I am an artist.
Each day I walk into my studio,
flip on the lights, and stare at blank canvass.
Each day, I grasp hold of
inspiration from somewhere: the plant in my window, the tune on the radio in
the corner, the smile on my wife’s face when I left the house this morning.
Each day, I pick up my tools and
go to work.
Monday, it was a majestic elk,
standing poised for flight in a mossy, sunlit forest.
Tuesday, a laughing child,
holding a swallowtail butterfly with delicate fingertips.
Wednesday, a shipwreck lying picturesque
on the ocean floor, silent, and filled with sea life.
But on Thursday, when I walked
into my studio and flipped on the lights, it was different.
I didn’t see the blank canvass
this morning, fraught with opportunity. This morning I see all the full
canvasses, lining the walls.
The elk. The child. The
shipwreck. And dozens of others, in varying stages of completion. I see them
this morning, not the blank one.
And though I may be an artist
unlike any other, unique in interpretation, style, and detail, I suddenly see through
the deception. I’m no different than the rough, eclectic college kid next door,
who splatters globs of paint and waves aerosol cans around. No different than
the cultured actress who purchased a white canvass with one black dot in the
middle for a quarter-million, framed it in gold and called it art. I am a
replica. Not an individual.
My eyes strayed to the canvass,
the blank one in the center of the room. I see pictures: a refugee, eyes
widened with fear; a child lying alone, wrapped in an old blanket on a street
corner; an old man standing next to a freshly-dug grave.
My art reflects life. My art
takes this world and makes everything in it poetic. But does it count? Does it
touch? Is it real?
If I died tomorrow, what would
the last picture be? What would my final contribution to humanity look like? An
elk standing on a hilltop? Or something deeper?
I let my coat fall to the floor
that Thursday morning. And I advanced toward the blank canvass. It was time to
change.
