storm
Lately, in writing about the jail, I've had a bit of difficulty. On four or five different occasions, I began to write, then decided to not post what I'd written. The reason is, quite simply, the stories are so painful, and I worried that it might be hard for people to read. From here on in, though, I'm going to describe more honestly the world of these prisoners. I can't not be honest; these men need help.
If you think that their stories might not be suitable for you to read, then I would not recommend reading on. But if, in reading, you might come to understand something new, then I believe it will have been worth it.
I sat in the middle of a rehabilitation group, in which inmates were being guided along in a discussion. About twenty guys were discussing how to treat people with respect. Some boring, old platitudes that went back and forth, and understandably these empty phrases were not received enthusiastically. Then one man got up, a young guy by the name of Macho. "Listen up. I know a few of you guys have been getting into fights with the guy on the third tier. You know who I'm talking about. Dude's so wound up, he'll fight anyone. He's ready to pop. He's crazy. But, you guys gotta leave him alone. You gotta protect that kid. He's not what he seems." The group listened. "Thing is, I know his story, and none of you guys do. I'm gonna tell it to you. When he was a little kid, just twelve years old, his mother was addicted to crack. He watched his mother run out the door to sell her body, prostituting herself to get money for her fix. His mother's a crack whore. At twelve years old, he started to buy crack for his mom, so that she wouldn't sell herself. He locked his mom in the basement, and would run the streets to get her fix, just so she wouldn't get out. He never wanted to be a drug dealer, he was just trying to save his mom. So, leave him alone, he's cool, he's a good dude. He's just dealing with stuff that you guys don't even know. Help him out."
When Macho finished speaking, I walked to the bathroom. Locking the door behind me, tears came down my face. I couldn't cry in front of the group. I couldn't believe that anybody could have a life like this. I just couldn't believe what some people go through. A feeling of helplessness came over me. I didn't know why I was there, what I was doing, why I thought I might be able to help. And then, I remembered the story of the little boy, with two loaves and fishes. Several thousand people were hungry, and needed food. The boy gave the loaves and fishes to Jesus, and Jesus performed a miracle- he multiplied them, and fed them to the thousands. I lifted up my hands, there in the bathroom, and prayed "God, here are my measly loaves and fishes. My two hands. All I know how to do is draw, and paint. Please use me, Lord, to feed these people."
The time came for me to break off, and paint. But this day, I was informed that there wasn't space for painting, and so I would be drawing instead. Storm volunteered to sit, and so we began.
Storm was from the other side of the coin. Storm used to run the streets, and he would get women addicted to drugs. He would then set them up in prostitution. But those years had passed, and now he was in jail. He spoke a lot about his daughters, about his son. For somebody who was a self confessed criminal, from the street, he had such tender affection for his children. As I drew his portrait, he asked me questions about my own life. I told him my answers were intentionally vague, for security reasons. He understood. He just wanted to know if I had a healthy life, and loved a woman. He went on to say that he had married a beautiful, amazing woman. "Kev, she works hard, she's gorgeous, she's great with the kids, she's perfect. And I fucked it up. I chose the streets over her. And now I'm divorced, and in jail." I sharpened a pencil, and blended the back of the head into shadow with the side of my fingers. "Storm, what are you going to do when you get out? You're out in three months, right?" Holding the position, perfectly still, he opened his mouth and said "Shit, Kevin. I don't know. A bunch of guys gave me their numbers, that's how it works here. You get back out to the streets, with more contacts than you had before you went to jail. I just don't want to do the same thing, though. But, what else is out there?"
As I drew Storm's eyes, buried in the half shade of his eye sockets, I wrestled with all of these thoughts. His mouth has a perpetual grin. His hair is impeccably trimmed. I drew the wrinkles in the forehead that come from a man who raises his eyebrows often. I thought about Jean Dominique Ingres' portrait drawing of Dr. Thomas Church.
Today, I was working away on a painting, in my studio. As I painted, I decided to listen to NPR. The anchor dryly addressed something or other about some election thing or other. Just as I was about to shut the radio off, "All Things Considered" came on. In this program, families of the victims of crimes were speaking out about the criminals who hurt them. Mothers who lost sons, parents who lost babies. But these people were not advocating eternal incarceration. One woman, whose son was shot and killed, spoke about her son's killer, a sixteen year old boy at the time of the shooting. A decade later, the mother went to visit her son's killer at the jail. There, at the jail, in speaking to him, she forgave him. At the end of the meeting, he asked if he could hug her, as he had nothing else to offer in exchange for her forgiveness. Twenty five years after the shooting, the killer, now a man, emerged from jail. He got an apartment next to the mother of the man he had killed. He stops in to check in on her every day. He takes out her garbage. She watches out for him. They spend weekends together. She said he is like a son to her.
Click this link, to listen to their story.
