I settle in to an afternoon of art-making, content that I am on to the methodical repetitive stage with this piece.
It is what I am needing right now.
I am, thankfully, past the initial decision-making – the wrestling with ideas, forced to concentrate, to elaborate, to simplify.
That very first kernel of an idea, that creative surge, the one that hits in the wee small hours, that keeps me from sleeping, when the migraine-like aches and visual pools of colour keep swimming in my head, constantly shifting, melting into each other, nudging along the idea until it is practically painful if it is not focused upon, put down, recorded, resolved.
I have been there, all right.
When I near the point of unravelling, the art is there waiting for me.
And it occurs to me that this is the reality of art-making.
That first tiny idea, those initial decisions, hold the power in the creative process.
The rest is just following orders.
I’ve skipped lunch, as I want to keep at it. But by mid-afternoon, parched and starving, I retrieve some crackers, cheese, and trail-mix, and get a small kettle-boiling fire going.
I stretch out my back, aching as it is.
For three hours I’ve been kneeling over my large work – painting in warm white and titanium white acrylic, in order to tighten up the imagery, leaving only what is necessary.
What is of real importance.
I then go in with graphite and coloured pencils, drawing to add more detail to the trees,
Darks, and light wispy branches, marks which reflect my time spent here
the last eight days.
It is a sort of dance I have with the artwork.
Then I walk away from it.
I, in fact, literally turn my back on it, so as to re-set my vision by staring out over the bay.
I make tea, eat, and pace back and forth along the cliff-edge of my site. When the time comes, I prop the artwork up, steadying it against two fir trees, but still keep myself from looking directly at it. I take ten giant steps away, and turn.
Okay.
I immediately see several areas that need work.
It is such a different perspective, going from the flat plane parallel to the sky, to the work which now faces me as if we were in the midst of a duel.
More work to do.
Something is needed.
I knuckle down.
This is it, I tell myself, my last three hours to work on this piece, in this place.
Bud. Wren. And me.
My straying thoughts.
Focus.
The artwork.
Is that what it needs?
Perhaps those old feelings, held like liquid in a vessel, need to pour out.
The hurt, the sadness, the heartbreaking reality of our love
needs to pour
out
in thin red tentative unsure marks.
August 1974
In a lifetime punctuated by awkward moments, (as in any life, I suppose), that last morning of our
3-person five-day version of the Loop has to rank as
the most awkward morning
in the history of the universe.
Or maybe beyond.
We barely spoke.
We just methodically went about our duties to break camp, stow gear.
At least, we barely spoke until Wren and I met face to face, me on the descent from our site to the canoe, and Wren on her way back up.
I asked her, (unhappily but with an edge of anger), what she thought she was doing.
What.
With Bud.
This set off a short, heated exchange, mostly whispered.
She looked at me sullenly and said,“You don’t own Bud, you know.”
Her last words to me.
The paddle back to the cottage – silent.
As Bud usually sterned, being heaviest, Wren and I typically alternated between bow and middlesman. But this day she firmly took the bow, and I felt like an unwanted child between two unhappy parents. She stopped paddling on several occasions to run her hands through the water and then bury her face momentarily in her wet hands.
I suspect she was crying; I was very nearly there myself.
I turned to look at the passing shoreline just once, and took the opportunity to glance quickly at Bud.
He was broody, silent, his eyes set deep in his brow - a look I learned in later years not to mess with.
Both managed to be civil with my parents, which I can only imagine took a massive effort on both of their parts.
I, close to dissolving in tears.
I knew that my mother was on to it. She had a hawk-like eye and ability to sense even the slightest tension, and this was the tsunami of all tensions.
Wren announced her departure, her little Volkswagon loaded and ready to flee. She said “It’s been great” to the walls of the cottage
and took herself off.
Bud followed.
I stared at my parents and felt my pooling eyes brim over.
When I could no longer hear Wren’s car, I went out to receive a goodbye from Bud
as only Bud could deliver.
One in less than five words:
“I’ll call you.”
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