i have done this course before, but not fully committed to it, and already in reading the intro and first chapter i came across many things i disregarded previously because my dear friend, my ego, loudly claimed that i already knew this thing or that thing so i didn't have to pay too much attention to them. now i've got enough self-perspective to see the difference between knowing something and actually living it so i see clearly how those things i skimmed over last time might be exactly what i need to hear and do. repeatedly.
i could spend a lot more time writing about all the bits in the introduction that stood out at me this reading, but it's late, well past my bedtime and one of the things i promised to do during these twelve weeks is to get enough sleep. sleep is needed for one of the cornerstones of this practice, the morning pages: three pages of free writing {don't-stop-moving-your-pen-spelling-doesn't-matter-you-can-change-a-thought-mid-word-if-you-want sort of writing}. you have to do them first thing in the morning, which is tough on days i have to skitter off to work after hitting snooze a couple of times too many.
but i did want to steal a few more minutes away from "a good night's rest" to acknowledge the first chapter's focus on recovering a sense of safety. as someone that has a set of parents that have always supported my interests in the arts, previously doing this work i disregarded the necessity i have of recovering a sense of safety. no one major has ever mocked my art that i can remember, yet all those memories from the past that hold a little {or a lot} of sting have the same effect of making my seem world less safe and me more cautious within it. i am less secure because of them, so i have to reclaim my safety as a human being before i can move forward as a the confident artist i envision for myself.
one of the exercises for the first week asks me to list three old enemies of my artistic self-worth. this has always been an easy list with the same cast of characters. but this time, i openly acknowledged the fact that there are more names i could add that didn't overtly attack my art, but somehow reinforced my sense of failure as an artist or person. that list is:
---john sabraw {my freshman year drawing teacher. the one most directly related to my art...more below}
---zach {my manager at the restaurant i worked at in nyc who openly mocked me in front of others then tried to be a fake buddy buddy each time he realized he had crossed a line. he was also really short and stood on tiptoes as he talked to people whether or not they were as tall as me}
---the mean kids in my 8th grade art class {can't remember names, but they teased me about my basketball playing rather than my art}
---my cafe manager in australia {druggie who didn't do her job, trained me poorly then threw me in with more than i could handle. to her benefit, she did try to later protect me, but she was too much of a mess to really make amends. oh, and she was taking out taxes but not reporting it. i think that was kind of dodgy}
and the list could go on. i have a good memory.
the next assignment asks us to select one incident from the above and write it out. so here it is, ten years later, something that still haunts me:
i slept in on the morning of a big art critique for my drawing class. i had stayed up almost all night finishing a drawing that i was sure {and still am sure} sucked, that wasn't nearly good enough for the astronomically high standards of sabraw {the above teacher} and i all of that topped off with waking up late. i couldn't believe it. panic doesn't even begin to cover it. and one of the bravest things i have ever done was walk into the classroom an hour and a half late.
the class was all lined up facing a drawing and in the middle of talking about someone's work. my eyes met my teacher's as he flicked a dismissive glance in my direction, and then returned to what was at hand. that exchange of eye contact, the angle of his glance, the way he didn't even bother turning his face much toward me and the way he sliced me with the breaking of his gaze...i won't ever forget that.
for a while nothing was said on the subject, which i think was worse; silence can be more threatening than words. so i don't know how i got the guts to comment on any of the work that was being shown but i assume i did because non-participation would have landed me only further in the doghouse. as things were winding down he asked how many people were left to go. i raised my hand and he said something to the effect of "you were late, you don't get to go." and that was that.
after the class filed out he and i did a one on one crit and i think i was crying two thirds of the way through it. i specifically remember how during the process he had cautioned me against putting kitschy little glows around the lights that were in the drawing, yet sure enough, somehow they got there. i didn't do it deliberately but i think he felt bad enough by the end because he threw me a bone and commented on the halos as though they were a good thing. somehow that made the humiliation worse. he had lowered his standards for me.
i finished off the year with him rather than transferring at the end of the semester, but i have always told myself and anyone that would listen that i couldn't draw realistically after that.