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=149297297&m=149299172
Storm, pencil on paper, 4" x 6"
coming along
So, the blue cloth has to go, now, but after a season of much work, and frustration, with this painting, I'm pleased.
reflected light
Today, a fellow artist asked the model to turn at a certain angle. Suddenly, on the back there was a breath of blue light, reflecting off the white cloth. Touches like that can make a painting.
the mystic
Margaret and I crammed our suitcases into a small rental car, squeezed my innumerable paintings above and in between the suitcases, and headed out from Florence. Margaret was six months pregnant, and we had decided that we wanted to return home to have our baby in New York. We were unable to take a flight, as she was already past the safe date for air travel. And so, we were driving across Europe, to England, to take the Queen Mary II home.
We arrived at Menton in the evening, and found rooms on the third floor of a historic villa overlooking the Mediterranean. I sat on the porch, book draped over my knee, and stared out at the sea. The loud song from the stone fountains emphasized the stillness of the air. Through the wrought iron bars, I looked down on neat rows of pruned citrus trees, and graceful,full palm trees. Not a leaf was moving. The air was clean and mild, and I understood why this town was called the pearl of France. Margaret was only a few feet from me, on the bed, and through the doors I could hear from the steady rhythm of her breathing that she had fallen asleep.
The sky above the sea was a deep blue, touched with purple. It had become too dark to read, and so I just stared out on the water. After an hour or so, I saw a light in the distance. It left as quickly as it came. A minute went by, and another light flashed, this one tinging the distant sky with a faint orange. After a few more flickers, I realized that there was a storm, way out at sea. It was miles away, and yet, the distant lightning was strong enough to temporarily illuminate the lower arc of the sky. The bolts became more visible, and soon I could make out their forked patterns, racing across the sky, left to right, top to bottom. In the dark, the sky looked starless and empty. But over the next half hour, flashes of lightning illuminated parts of an immense cloud front taking up the half of the sky. The clouds looked like enormous cauliflower, constantly growing, constantly moving, its parts turning electric blue and white. The sea foamed and surged beneath the cracks of lightning, the white caps raging in brilliant incandescence. Reluctant to be roused from its sleep, the calm garden slowly began to whisper. The tops of the palms announced the coming storm, the citrus trees swayed in agreement, and the grass rolled in waves. Deep grumbles of thunder sent ripples across the water in my glass.
As the lightning drew nearer and the thunder began to shake the building, I grew a bit uneasy. I had never seen a storm like this before. I thought to myself "This is just a thunderstorm. It's a hot front, and a cold front, and they mix. And, the friction that comes from these opposing bodies of air results in great amounts of energy being released. Yes, that's it. Hot, moist air rising, cold air falling, umm, cumulonimbus, rain drops combining with other rain drops, their downward force of falling rain creating wind, through displacement. That's all this is."
A crack of lightning went clear across the harbor, and struck some buildings nearby. The trees suddenly doubled over, a wall of wind slammed into my face, and rain began to pelt the porch sideways. I jumped up to sprint inside, but paused before I entered. I thought. I closed the doors, turned, and placed myself beneath the covered porch. The sky was filled with rakes of frantic electricity, the landscape suddenly a shocking white, now blue, now white. In the clouds, I could see unusual colors of green, sometimes deep, wine red.. The sky, now itself a sea, swirled in currents above my head, a tremendous roiling pot of atmosphere, the sea foaming white, the trees screaming, the lightning striking again and again, the thunder trembling the porch I sat on. And I thought to myself, "This isn't a cold front, a warm front, friction. This isn't. This isn't explainable. This is," and I paused, searching for words. And I knew this was beyond words. Beyond understanding. As the lightning cracked above my head, innumerable thoughts raced through my mind. I was created, and am now standing before creation. When I say that I understand a thunderstorm, I just mean that I can describe some illustration in my sixth grade text book. I can't understand a thunderstorm anymore than the word "gravity" gives meaning to an object falling, anymore than I can understand how I tell my hand to move, anymore than I can understand how my brain thinks and I feel. When Adam was in the garden, he gave names to all of the animals. But, that doesn't mean that he understood.
And as I stood beneath the sky, I allowed myself to become a mystic. It was a conscious decision. I stood beneath the fury of the storm, I felt the grumbling earth, the violent wind that lashed with rain. Modernity had robbed me of awe, and gave me, in its place, the audacious misconception that life was able to be fit into a test tube, or a calculator, or an artist's canvas. And as I surrendered, I accepted the elation of being overwhelmed by the world within my wife, the teeming life that kicked and breathed and sucked its thumb, within her womb.
Five years later, in a small studio in Islip, I am in awe of the Creator who created the human back. Swirling masses of muscle and bone, the trapezius originating in the vertebral column and inserting in the scapula, nerves sensing, the spine firing with electric charges, courier neurotransmitters racing to the brain and back, veins coursing with blood in forked paths, skin revealing, concealing, lungs inhaling- every moment of the human frame a convexity, the force of life forever expanding outwards. And a human soul that inhabits this frame. Even as I seek to understand each moment, I am a mystic before these things.
"Thy life's a miracle. Speak yet again."
