By The Numbers

Task 47, December 6 to December 13

Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere. G.K. Chesterton

I’ve been in a funk lately.

I’m not normally bubbly, nor would most folks call me chipper (actually, some do—Uncle Mudd for example) but I’m not prone to depression, either—like most people I pull myself out of bed, face the day with guarded optimism, and carry on.

But this year has been trying…the aches and pains, once so easily shrugged off, cling to me like barnacles; and the election got me down, as did a certain football loss that tore me in half; and I’m staring down the barrel of another birthday, which brings an element of joy but also a bit of sorrow.

I sat on the edge of the bed with my coffee while my wife scurried about and the dog whined for it’s breakfast and I closed my eyes and tried to resist the ennui that crept up my spine, and I realize how much time passed, and suddenly my wife was standing in front of me and she said, “Move. I want to make the bed”.

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I sighed and slowly stood up (intent on making her aware that something was bothering me), and she finally got the hint and said, “okay, you need to get over whatever THIS is…”

Before you say to yourself “why didn’t she ask him what’s wrong”, it’s important to confess that I NEVER say anything is wrong so to her I was as I normally am—a lump on the bed that needed to be made.

So I went outside and stared at a tree. After a while I stopped staring at the tree. Stupid. It was too early to drink, too early for lunch, too early to put on my pajamas and go back to bed (once made, the bed was off-limits), so I meandered back into the house and went into the living room and found myself in front of our David Hockney print of “The Splash” and thought—that’s it. I need to PAINT my feelings.

But I don’t have paints, nor canvas, so I grabbed a piece of copy paper from the printer, which elicited a “hey!” from my wife, and, using magic markers and a red pen and even a vial of ‘White-Out’, I visually articulated my feelings.

The picture isn’t pretty. There’s a lot of black and red in the center, and the White-Out is clumpy and it’s more like pretentious op-art than Hockney, but it made me feel better.

TASK:

Your task is to paint your own picture—regardless of your frame of mind—that expresses, visually, what is taking place in your life . Use oil or markers or water paints or crayon or chalk, or hell, even a stick with a charred end. Find a big piece of paper or a canvas or a hunk of wood. Then sit in front of it and think about your life. Then create. My project is hideous by any definition of art criticism, but I keep it—folded and hidden in my desk—and occasionally I look at it—and I know EXACTLY what it means.