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 Holly Winter Living The Life Of Holly June 26, 2003 The music? Dizzying bouncing noise which held the attention of everyone in the club. Everyone but me. I like a little melody with my decibels. And though this band was good, I had the feeling that the vocalist had quit, and the show went on without her. I wandered around looking for a distraction and found it at the front of the club where a painter had set a large canvas on an easel. He was in his own world there, expertly crafting his take of the evening with impressionistic splashes of color. I settled behind the artist while the band rattled off some more reggae-blues-funk. He shuffled his feet and danced a bit while he taught his painting to become the music. Become the music. The flashlight that was affixed to the front of his hat set off an intense white light that would shine wherever he looked. As the light moved, glimpses of brilliant colors would flash into view, and then fade away to nothingness as he turned his head. There were faces in the middle of the piece. I think they were faces. It was hard to tell when the light was flashing this way and that as he was busily painting. Yes. They were faces. All lined up in a row across the center. Oh. I think that they might have been the band, although they could have been some other band somewhere else. So. He may not have had class, but this guy had style. He squeezed a bit of oil paint directly into his hand and dipped a small paintbrush into the paint. With one quick movement he wiped the brush on his shirt, dipped it into the paint again and started painting the canvas. A bit of red here. A line there. A brush stroke on top. A squiggle on the bottom. He painted in rhyme and reason but I didn’t understand it and I wanted to get the meaning so I stepped up closer. I wondered if I would get in his way and make him mad. What was his method? He tired of the red and in one fell swoop, wiped the unused paint from his hand and onto his shirt. He reached obsessively for a tube. He fumbled. Had to have a tube. Another tube. Now. He settled on the yellow. His movements were jerky. He was in a rush. He had to create right this second. There was NO TIME. The light was shinning now. He had to capture this moment RIGHT NOW. He squirted some yellow onto his hand and closed the paint. He threw the tube back with the others. He dipped his brush into the paint, wiped it on his shirt, loaded it with paint and started creating yellow bits around the canvas. Yes. That’s right. A bit of light is shinning on that guy’s head right there on the stage. Yes. I can see that beam of light shinning down on the drum on the stage, and I can see that he has painted a stark yellow line down to the drum in the painting. Yes. I could see the pool of light on the floor where he globbed yellow and more yellow and more yellow. Others who looked at the painting later wouldn’t know. But. I could see what he saw. I was witnessing the transition of yellow from reality to fantasy. He tired of the yellow in one impatient move and wiped the excess paint onto his shirt. He turned his whole body towards the band for more inspiration. The tenor saxophone was doing a solo. Oh. Maybe the best solo player in the state. He nodded his head, relaxed a bit, and reached for the purple tube. Ah. Sweet inspiration. He swirled purple everywhere. Yes. Purple. The notes did sound a bit purple. There was a method to the purple. It fit everywhere. It made sense. It opened your head so that the light smiled. And. So. He dazzled purple everywhere. Yes. You could tell that the painter liked the saxophone. But then, who wouldn’t? I took another step closer. I was right at his elbow. If I didn’t pay attention, he might step into me. I might distract him. Who was he? Did he paint here often? He rocked back and forth as he painted. He wiped away the purple paint and looked towards the band. Percussion solo. How would he record that? How could you? Impossible, right? He reached for the black. “No.” I thought. “Not black. It will darken it. It will ruin it. What about all those colors?” But. Black was squirted into his hand. He dipped his brush and started. Small accents. Around the saxophone. Around the guitar. Around the keyboards. Around the base. Accents were place everywhere. Some of the lines were thick as the drummer hit loud accents on those drums, others were mere dots. And. In his brilliance, the painter knew more about black than I had expected. The black didn’t stifle the colors. On the contrary. The black brightened those colors. They were more alive. They were move vivid. There was depth. Now there was more movement when before when there was no black on canvas. Now there was motion. Pure liquid motion. The black had caused the picture to come to life. I dared to move a micro step closer. I watched as the artist signed his name. I don’t remember it now. Something with an S. He signed his name on the left hand side. He signed the date on the right hand side. He took a deep breath and started packing up his supplies. I know. I was disappointed too. I wanted more. More colors. More swirling. I wanted more colors so that if he added more black it wouldn’t darken the painting. I really wanted him to add more colors. Just one more? He looked up at me. “You like it?” “Love it.” “Any suggestions?” “Keep going…” He laughed. “No. A good artist has to know when to stop.” “How do you know it’s time to stop right now?” I asked, ready to receive wisdom from the master. Because this guy not only understood sound, he knew how to turn sound into colors. What an amazing skill. But. How did he know it was time to stop? “That’s easy.” He gave a shy half smile. “My shirt’s full. There’s no room to wipe away excess paint or clean my brush.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Time to stop.” I know. That’s what I like. The kind of wisdom that you can carry into every part of your life. Always stop when your shirt’s full. ------------ About the author: Holly Winter is a teacher and a writer and a flight attendant living in Denver, Colorado, USA. She can be reached at her website or email: Holly@livingthelifeofholly.com Comment on this column in the forum. ------------ |
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