-King Lear, IV, vi, 55
lcd
The Florentines call it an "Insieme," yuppies call it "Feng Shui," the Japanese call it "Wabi-Sabi," and the Long Islanders call it "Oh My Gawd, That's Perfect." Each one is, in their own way, referring to the manner in which a space, comprised of various items and forms, takes on a life of its own. And if each of these disparate peoples are all identifying the same phenomenon, then it is safe to say that this phenomenon is not isolated, but rather is an actual truth, the thread of which can be traced across the vast carpet of the ages.
It is foolish to tread casually upon this wisdom of the ages, this harmony of related things. And so, it was with no small amount of reserve that I entered my studio yesterday morning. Carrying the enormous package in my arms, I managed to get the door open. My violin saw me enter, and began to wag his bow with excitement. I addressed the room "Excuse me- paints, Super Palette, brushes, linen canvases, books... listen up. Can I have your attention?" They were immersed in their usual early morning chatter, though the sable brushes seemed a bit more loquacious than usual. "Ahem, I said, quiet please." They looked up. "I have a package in my arms today." "Whoa, thanks for the clarification" the turpentine bottles snickered. "Right. I have a package in my arms, and I am about to open it. I just wanted to prepare you guys." The room was silent. Usually, I am very lighthearted and convivial, but an unusual dose of gravity in my tone was cause for concern. "I've been with all of you for years" I began, "and count many of you as my closest companions. Sable brushes, I picked you off of the shelf, when you were just hours old. Some old Italian craftsman made you by hand, somewhere in the hills of Fiesole, and I purchased you from that little art supply store in the center of Florence." The brushes calmly replied "Actually, we were made in a factory in Indonesia, and they" -"ENOUGH" I cut the brushes off. "I don't care where you were made, I bought you in Florence, and you are very dear to me. And my super palette, I made you in my garage, and I've been wheeling you all over New York for months now, in and out of the prison, off to portrait commissions. And my linen canvases, you were woven from the precious flax from the fields of Belgium, and I myself tacked your form to the wooden frame which holds you now. Beautiful easels, I built you with my own two hands. And my glorious windows, your light has" - and suddenly the room erupted "ENOUGH ALREADY, WHAT IS IN THE PACKAGE?" "Okay, okay. I just wanted to let everyone in my studio know how important they are to me. This newcomer is not going to displace any of you."
I undid the bubble wrap, and not a sound could be heard. Not a snicker from the brushes, not a word from my easels. I walked over to an outlet. The silence was unbearable. I plugged it in. "This is my new forty two inch, LCD, flat screen. I picked her up, today, from the local Best Buy. LCD is going to help me paint portraits." A horrific shriek sounded from my violin, "Best Buy? Best Buy? Those pernicious purveyors of plastic? What were you doing there? Those, those wood hating, chemical coated cretins!" "LCD screen? Come on, Kev, really? What does that stand for, Lousy Crappy Detritus?" shouted the windows. "Lay off, guys, that's the same screen that Rembrandt used in his studio," the books mockingly yelled out. I could hear a soft sobbing coming from the sables.
"Alright guys, alright, settle down. Here's the thing. We're in America, now, right?" I said. "And, as we all know, Americans commission portraits of loved ones who have passed, and little children. Everyone knows that I can certainly enjoy painting these works; I must admit, though, I do wish I could have more sitters come to my studio. As you all know, I've tried to paint my portrait commissions from life. But, for every one 'live' commission I have, I have ten from photographs. The people who have the time don't have the money. And the people who have the money don't have the time. I am still going to paint from life, in my own independent work, as often as ever. But when photographs are my last resort for commissions, LCD is my new companion. I would ask that you would be kind and hospitable to our newcomer. LCD has already conveyed her enthusiasm for children, and her eagerness to assist me in painting them. LCD actually has 1080 dots per inch, which means that she uhh, she..." I paused. "Listen, guys. I have to keep up with the times." My violin softly answered, in a slow, sad vibrato in the lowest register, "But, shouldn't you continue to fight, to get the times to slow down to you?"
I reached over to the tv, sullenly, and turned on the power button.
The day passed in polite conversation, though the tension never dissipated. I kept reassuring myself, remembering the time I introduced my new jet ski to my wooden canoe. Sure, I had to break up a few fights. But, after a couple months of hanging out behind my shed together, they seemed to get along well enough. I'm sure this tension in my studio will pass, and that things will be back to normal in a week or so. I'm sure. Really, I am. Really.
day six
I've been painting so much. It's just so wonderful, being in this studio.For painting the figure, the light is just beautiful.
brothers, day five
Can paintings be funny?
I think I'm going to carry a little water gun on me, and squirt in the face the next person who calls me a "Classical Realist."
profile
I finished up a bunch of commissions, lately, and so have had more time to work on other things. I wanted to paint somebody, the other day, but didn't have an obliging model at hand. So, I set up two mirrors on two easels, and angled the mirrors that I could see my profile. I then set up another easel for my canvas, and began painting. Other than the fact that the model kept stopping for coffee breaks, things went reasonably well.
