"For Gad's sake, where's my soap?  Who took my soap?  Ah jeez-Louise, what next …?"

Then the shook - shook - shook rasping of her sandals across the walkway and after minutes on the staircase and some additional grumbling, Molly makes it to the laundry room at last.    

Her timing is exquisite.  The moment I turn on my work light, put colors on a palette and begin to paint, Molly gets to her work as well.  It's almost chilling how well timed with me she is.  I don't have any set hour to paint - sometimes it's after dinner, sometimes it's 3 a.m. - as long as I get six hours in in a day, I've had a good work day.  But no matter when I commit myself to my canvas, my liner brush dips into a jar of water, Molly is on the move.  I admit to wondering if she's set up motion detectors in my painting area of my apartment so we can be synchronized.  

Molly usually begins her night of anti-musing by arguing with her roommate Lucy.  

"Who says you can do that!  Well you can't!  Don't ask me why!  I dunno - you just can't!  Stop asking me Lucy!"  she'll say in a voice that sounds like a five year old girl with a drinking problem.  

I usually have a good ten minutes of productive painting time while Molly sorts her laundry and her life-issues in our downstairs laundry facility.  It's when I hear that zombie chain-gang shuffle approach that I know we're in for the second act of her balcony performance.  Shook- shook- shook up each step and it's usually around my picture window when she begins her dialogue with her roommate.   More jangling of keys, one more head smack into the wind chimes sending out notes all around her like cartoon birds swirling about her crown.  

"What more do ya wanfromme for Gad's sake??  We've talked about this already … ah hell …" she yells into her apartment while dropping her keys onto the balcony floor.  When she eases over with a loud "oomph'' to pick up the keys, that's usually when she also spills her powdered detergent. 

"look what ya made me do now ?? - ah hell…"

All of this while I try to make sense of a portrait I've been commissioned to paint.  This painting is due in three days and the photo the patron chose - out of scores of perfectly good images - is the only one that's wildly out of focus.  This isn't a fuzzy photo, no, the guy in the photo looks like he has two heads the motion blur is so bad.   I have to make this look flattering but it's an image out of 'Jacob's Ladder'.   

I know - I know, I chose this profession.  This is really all my fault.  I'll be a painter!  So romantic!  I'll stretch my own canvas and grind pigments out of hand picked berries!  

I try not to get angry. 

And I know Molly has it tough.  Her social life consists of a room mate who is apparently psychotically disagreeable and then those five nights of laundry.  What is peculiar (and I admit, I've given this way too much thought) is that in the fifteen years Molly's been my neighbor,  I've only seen her in the same green stretchy pants and out of shape floral blouse with the ruffled collar.  Why doesn't she wear any of the clothes she washes?  Where does it all go to?  I found myself thinking less about my painting but giving much thought to the idea that perhaps Molly is running a laundry business out of her apartment.

The other peculiar thing I wonder about is why is it that I've never seen this Lucy woman?  She never checks the mail?  Never goes on an errand?  Now God knows Lucy doesn't need to do laundry, I'm sure Molly's got her back on that one - but does she ever see daylight?  Is she strapped to a bed and Molly collects her unemployment checks?  I picture Lucy is really mummified and sitting in some rocking chair among huge piles of freshly laundered towels.  

I sometimes think I'll ring the doorbell when Molly's in the laundry room just to see who answers but I never do.  

It's Christmas time and this portrait of the blurry man has a firm deadline - it's a present and I think he's giving this image to his girlfriend and I can't decide which head to paint - there's two of them - maybe one of them is his true self?   I try squinting in hopes that the siamese twins will somehow merge.  

Molly senses I'm on a deadline - she's in full- wash- spin- rinse-drop-soap-smack wind chimes repeat mode.  Every ten minutes the door swings open, more diaphragm projected dialogue to Lucy about not being an effective friend, another thwack of her forehead, more sonar pinging of the keys and the shuffle downstairs to deliver a dash of softener. 

I'm in my ten minute window so I quickly dip my brush into the paint when …there's a rhythmic car door slamming sound.  Every three seconds a wham comes from somewhere below.  

Who can that be?  Molly doesn't own a car.   But it sounds like a car door shutting.  But that'd have to be a 22 door sedan - there's too many slams.

This is ridiculous.  I can't paint so I decide to take out the trash.  I've got to see what's causing the slamming while not seeming like I'm looking for what's causing the slamming because that would make me look like, you know, the neurotic neighbor.  There's no car in the drive - no one around but there it is again!  Another whamming from nearby.  It's coming from the laundry room.

Someone is slamming car doors inside the laundry room.

As I round the corner, I see Molly lift the washer's lid all the way open - drop in a lace-trimmed sock - and let the lid fall to its frame.  WHAM!  She lifts the lid again, pours in a capful of Baby-Soft and lets the lid fly away from her fingertips.  

Did I mention, it's two a.m.? 

