Wink :: 1980-1981
When I think back, I realize that many of my paintings from college were figurative — as in the human figure. I didn't think of myself as a figurative painter then, or do I now, but there were often abstract figures in my work and sometimes they were the focus of the painting. I'm not particularly good at drawing the figure and rarely have that in mind. I did participate in a life drawing class a couple of years ago though — once a week in the evening for about eight weeks, with maybe 10-15 other folk. They took donations at the door to pay the facilitator and the model. I drew men and women on large pads of newsprint with charcoal, graphite and chalk. During the course of the two-hour session we'd get to draw ten to twelve poses, with a range of 1 to 30 minutes. Over the course of the session, I came out with a couple of drawings that were OK and the rest were bad.
Whenever I've played Pictionary over the years and was required to draw a figure, human or animal, they were chaotic scribbles that took me forever. My teammates usually just stared at the drawing and then at me in disbelief. "I'd need to be a clairvoyant to guess what you're drawing." I was better at drawing things like wind. The figures my father drew were crisp and clear. He always captured the action quickly and precisely. "It's a person raking the yard, um… it's a person watering the lawn!" “Yes!”
Wink was a painting I did in undergraduate school. Somehow it turned into a head-and-shoulders thing. It wasn't a very good painting, but I treated the figure in a way I never had before, so I'd always held on to it for posterity. I shipped it home from my parents' basement in Montana years ago. It’d been in storage for at least twenty-five years. Once it arrived here, I unpacked it and leaned it against a wall in our living room. It remained there for a couple of weeks before my wife said anything. Eventually she asked me what the painting was about. I was surprised by her question. I wasn't surprised because she asked a question, but because of the question she asked. I assumed the image was so obvious to everyone that it would be hard to interpret it any other way. In fact that was the primary reason I disliked it. It felt limiting. When I told her what it was she said she still didn't really see it. Maybe. Kinda? I was relieved. It kind of changed everything. It reminded me to relax about what I think I'm painting because I often don’t know and I can't usually control what it becomes anyway. Painting is the point.
Songs :: Moods for Moderns by Elvis Costello, Runaway and Home by Bonnie Raitt
© C. Davidson