Around the Block (1 of 10 short stories, about a painters life)

It’s the kind of place only regulars go, there’s no sign out front and you’d never know it existed unless you’d already been there. It was darkly lit and if they had a wine list there’d be no light to read it. The old jukebox in the corner still worked and was filled with an eclectic assortment of relatively non-commercial music taken from the owner’s personal collection of 45’s. People like Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, experimental jazz and some rare Johnny Cash. I discovered the place through a friend who sent me there to inquire about an upstairs room. I needed a studio, the rent was cheap and I liked the owner.

There’s a courtyard in the back and metal stairs come down at its front corner. I usually come down when I need a break from painting. Sometimes people are sitting at the bottom smoking cigarettes and nursing their drinks, there’s usually a large bar-b-q pit going a few feet away and it’s the closest place to sit and get some of the heat coming off the grill. Frank makes a great burger and usually hands me one for free, says its his contribution to the arts, anyhow he says he also doesn’t want to clean me up if I starved to death up there. I like Frank and he lets me slide when I can’t make rent on time. I once got him talking about his music collection after hours and he poured me a free bourbon just so he didn’t have to deal with his closed register. But usually there’s no free drinks, he prizes his liquor.

It was about 3 in the afternoon when I came down, there was a regular in a booth drinking alone, otherwise the bar was empty. I took a seat at the counter and Frank poured me my usual drink, bourbon and root beer. He thought it was odd that I asked for root beer the first time I’d come in and he never forgot it, the following week he brought in a couple two liters of A&W and keeps them under the bar just for me. Frank never let’s anyone get close to him and you can see he sometimes rubs his thumb over his finger where a ring use to be. He never talks about himself but he takes an interest in my work on occasion.

“So what ya working on Picasso?”

“Just trying to make bait before I go fishing that’s all.”

“Sounds like work, you got a model or you using those dirty picture again?”

“Dirty pictures, my model’s out sick.”

“I don’t know why you keep her, you know I’d get naked for free.”

“Yeah thanks Frank, I might take you up on that.”

He pours another drink and makes a mark on my tab. I usually pay up at the end of the month. He’s not hard on me just so long as I pay a little something. He says I add culture to his shithole and is a little more lenient with me than some. I finish my drink and take my brushes to the bathroom to clean them up in the sink. There’s no running water in the studio even though there’s an old sink in the corner and a toilet. Frank says it works but I’d have to bring a bucket up there to flush it. I use it to sit my glass pallet on, the white porcelain makes a great background to mix my colors accurately. I wave at Frank and he nods as I head out the back door to go back to my studio.

There’s no heat but I don’t mind as it slows down the drying of my paint, giving me more time to change my mind. I have three easels each holding a canvas. One of them is turned to the wall so I don’t have to look at it. I find a little distance keeps me from getting too involved with it before it’s finished. Otherwise, I’ll either fall in love with it and be afraid of messing it up or I’ll decide I hate it and paint over it. It’s hard to be objective once you get paint on canvas. I have a stack of finished or nearly finished pieces in the corner and a fresh one propped up on the old sink. It probably hadn’t been used in 20 years and the opposing warm and cold handles are rusted over, the copper fittings have a greenish patina built up on them and it reminds me of a desperate old woman begging on the side of the road.

The fresh canvas is about 3 feet square and I put two layers of white acrylic gesso down and one layer on the back to seal it up. I prefer to use pva size as it is less affected by the elements but I didn’t have the money for it this time. Over the last two weeks I put down 2 layers of an oil prime with a pallet knife to give it a good surface to accept my oil paints. It stares at me from the corner so perfect and gleaming white. I hate to mar the surface. I really “get” minimalism at this stage and would love to just keep admiring it, but its time to get to work.

I roll a cigarette and close my eyes as I light it. Reaching into my paint box I grab a color at random. Alizarin crimson, it’s a glazing color and has too much oil to use as a first layer of tone. I try again, burnt sienna. It’ll do I thought. I like the orange hue but I hoped to stay away from earth tones on this one, but that’s the way I like to start anyhow. I find a little controlled randomness makes for a greater feeling of spontaneity. I mix out some medium, half oil, half solvent and thin down the paint. I use a stiff bristle brush, a round, to start toning my canvas. I prefer the round to the flat at this point as it feels more organic and creates a more naturalistic texture.

Stepping back I roll another cigarette, Drum, it’s a dark tobacco with a deep yet mellow flavor, kind of smells like a cigar but smoother. It costs more than other smokes but it lasts longer too, if it weren’t for this brand I think I would’ve quit years ago. I only smoked for a year anyway, but I’ve been quitting for ten.

I’m not sure what I’m going to paint but I wanted to start something new, my other canvasses where either drying or I had simply come to a stopping point before I made an real decisions on them. I stare at the layer of burnt sienna and can see the shape of a man’s face, a rabbit and the silhouette of a woman’s hip and breast. I rummage through a pile of images and books I keep on my small drawing table across the room and look for some inspiration. I find a couple portraits from the French painter Gustav Courbet I’d been wanting to use and a couple nudes from Rubens. I rummage a little more and find the drawing I’d done of my model last week, it was just a gestural drawing of her walking around the studio but there was something to the single line down her side that worked. I lay them all on the floor in front of the canvas and stare them down some more. I begin composing in my head and I grab a piece of vine charcoal. It’s fairly hard and doesn’t make a heavy mark. I begin making lines on the canvas that suggest an environment, an interior I think. I pick up the self-portrait from Courbet and the gesture drawing and tack them to the wall next to the canvas and step back.

I think I’m going to place the man’s face in the foreground a look of terror in his eyes and silhouetted in a doorway the woman in the background on the far left. I like the idea of someone entering the scene right in the middle of things not quite sure what’s going on but something is definitely going on. I think it’ll be a dark interior like a Caravaggio setting. I walk back to the canvas and block in the shapes with the charcoal and step back again. The light from the setting sun is coming through the window and hits a few oily spots on the canvas. I like the effect. I mix up some white and sienna and heighten my drawing with it. I step back and consider what I’ve done, it feels right. I mix up a neutral grey that’s a little on the cool side and fairly dark with some ultra marine blue and sienna. I hold my palette knife up to the canvas and blur my vision. I like it and begin blocking in the darks of the composition. I let the wet tone and some of the lights mix together on the canvas creating various mid-tones. It has a watery effect like looking at the world through tears.

I step back again, I sit my palate on the floor and have a seat on the toilet. The sun sets and the studio is now dark. I set up a light on the canvas and consider it from various angles. I’m not so sure about it now. I try to envision the colors I want to bring in and how I want the light to fall. I also want some of the areas more abstractly painted. I don’t want to spell everything out but leave a little meat on the bone for the viewer. I’m always struggling about what to define and what to leave out. Sometimes what you don’t paint is just as important as what you do. I like a lot of different art, baroque and twentieth century abstraction are my favorites and I try to find ways to merge them. It’s a difficult question to answer but I find the argument stimulating.

I open the door and step out into the hall to get as far away from it as possible and consider it again. The studio is completely dark and the light on the canvas makes it look like a tomb or some ancient altarpiece lit by candlelight. I like the composition and placement of everything but I’m not so sure about the rest. I like it more from this distance than up close, there’s a strong structure and motion to the piece but I don’t have to contend with the details.

I shut the door to the studio and head down stairs to have another drink with Frank.

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