Paint Story

I was writing a friend about wasting a lot of time on pieces which most likely fail to interest anyone when finished and I was reminded of this story...

On a visit to my folks one day in the late 80s my mom gave me a small blank canvas and wanted me to make a piece for her.

"What do you want me to paint?" I asked.

"Just whatever," she replied.

Knowing she probably wouldn't care for the abstract expressionistic cartoony collage and paint and pen and pencil nonsense I liked to spread around flat surfaces I suggested she tell me what she had in mind and I'd head in that direction.

"I just want you to make something that's yours," she said.

So I took the canvas and eventually took it on. It was one of my "serious" pieces, the type which take way more time than anyone would realize by looking at it because I keep coming back and tweaking, adding layers, trying to get the feeling right. (There are far better ways to waste one's time, by the way, such as watching reruns of "Friends" or reading the Weekly World News.)

Almost a year later I had completed the piece and despite her wishes I had tried to make something with mom in mind, a piece she'd at least find visually appealing in the color and some of the found objects I'd mashed into the mess.

I sent the piece to mom via a family friend traveling my folks way. Being my family I of course never heard whether or not she received it.

A month or so after I'd sent off the piece I was on the phone with mom and asked if she'd got it. She had.

"So what'd yuh think?" I asked

"What was I supposed to think?" she replied.

"Do you like it?"

"What's to like? It's just a mess of stuff. We can't figure out what it is."

"You told me to make one of my pieces."

"I meant a painting..."

"That is a painting."

"I meant a painting of something you could tell what it was."

"Well I asked you to tell me what you wanted."

"I wanted you to make a piece of your art..."

And so on.

Later that year I was at the folks house and asked where the piece was.

"I think it's in the hall," mom said.

I looked, it wasn't in the hall.

"Oh that's right, I put it in our bedroom."

I went in the bedroom. I didn't see the piece.

"It's by the book case," mom replied to a hollered query.

I looked around the book case. Not there. I hollered another question down the hall.

"On one of the shelves," mom answered.

The book case was packed and I couldn't figure out how the piece was was sitting on one of the shelves. Then I spotted it on the bottom shelf. It was under a pile of books. I pulled it out and took it home with me.

The piece hung around my place for a few years. One day a friend's girlfriend saw it and commented she liked it and wondered if I could make her a piece like it some day. I took the piece of the wall and handed it to her, and said "Here, it's yours."


(June 2010)