I almost drop my garbage bag.  This is a whole new level of anti-musing!  She's upped her game!  Wow!  I'm impressed.  Everyone in our building is in bed - I'm standing with my mouth agape, holding a trash bag watching my neighbor drop another sock into the washing machine like she was feeding a whale - and then let the lid free fall.  I feel freakishly connected to her madness in this moment so I hurry off to the trash bin.  

Molly shuffles up stairs and I feign busy at the dumpster so I don't have to, you know, be nice to her in the stairwell.  Don't be shocked.  I'm angry with this woman.  If I tried to smile at her right now my mouth would look like a seismograph reading.  I want to paint! I need to paint!  I pay for things when I paint.  Why is this woman in my life?  Where did she come from anyway?  She had a head injury in her past, I just know it.  And what the hell did she do with Lucy anyway?  I want to know!  My neighbor in apartment six ate her roommate and now she talks to her bones like she's still there so no one gets suspicious.

Well I'm more than suspicious.  I'm ready to blow this case wide open.  Then Molly can do laundry duty in jail where people like her belong - that'll be her payment for years of slow shuffles and spilled detergent.  Hell, the poor dryer's motor has burned out twice in the last five years because of her obsessive choring.  And think of the money!  How does she afford her laundry habit?  75 cents a wash-load times 3 loads and then 3 dries - times 5 nights a week??  Not to mention the boxes of Tide - the gallons of Baby Soft, the bleach, the Woolite - the cling-frees!    And again, what does she do with all of those clothes she never wears??  Does she dance around in forty cardigans while dead Lucy looks on?  

I can't stand her anymore!  I'm tired of being quiet!  Artist types are supposed to be the silent sufferers but no more.  I'm going to yell in her face in the same volume she uses!  I'm going to tell her about all of her interruptions of my work.  About how many times I stopped painting, stopped thinking, stopped understanding life because she wore me down.  How many straight lines in my paintings went all a wiggle because of her sudden door slams.  All of my missteps and missed opportunities are all her fault!   I'll tell her how I could be in galleries all over the world and wouldn't be reduced to painting blurry two headed monsters if it weren't for her inane dialogue with her dead Lucy.   Everything will be uttered in one run-on sentence and then I'm going to rip down those wind chimes while she cries.  

I am ready.  

I start for the staircase…

I now hear Molly's wind chime collision and the inevitable, "Ah hell, I dunno know Lucy, you figure it out!  Now look what you made me do??" and then the sound of her door slamming and she's gone.  Wait.  She's gone?  She never moves this fast!  How did this happen??  I didn't get up the stair case fast enough!  

Now I'll have to wait another ten minutes until she reemerges to add a sheet of bounce and by then I won't be as angry as I am right now dammit.  

As I round the stair case to my landing I notice that there's something left at my door.  

A small box.

It's wrapped in gold foil with a neatly looped green bow on top.  

I pick it up, look at the tag which reads, 'To Richard.  I hope you have a very merry Christmas.  Love, Molly.'  

What's this?  She took my anger.  She took my anger …  she's not allowed to do that, is she?  She's taken everything else, she can't take this too ...

I fumble with the box, trying to find the scotch taped line - and open the wrapping.  I Pop off the lid, pull away some cotton and now I see:  It's a small snow globe with glitter drifting lazily inside.  A small village tableaux - something out of Mary Poppins.  It's tiny and dainty and perfect.  

All of my rage drains from me.  It's a snow globe.  I defy anyone to be angry while holding a snow globe.   

I can't hate her now.  It's simply not possible.  I could just see her and Lucy wrapping snow globes in gold foil - it's just too sweet.  

And so I decided she may not be a very effective anti-muse after all because she ended up inspiring me that night.  I decided which head to paint and I finished the blurry man before sunrise.

And all was well in my building.  Even the wind chimes sounded like Christmas carols that night.        

      

   

Painting for art's sake or to pay bills ...

Close up section of 'Lee's Desk'  in acrylics on wood panel. 

When does the art leak out of the work and it becomes just work?  For example:  I was commissioned to do a painting of some books, a pair of reading glasses and a tea cup, a simple still-life done in photo-realism style.  Since I was (happily) trusted to design the work, I could choose books with ornate binding but wait, that changes things, financially speaking.  Let me explain, it will take another two sessions to get the gold to shimmer and the numerous inlayed lines to be painted neatly.  Spine lettering is a consideration too.  Choose the book with the difficult logo or the block letters?  Decide Richard, it all makes a big difference. 

The teacup, it could be one of the floral patterned cups I have from my mom’s old set – I love those - but it will take hours to do that pattern – especially since the design has to take the form of a compound curved surface on that cup.  Add another two sessions if I want the flowers.   If I choose a smooth white china cup – my work is cut in half.   Flowers? Yes?  No?  Decide Richard, money is waiting.

Eye glasses in the case?  One session.  No case and we get to see those beautiful glints off the lenses?  Three sessions.  Ka-ching. 

