Both our eyes fixed in front, as mine have been for hours upon the swollen mass of canvas, my painting teacher tells me, “You don’t have the patience to be a painter.”
As consolation, she tells me “you’d make an incredible art historian, though, you’re a natural for it.”
“Thanks.” I say, eyes still fixed ahead. What I should be saying is “I just threw eight straight hours into this fucking thing and the best you can do is tell me not to quit my day job?” Not exactly betting heavy on my future career as a painter. She knows I’m not here for a degree. That’s never stopped her from telling me numerous times about my various “unpainterly” quailties.
“You get frustrated to easily to be a painter.”
“You don’t know how to push that paint around, thats your real problem.”
“You haven’t taken the time on this one to accomplish anything, you’ve given up too soon again.”
“You know, you should really look in to some art history classes.”
She’s right, of course. All these statements are true and entirely self evident. I don’t want to hear what I already know again. I sat, mostly immobile, staring at this thing for a whole night. I Got stoned with flavio, and stared at it some more. Stared at it when the dawn broke around 7:30 this morning, fell asleep staring at it around 8. Just tell me what to fix.
I can’t not finish it now, I can’t finish it either, just tell me what to do.
Paint it for me if you want, just finish this fucking thing.