For Your Refrigerator

Here's what I did at school today. (Camera-phone shots.) I'm taking Introduction to Art Media-- it's a Community Education class through the Napa Valley Junior College. Today, we worked with charcoal pencil. I was given an etching of fish to draw in charcoal, so I drew fish. Mostly, they look like fish. I left out a lot of scales. I promised Kristin that I would post what I did each week, so I here it is. You can stick it to your refrigerator with one of those alphabet magnets, if you still have any. These are just-caught fish, lying on the ground, by the way, not swimming fish. In case they looked like they were swimming weird, they are. They are swimming in a dead way. I photographed them before I started putting in the background stuff, just in case I messed up, and then afterwards. I'll try to get a better close up for you with the real camera.

I do love school. I think regardless of the anxiety I suffered over assignments and measuring up, it was mostly, if not always, a place of calm, and quiet. I love the way the air-conditioners hum, and the college always seems cool and quiet. I love the smells, of paper, books, air-conditioning and art supplies. I'm always glad to be in school. School was a refuge for me from a chaotic home life.

When I'm in art class, time melts away. I started class at 1:00 p.m. today, and the next time I looked up, it was almost 3:00. And the time in between is spent thinking about the real shapes of things, about curves and lines and how to get what I draw to look like what I see. More than looking like what I see, I want it to look true. Things don't have to be ultra-realistic, they just have to have a form that the eye believes.

Very satisfying work. At least today. Another day, there might be another challenge, and I might spend the three hours frustrated, but I'm finally, finally learning to let go of the outcome and enjoy finding my way, respecting that what I draw is unique, because I am the only one that can draw it.