Oh, I Can Hear the Birds.

A friend of mine has been working on these very abstract pieces in black ink for awhile now, while I have been working on soft, feminine abstracts. In the art school that we go to, we are strongly encouraged to do abstract work. He and I both like doing the figure, but are trying out abstract (I am having a really good time with it). 

He is an Art major, like myself, and is studying abroad here from the Middle East (his English is pretty good). I have known him for almost a year now and have found his opinions on art very helpful.

Today, my friend was not in class. 

Halfway through the class, pastel all over my hands, a cup of tea, and exhaustion that popped up out of nowhere, my friend walked into the door, holding his tool box. This friend of mine is always on time, so I was curious to hear why he was that late. Usually when someone is that late, the person doesn’t even bother to show up to studio at all.

“Man, what’s up with you being so late? Fuck!” another artist in the room exclaimed (this guy's drawings are pretty standard, but his paintings are huge and beautiful. He is very interesting because he has traveled all over the place and has a ton of stories about his “party” days). A few people snickered and my friend grinned.

The professor walked in from his office.

“ah, I see you decided to show up. Where were you?”

I wasn’t watching them, but I was listening as I drank my tea and closed my eyes.

“Well,” he hesitated, “I wasn’t feel right this morning. I’m just tired. I don't know. Off.”

“You’re tired? Well come to class anyway.” the professor said.

“Yes… I just, actually, I feel lost. I just don’t know what to do.”

“Well if you come to class, I can tell you what to do.”

Our professor set up a small still life and gave him a piece of black chalk and a piece of white chalk and a giant chalk board. He pointed to the still life and then to the chalkboard. “Draw this on here.”

So, he drew.

He drew for over an hour. I could see him out of my eye, constantly measuring, looking, measuring, looking, breathing, looking, drawing, looking. (see how much looking is involved with drawing? When observing, you look more than you draw so you can draw what you have seen. If you haven’t seen much, you can’t draw much)

The class was over and I was still cleaning up my studio space, collecting all of the colored pencils that had fallen off my table. My tea was cold now.

I looked up at my friend’s drawing and it was the best drawing that I had seen him do! It was so alive and full of energy and passion!

I exclaimed his name. “That’s so beautiful!” He smiled and looked at his drawing again.

“You know,” he said. “I have been feeling very lost. Like, this morning, I do not know where my art is going or where I am going or what to do.”

I told him I understand the feeling. It’s hard to enjoy art class when you feel lost. I asked him if he liked his drawing. He said that he did.

“You know,” he said again. “There are some artists who don’t like their paintings. Then, there is an audience who also does not like his painting. So, if nobody likes his paintings, what is the point?

If you are not happy, and your audience is not happy, who is happy?”

I nodded and looked at his drawing again. The values were so breathtaking. It was sad and refreshing that this drawing would be wiped away. It was only chalk on a chalkboard.

He went on. “I want to do classical painting. It’s all I want to do, but they tell me to do abstract, and, you know, I use the ink and the paper and do the motion with my hand and I don’t feel anything.”

I nodded again.

“You know, art used to be about community. In the classical time, art was about the people. Painting was the heart of culture.”

“yes,” I said. “Painting was like the newspaper, kind of. It was an open dialogue about current events and current beliefs.”

“Yes,” he said. “But now, there isn’t that dialogue. The artist is the one who does not want to talk. Who does not want company. Who wants to be alone. The artist expects everyone to pay for what he do, but he does not communicate with them. He will not talk to them. He wants to be paid for work that he don’t like and that the audience don’t like. Why is this?”

He looked at his drawing again.

“I have been thinking a lot about my meaning, lately, spiritually. And I think the meaning of life is that we are supposed to help each other. Architects go to school to help people. Doctors go to school to help people. Artists go to school, but for why? To help themselves? Where has the communication gone?”

I have no idea.

“I respect contemporary art, but I don’t see it in nature. Cézanne said that you will know if a painting is good by putting it against nature. If it works in nature, it is a good painting. If it does not, it is not. I love this quote. I go into the museum and I see a big canvas with precise, technical stripes of color. They are absolutely perfect lines. No mistake. No bump. No human. Where are the mistakes? Where is the human? I don’t see human in that. And when I paint like that, I don’t feel like a human.”

I kept listening. He needed to vent, and I think I needed to listen to what he had to say.

“Everybody likes a classical painting. And classical music. It’s like you cannot hear instruments at all. When you hear it, you do not say ‘oh, it is a guitar,’ you say, “oh, I can hear the birds.” 

...There is a reason that the audience of the symphony is always full. People have not changed. Technology has changed and the way we do things has changed, but people… no. People, they do not change. It’s like Egypt. Egypt influenced Greek Art and Greek Art influenced Roman Art and Roman Art influenced the entire Western Art World. We look at western art, and there is a touch of Egypt in it. We all have a touch of Egypt in us.”

I didn’t know what to say to him. It’s like I had an epiphany about why I create the work that I do.

I make art because I want to. But I want to communicate with my audience. I don’t want to just be an artist who works and works without a thought for who I create work for. The entire world is my audience and I have access to an open dialogue.

“I know exactly what you mean. Your drawing is really beautiful.”

“Yes, I feel so much movement. The lines… here, there. They move… I want to create work for the people, even though the people do not know what they want. When you go into a store, you see a t-shirt and you say ‘OH! This is perfect. This is for me,’ but you did not know about the t-shirt before. You just saw it now, but you know it is for you. That is how art is. This drawing… when I draw real life and I draw a drawing that I would like to see… that is when I feel human.”