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the next task is to write a letter to the editor in your defense of the situation, or any of the above situations, but i think i can most directly reclaim myself by writing a letter directly to my teacher. i have often thought about it, but i wasn't one of the students he told "don't be a stranger" to or asked to be in contact with and i am certain he wouldn't remember me. but here, for myself, with no need to hope for an answer i can write him a letter.
sabraw,
i remember the bar-b-que they held for freshman at the art school. it was before classes had started and those of us slated to be in your class were whispering nervously amongst ourselves, proud to be included in the select club of sabraw's students but also a little scared. you made an appearance and stood and talked with several of us as we fanned around you and hung on your every word while trying to appear cool.
supplies were purchased and classes began.
i remember on the first day, to prove how little we observed of the world, you pointed out how none of us considered what color hair a fellow student had beneath the bleached and dyed layers of blond and kool-aid red. i was too intimidated to speak up and say that i actually had specifically wondered that very thing. her hair colors were just like one of my best friend's in high school and i had immediately considered whether the original was at all close to my friend's. so this was the perfect foreshadow at the start of our relationship where you had all the power, proving to us our shortcomings by what we didn't do while i stayed silent and unremarkable, possessing more answers than i allowed myself credit for.
i think it made it harder that you are a genius in your art. yes, a genius. there is no other way to describe it and i'm sure you are already aware of the fact. you are a genius in the way you think and create, and particularly your ability to recreate the world, with such specificity and luminosity and not one visible brush stroke. it's genius and so full of wonder, that rare magical wonder you have as a kid where everything is extra alive, extra colorful, extra real.
but you are not a genius teacher. far, far from it. there is a cuttingness to you and your feedback, sharp edges that wound as they instruct. what good does it do to make me better at drawing if i am too hurt to use the tools even years later? and, under slightly gentler care, could i have learned more? gone farther? i don't know, but i do know that i would have lived the next decade of my life a little easier if you had. for years after, i could track the seasons by my end-of-semester nightmares about forgetting to start my project for your class whether or not i was enrolled in school.
but i think i'm done now. done carrying all guilt of failure. i was young, and so literal minded {my ideas for the final self-portrait project still make me cringe, and trust me, i remember them all} and spread so thin across not enough sleep and too much going on, but you failed me as a teacher. you failed to give what i needed: deliver both the praise and constructive criticism in a way that valued me as a human being. because i know you saw us clearly. i know you saw how green and raw we were. we were more naked before you than all the nude models we had second semester. i saw you take care of others, so i knew you were capable of it and i even saw you stoop down to take care of me, all snotty and teary eyed, ashamed of being late, ashamed of the work in front of me, ashamed of not being a genius like you or of even being good enough to have your respect. but that care was too little, too late.
so i ask: what good did it really do me that now that i'm older, an oil painter with ideas of greater elegance and sophistication than i could have imagined for myself back then, but still too scared to paint my nude self portrait you might actually deem interesting?
sabraw, i lay this burden down at my feet, and i lay it down at yours. now, a decade later. this hefty, ugly mess of memories of drawings i couldn't wait to throw away. but even so the sad thing remains in how forgettable to you i was while you've been completely unforgettable to me.
and with this act of putting down this burden, i find that i am free to thank you for all you taught me. it was a lot, as painful as much of the best of it was. i forgive you for your shortcomings and please forgive me for mine, both as a literal minded, procrastinating-on-starting-work-on-your-projects artist and as a person unable to ask for what i needed.
so, all the best to you, and as soon as i can afford one of your paintings, i will buy one. {my current favorite is gossamer}.
~nathania.
freshman drawing class 2000-2001
washington unversity in st. louis
p.s. and the final piece, a nagging bit of irony, is how much you resemble one of the gods of my art world, another unreachable, un-impressable genius, thom yorke. even down to your own eye-quirk and spiky sandy hair. the resemblance is eerie.
gossamer and twilight
images copyright john sabraw, painter extraordinaire.
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