Left brain, right brain...back and forth I go...and yes, I bitch about it and wonder if I'm quite sane all the time...but however fricion-ful my swings, I'm comforted tonight knowing that there are a lot of people out there crazier than I. I'm not nuts; merely maladjusted.
Yes, indeed, watercolor class started tonight. I'm not sure I'd trust any one of my classmates to drive my car to the 7-11 and back...well, that one gal, maybe. And the instructor. But none of the others. I had expected a bunch of hobbyists--or perhaps a pile of frighteningly serious painters--I patently had not expected the occupational therapy crowd that showed up. I kept my eyes on my own paper the whole time, when I wasn't examining the still life. It just seemed wise.
At any rate, I'm going to learn a lot. I bit the bullet and signed on for the Advanced group, figuring that I really could not sit through another how-to-negative-paint class. While I hadn't expected to be quizzed by the instructor ("What are the complementary colors? Do you know the difference between a warm and a cool? Between a value and a tone? Have you ever glazed?") I am confident that I will pass muster in here. At least, I was able to answer all the questions.
This is a different kind of painting from that I've done before. Left to my own devices I love working wet-in-wet and seeing what I can make of the interesting accidents. This instructor has no patience with that, however, and I see his point. After all, Picasso could draw an excellent cow. So could Rothko. So could Pollack (I think). I know Warhol could. I agree with the principle that one has no business being abstract until and unless one has a superb technical underlay.
And oh-my-god am I going to shore up my technical underlay in the next eight weeks! That's terrific, though it will be a challenge.
Mercifully, I did get a decent grounding in glazing and wet-over-dry techniques in the Dayton workshop. And the time I'd spent on the living room floor in Dayton working through the Skip Lawrence book doing exercise after exercise turned out to be time well-spent. I'm abreast of the other students at least and perhaps a bit ahead. That pleases me; it means I will get the most I can out of the class without having to do remedial work.
We're going to be focusing very hard on drawing skills, also. Mine need work, so I am tickled. Tonight we weren't allowed to touch paint until the last hour...in the best Classical style.
God, it feels good to be doing something, anything, that's not law school. Talking with D and M today, we realized that we're all going a little bonkers. Last semester, we didn't realize just how this was hitting us. Now that we've had a break, and now that we have a whisper more of free time, we're getting some perspective. The big picture isn't a pretty one--in a way we were better off in November when the whole world turned on the Almighty Outlines.
Law school twists you: emotionally, psychologically, physically. Yes, it achieves its ends, but there are stories of students who swan dive off cliffs when grades come out, and I can well believe them. I've certainly been in that mental place. We find ourselves a little frightened, now, of what we are becoming, have become: isolated, inbred, hyperfocused. We all observed today that we're barely able to speak to anyone outside law school or legal profession right now. We have nothing to talk about with the rest of the world.
It hit me in retrospect, after that talk, that this is another reason I took C's emotional departure so hard. It left me with nothing outside this world on which I could hang a care. Perhaps it was necessary, though. Certainly in the wake of the "sayonara" I had a number of fast-developing career epiphanies. Further, I had a number of emotional epiphanies. And those aside, it's not fair to one person, or to me, to hang that much on them when they're not able to take it. He didn't know he was a lifeline. Hell, I didn't know it. That was a nasty shock. Now I do know, and I can--and will--adjust my brain accordingly.
Maybe next year will be better. Fuck, it has to be, or no one would get out of here with all his marbles intact.
19:54:18 - 02-03-00
Recent entries:
Sealy Writes - 04-04-18
Rewind to "Everything's Fine" - 12-25-17
What We Have So Far - 12-25-17
Lightning Crashes - 2017-12-24
Long Years in a Short Time - 09-11-13
My profile
Archives
Notes
Diaryland
Random
RSS
others:
kitchenlogic
peregryn
gizmonator
slithy-toves
gerrybuilt
quoted
dlove