"You never stop learning.” Mr Van told me this on the last day of art school. I took it to mean I'd be learning more about art and how to paint, how colors not on my palette worked and whether or not I needed them. Over the fifty-plus years I have been working as an artist I've learned a lot, not all having to do with art, but all from doing my art.
Sitting in a field of wheat in Massachusetts painting the scene before me I discovered how much life there was in the small space I occupied for the time it took me to do a little painting, like mice, so small they could climb a shaft of wheat without it bending over. Finding fun bits of nature was aways a treat painting out on the spot. A different learning came from the models I worked with in my studio. Lionel, my first model as a professional artist, was a student at Columbia College in New York City. He was an activist, a protester, a preacher. Lionel was one of the students who occupied the Dean's office in a protest over the college's involvement with the Vietnam War. Whether I wanted it or not I got a lesson in government and why President Kennedy took us into a war the French abandoned years before. Lionel took me through the history of Southeast Asia and why President Johnson was keeping us there. My reading turned from novels to Time and Newsweek and the New Yorker Magazine after a few sessions with Lionel.
Quiet Cathy was my second model. Cathy was a ballet student who just wanted rest and the few bucks that I paid back in my early day. It was fun drawing Cathy, listening to classical music and hearing a bit about her crazy Russian dance teacher. Lizette, an exchange student, took me through her classes and, by chance, I added a bit more knowledge about my own country from this French young lady. With Lizette, I visited nursing homes and pushed wheelchairs with the elderly residents telling me who they were when young. It was agreed that I should not sing and just stick to pushing…
I found I took greater care with painting when models took me into their worlds. Portraits of Lionel were among my best works. My Chicago gallery always asked for more drawings of Cathy, and my paintings of Lizette never hung in the gallery for long. It was more work to get a landscape done and often they were returned. My figures never came back, I think it was due to my connections to the models.
It is the same today, picking up bit of the law from Sylvia, and teachings of Christ from Kim. Business practices from Jordan, and understanding homelessness from Chenoa. Raising autistic kids on nearly nothing. Learning line dancing from Sharon, and how to put new brakes on. Never done that and never will, but now I can stand behind a mechanic and convince him I understand what he is doing. Artist’s models are all different and all the same, and all good people.
