The Art of Art

The Art of Art

I have to find the time. When do I not have class? When am I not working? When do I not have any exams, essays, study groups, major events, panel discussions, semester project meetings, homework assignments, Pilates sessions, ballet classes, Italian lessons, bar nights, errands, parties, things to do, places to be, and people to meet? When will I be alone so that no eavesdropper can hear me speaking to my canvas and watch as it learns to speak to me? When will I be strong enough to lift a paintbrush and when will I be weak enough?

I have to find the thing. What will compel me to pick up a pencil, paintbrush, knife, marker, chalk, charcoal, pastels, spraypaint? What shall it be, the ephemeral gossamer that lands on my canvas, plucked from time and shaped and sculpted and suspended forevermore in mine own image? A glass of water, a bowl of fruit, a leaf, a vase, a ball? A kiss, a nightmare, a dream, a promise, a heartbreak?

I have to find the soul. What do I feel? What do I want to feel? Do I want the earnestness that permeates my very being to bleed onto the canvas, weigh it down with my Brobdingnagian sorrow? Or shall I buoy it instead and teach it how to fly? Will I set fire to it with rage or with equanimity? What shall I douse it with? Tenderness? Shall I caress it after?

I have to find the will. Do I have the motivation, inspiration, perspiration, dedication to make something? What do I make? How do I do it? Can I do it?

What is ‘it’?