"I like my smock.
You can tell the quality of the artist by the quality of his smock.
Actually, I just like to say smock.
Actually, I just like to say smock.
Smock smock smock smock smock smock."
-- Bill Watterson, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
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| Self portrait 2-6-14 |
When I was a little kid, my friend Susie had an older sister. A high school sister. Who painted.
I remember standing in her bedroom doorway watching her at her easel. I remember the music wafting out -- probably Peter Frampton or somebody else really cool. Her name was Lisa and she was beautiful and she wiped her paintbrushes off right on the faded thighs of her bell-bottom blue jeans.
I thought that was so cool. I thought those jeans were so cool, all dabbed and smeared and speckled with paint of every color, like confetti.
I, of course, was not allowed to clean off my paintbrushes on my jeans. I wasn't even allowed to paint in the house. We always had to "take it outside" onto the picnic table, the "it" being those terrible, dry, hard little cakes of watercolors in the flip-top plastic tray, with paper Dixie cups for brush rinsing.
Now that I'm grown and no one is the boss of me, I can paint where and when I want. And guess what? I wipe my brushes off on my thighs, just like Lisa did. Except instead of using my jeans, I wear an apron that covers the thighs of my jeans.
I never wash my apron. I guess it's like that weird tradition about not washing your karate belt. I don't want to risk turning back time and forgetting everything I've learned while wearing it. It's a map of sorts. A memory. Evidence of where I've been and what I've done, and the art work (good and bad) that helped me navigate the terrain.
It's actually a cooking apron from the Hard Rock Cafe. I don't even know who gave it to me, or when, or why they brought me an apron instead of a t-shirt.
But every time I put it on, I have this momentary flashback to where I'm standing outside Lisa's half-open bedroom door looking in. The lights are low and she looks impossibly cool in front of her easel, with that sexy music wafting out, and her feathered blond 70s hair spilling over her shoulders. She's wearing those faded blue jeans with the paint smears all over them. When she turns toward me, it's in super slow-motion, and she smiles and there's a paintbrush in her hand and she breezily wipes it off right there on the thighs of her jeans, like she does it all the time, which she must judging by all of the other paint smeared there. And my knees almost crumble underneath me because it is so incredibly cool.
I'll never be as cool as Lisa, and I'll never be much of a painter, but something happens whenever I wrap my apron around myself and cinch it down -- a little thrill goes through me that it's time to make something. It's time to create, and explore, and get messy.
That feeling is a good thing.
It means it's time to start an adventure and see where it takes me.
And another good thing?
It always starts at Lisa's bedroom door.
I never wash my apron. I guess it's like that weird tradition about not washing your karate belt. I don't want to risk turning back time and forgetting everything I've learned while wearing it. It's a map of sorts. A memory. Evidence of where I've been and what I've done, and the art work (good and bad) that helped me navigate the terrain.
It's actually a cooking apron from the Hard Rock Cafe. I don't even know who gave it to me, or when, or why they brought me an apron instead of a t-shirt.
But every time I put it on, I have this momentary flashback to where I'm standing outside Lisa's half-open bedroom door looking in. The lights are low and she looks impossibly cool in front of her easel, with that sexy music wafting out, and her feathered blond 70s hair spilling over her shoulders. She's wearing those faded blue jeans with the paint smears all over them. When she turns toward me, it's in super slow-motion, and she smiles and there's a paintbrush in her hand and she breezily wipes it off right there on the thighs of her jeans, like she does it all the time, which she must judging by all of the other paint smeared there. And my knees almost crumble underneath me because it is so incredibly cool.
I'll never be as cool as Lisa, and I'll never be much of a painter, but something happens whenever I wrap my apron around myself and cinch it down -- a little thrill goes through me that it's time to make something. It's time to create, and explore, and get messy.
That feeling is a good thing.
It means it's time to start an adventure and see where it takes me.
And another good thing?
It always starts at Lisa's bedroom door.
