The instructor is José Seoane (http://www.seoanestudio.com/) and he's pretty awesome. His Cuban accent is just thick enough that when I'm listening to him discuss someone else's painting, I can close my eyes and picture Antonio Banderas, or that Bee from the Nasonex commercials, and then let my imagination take over. Well, I don't really imagine the Bee whispering sweet nothings into my ear, but whatever. If the Bee wants to take me to dinner he can nibble my earlobe all he'd like.
And, frickin' yes, Antonio Banderas is from Spain and Cuba and Spain aren't the same, and neither are their accents. Shuddy, ok? I speak English and French. Everything else sounds vaguely similar to my untrained ear.
Right. So José is a remarkable painter, and even more, he's a remarkable instructor. One of the classmates pointed out that none of our paintings are the same, or really, even similar, and yet, we all received the same instruction. I think that's a sign of a great teacher-- to be able to impart wisdom on his students without altering their sense of self in the process. Cool stuff.
I have been looking forward to this class since April or May, when I beat up that old lady to get her spot. I showed up on Monday thinking, "Oh, I'm so abstract and crazy! I will have no problem feeling something and transcribing it on paper." But, by the end of the class Monday, I was tracking down that old lady.
I knocked on her door. She cracked it open, saw who it was, and slammed it shut. I knocked again and said, "Hey, so, uh, listen. I'm sorry for the Brutus The Barber Beefcake Sleeper Hold I placed on you back in April. It was, maybe, unnecessary. So, uh, hey, open the door. Please?"
"No! I'm calling the police!" Crap. I could see her silhouette holding an old fashioned land line telephone through the sheers on her big bay window.
"Uh, no. Please. It's just that, I uh, I know I shouldn't've like, knocked you out and then pretended to be you and called from your phone and said, "Please take me out of the art class." in my old lady voice."
"Go on." she said, in her real old lady voice.
"Well, I went to the class. And José Seoane is amazing. He's innovative and super helpful and great. But, uh, I suck at abstract art, so maybe you want your spot back?"
"No! You make your bed, you lie in it, young lady." So then, of course, I started to cry because first, she complimented me by calling me young, and then second, it meant that I was gonna have to go back Tuesday, despite sucking the hind tit Monday. I sat down on her front stoop and wailed pathetic sobs. I pulled out my sketch and used it to blow my nose, since the sketch was going to get no worse with the addition of nasal secretions.
The door creaked open. A blue haired head poked out and said, gently, "Oh honey. You can do it. If you can figure out how to actually perform the Sleeper Hold on someone, when it's not a real hold because everyone knows the WWF is fake, then you can make some abstract art. Now get the f*** off my porch before I sick Marshmallow on you!" She kicked me in the back and yelled for Marshmallow. I, having been kicked in the back, fell into her shrubbery. When I righted myself, I looked around to see whether Marshmallow was an ironic name for her dog when I realized Marshmallow was her Ostrich, and that Ostrich was pissed.
Hissing at me and looking very, very cross, it nudged the front door open a crack. While peeing my pants, I said, "Uh, you didn't have your bird when I came over here in April did you?"
The old lady cackled, "Oh no. I got her afterwards and named her after YOUR ASS! Sic'em Marshmallow!"
I ran to the car and rolled up the windows. Watching it would have been quite anti-climactic, since there was no actual 'rolling' that happened. I grabbed the four buttons and pressed them skyward with all my might. The windows, thinking they were in an elevator and not a high speed Ostrich chase, went up slowly while "The Girl From Ipanema" played softly in the background. I have GOT to get that off my iPod.
My air conditioning gets fixed next week (due to the art class) which also would have aided my getaway, because I wouldn't've had to leave the damn windows down to keep my children from becoming edamame while I was talking to the old lady. But whatever, I was safe in the car with my windows up.
It would have also been better had I googled "Ostrich information" before tearing off down the street.
Things I Wish I'd Known Before Trying To Give
My Seat Back To That Damned Old Lady and Her Stupid Ostrich:
1) Ostriches can run roughly 100 km/hr, or 60mph
2) Most residential areas are zoned for 40 km/hr (or, like, 25mph)
3) Fines for racing your car 110 km/hr in a school zone, even in the summer when school is out, are outrageous. Like, impounded-car outrageous.
4) Ostriches are tall enough to stand at your driver's door and bite you through the still-open sun roof. Stupid still-open sunroof with its own special button far from the other buttons that do up the other windows. It closes just as slowly as the windows, but to the soundtrack of "Little Spanish Flea" and the bird will peck at your fingers while you hold them up at the close-roof-button.