Lighting, another issue – stark key light coming in from one angle allows for nearly half the work to fall into black paint.  Want to add fill-light for subtlety in the shadows?  Tack on another three sessions.   

How about a doily?  Lace? Are you kidding?  Add a week! 

What has any of this to do with storytelling?  What do these decisions have to do with emotion?  Artistry? 

Nothing. 

They have to do with economics and what I described has nothing to do with the process I go through when deciding what to paint, unfortunately.  If I did consider these things, I would have faster turn-arounds on my work and I’d have enough money to pay my DWP bill.   

Everything I paint every time I paint it ends up being an enormous project.  For example: I can’t not see what’s reflected in that cup.  It’s there right in front of my eyes!  The table and the glasses are bouncing up on to the underside of the cup.  I have to paint it.  Why?  I don’t know why.  There’s reflected light inside the shadow of the fold in the cloth.  A highlight inside a shadow!  How can that even be?  But it’s there – right in front of my eyes.  I can ignore it but then I can’t sleep.  The lettering on the spine I just painted could be more even.  Who cares?  I can barely detect the flaw.  I paint it completely out and do it over.  Why?

The shadows should be cooler blue – the highlights more ochre, not sunny enough.  I’m too bright over-all – I need to knock down the whole painting by two values.  What was I even thinking?  I’m nowhere near what it really looks like, feels like.  I’m a sham.  I’m living logic in half-light.  I can’t even find the proper ellipse for the saucer.  The math is wrong – the chroma is too much.  I do this until I stop hating it.  Little by little I stop hating the painting until I like it.  If I don’t, I end up with those seascapes at the waiting room at Kaiser.

I can’t hand over a painting I don’t like.  I tried it once in my life.  One time I was lucky enough to get a commission to paint the poster art for a French film.  The releasing company wanted something blowsy and washy – a watercolor look from 1960’s ad-art perhaps.  

Oh My Lord was I the wrong man for this job. (‘you’ve come to a goat’s house for wool’ as they say in Alabama)  But I so wanted to paint movie posters.  My work in a poster case!  I can point it out to people as I just so happen to walk them past it.  

The company’s art department showed me numerous references – all of them terrific, loose and free renderings from other movie key-art.  My God they were free paintings.  No math – no layers, no under-painting – no underpants.  Native art.  

I was to paint a portrait of the young lead actress along with a gauzy, impressionistic image of Paris behind her. 

I gave them nothing like that at all.

I should have been using a two inch sable brush, soft – willowy strokes – all of it done in one happy and free sitting.  I used a micro-lettering brush – the kind used for painting text the size of the Bible’s.  It took me two months.   Their art director was this very hip and sweet woman named Chop or something like that and she just stood in front of my final painting and wondered silently why she could make out every gap in every tooth – every crease on the woman’s face – every strand and every split-end of every hair on her head and why could you do a geological survey of Paris - if one were so inclined -in my rendering of the city? 

Of course they never used the artwork.

I was crushed that I could not keep from over-doing it.  Why?  I wish I knew why.  I hate that I don’t know why.  I just do.  I just do.  

I finish the painting of the books and the glasses and the teacup inside of my deadline and I'm even paid pretty well for it.  Thankfully, I opted to not paint that lace doily.     

Painting portraits for a living is a tough business.  For one thing, most people don't know what they actually look like so your job to replicate someone's appearance is already a losing proposition.   Every facial feature puts you at crossroads.  He's got heavy eyelids.  Why?  Too much sleep?  Too much wine?  Bad parenting?  Well never mind all of that - you can't paint those lids as is or he'll look like himself and trust me, no one wants that.  Make the eyes brighter - always do that.  Add flicks of light no matter that there were none to be found in your photo reference.  Everyone should peer out from glistening eyes - it's a trade secret.  Don't mind telling you since we're already here talking art.    

An arm and a leg ...

Know where that saying comes from?  Portrait painters used to charge more for adding limbs to their paintings.  Want that hand of yours resting on the captain's chair?  It'll cost ya.  Lose those legs - save some dough.

As I finish up one of my tougher portraits I'm left with the feeling that it matters less that the work captures the patron and more important that they look amazing sitting in that wing-backed chair staring blankly at us with a smile that looks like an iron-on decal.  What's most important is to keep in mind that these paintings are heirlooms and people want to look back on Uncle Jimmy as having great hair and the lightest of eyelids.  We're selling idealized memories here, nothing archival  -- these works are eulogies and eulogies don't speak of smile lines.

The worst thing that can happen with a portrait that doesn't please the patron?  You're stuck with it.  What the hell can you do with that double portrait of that woman with the thick frizzy hair and her calico? No one wants someone else's portrait - that's like buying a diary with words already scribbled in it.  Unless you're famous and troubled in which case a portrait of anyone you might paint will sell, you probably need to gesso over the work and reuse the canvas as a tiny sail on some boat.