At any rate, I've been painting all week.
(The kiddos went between Grandma's and my beloved, amazing babysitter. She took the kids on a scavenger hunt today. They went for a walk around the block looking for a dozen cool things. She left her list on the counter, or I never would've known! That's how cool she is. You could feel envious of my sitter. I would be cool with that. I'm envious of my sitter. Oh, the pain I will have at the end of tomorrow when I have to come to grips with the fact that I no longer will have someone amazing here once a week to give me a day off.)
Let me tell you something: creating art is like creating a life-- either your own or someone else's, and ART is not as easy as raising kids. Trust me.
When I started, I picked my canvas size and shape. I made my canvas with wood and nails and glue and staples and fabric. I stretched it. I made it mine and put a protective layer of gesso on it. While that dried, I sketched out my ideas on a paper.
I showed José who smiled and said, "That is nice. But, what about this? This area is beautiful and real. Try and see if that can be your focus." I looked back at the sketch I'd been so proud of and realized it was contrived and very mall-art-store. Not that there's anything bad about that, I am quite drawn to many coffee-house type prints. But if I am going to make art, it should be ME, mine, not something I could buy at Starbucks. Yes. Yes.
But, uh, that spot that is authentic and real on my sketch pad? That was where I'd drawn some circles trying to get my pen to work right. Frick. Frickty frick frick.
That was Monday. Now you're caught up to the ostrich part from Monday night.
After I iced the beak wounds on my hands and head, I was distressed all evening wondering how on earth I was going to deconstruct my ideas enough to make abstract art. I decided my original idea of "water" wasn't really where I wanted to go. I changed my focus, checked out a bunch of pictures of my new idea and felt shaky but better about going to art class on Tuesday.
I rode my bike over on Tuesday morning (my car was impounded after the ostrich incident. Honda said they could fix my AC in the impound lot, so that's at least good.) and was eager to put paint to canvas. By lunch, I was feeling really, really crappy. Oh, not physically (don't worry, ostriches aren't rabies carriers), but about my painting. It looked horrible. I mean, really, immature, Elmo-style colours and images. Not good. No bueno as they say in other places, possibly Cuba, possibly Spain, possibly Russia.
I sped home at the end of the day and angrily stopped my bike hard in the driveway leaving a long black skid mark. I looked back and gave the skid mark The Finger and sulked inside. I loaded up the two kids in the bike trailer and put my sitter on the handlebars and took her home. I stomped around the house that night being cross and cantankerous. I couldn't sleep thinking about how my brain was gonna fix my painting the next day.
I finally fell asleep and dreamed and dreamed and dreamed. All night long my brain worked to figure out the problem of my crappy painting and how to make it better. I awoke exhausted the next morning. But, I also awoke feeling peaceful. I knew that the more I obsessed about it, the worse things would get. I embraced the idea that the painting would be what it is supposed to be and I am simply there as an instrument to make it real. I went back to the studio, discussed things over with my painting and set to work. I let my painting decide what needed to go where. I called José over when I needed someone to translate what the painting wanted me to do (when I couldn't quite understand) and otherwise became an instrument, instead of a creator.
And. I feel good about what I was able to create after I just let everything go.
In fact, tonight after class, I loaded the painting onto my bike/back like a giant, flat turtle shell, and I headed to that old lady's house.
I propped it up in her driveway and rang the doorbell. She saw the painting and smiled. "I knew you could do it." I smiled, walked over and, upon seeing Marshmallow outside, in her pen, taking a nap, I gave the old lady a hug. We laughed at our tomfoolery and vowed to be friends forevermore. I told her she could have the painting and that I was sorry for attacking her. She invited me into the house; we had tea and blueberry scones. We made plans to take Kiddo #1 ostrich-back riding next week, "But, I'm busy Tuesdays for the months of September and October, so it'll have to be either Monday or Wednesday." I looked at her smiled and said, "No big deal. Wednesday is great."
Then I walked around the table and gave her another Sleeper Hold. She, realizing her fatal error, stabbed me in the thigh with a tiny fork and broke a teacup on my forehead. I roared but held on until she went limp. I squinted my eyes and glared at her blue hair while she snored softly into her pretty, floral china plate. Who does she think she's fooling? Did she really think I wouldn't know that the very popular pottery class is held on Tuesdays in September and October? For shame, old lady. For shame.
I traced the cord back to her land line and dialed the number. "Hello? Is this where I call to remove myself from a sold out art class?" I've still got it, baby. Yeah.
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