Stubborn Artist

Stubborn Artist 

New York City. Winter, 1987. 

What I’ve come to call, with a laugh at fate, my starving artist period. 

Don’t worry, we weren’t actually starving, just pretty hungry for a few days now and then. We managed to survive on the staples of a New York artist’s diet; pizza, street food, and beer. 

So, with our bellies as full as they were going to get, there was time to pause and consider the finer things in life. Manhattan offered ample opportunities for cost effective options, as it has done for generations of out-of-work artists before and since. Exploring the city was a fun occupation in itself and not everything one does need cost money, especially the museums and parks. 

The parks allowed you the chance to remember what green was and to feel something softer than concrete beneath your feet. If it were the weekend and the weather was fair, the parks had a wonderful atmosphere as people rushed to enjoy themselves before the weather changed. 

Often I would take my sketchbook to the park. I'd draw dogs and children off the leash, both of which are good subjects, perhaps because they act so naturally. I also enjoyed drawing squirrels and chipmunks (critters which do not exist in New Zealand), and birds in trees or scratching for worms in the grass. The mounted police, with their beautiful, shiny horses, also made for the chance of a good drawing.

An artist must keep himself in continual practice. Look for stories and draw those! Observe everything! And remember to draw with love in your heart.

Because if you think it's shit... it is shit.

Anyway. We really were hungry and out of work, but it wasn’t so bad, if you kept the fears at bay. It helped to have a partner like Suzie, who could take it and not complain, sharing the bad times and the good, who even brought some sunshine and gaiety into our uncertain lives. Anything you did with Suzie was fun, for she had a way of laughing at the world that got you laughing, too.

So we kept pretty busy, in spite of our meager resources. 

If the weather permitted we bundled up (if Andrew weren’t going out, I could borrow his overcoat and gloves… Suzie had winter clothes of her own, not taken with the stolen suitcase) and headed out. To save money we’d walk downtown instead of using the subway, then catch the Staten Island Ferry. It was just twenty-five cents for the ferry trip and what a view of the bay, my god how do you describe it it's so breathtaking? The Statue of Liberty looked smaller than I expected she would, standing lonely and proud as dozens of boats circled and pestered her, tourists snapping photographs by the thousands. Being on a boat was like being in the park. It gave one a chance to escape the dark valleys of Manhattan’s skyscrapers for a while and enjoy the sun on your face. 

Some of the best museums and galleries on earth were all within walking distance of the apartment. Sometimes we bought a dime bag from one of the dealers in Washington Square, careful not to inadvertently purchase oregano like we once did, and enjoyed a day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Standing on Fifth Avenue, Suzie would take a last toke and we would run up the wide, imposing steps to the entrance, laughing and breathless. 

Only a small donation was suggested, so we could easily afford it. We ambled along the spacious galleries, stoned, soaking up the cultural artifacts, paintings and masterpieces. I loved the African section with its collection of fetish sculptures and masks. It reminded me of when we’d lived in Africa. Suzie went quiet while we were there, and I figured she was thinking of her family, so far away. The quiet and dignified museum interior was a world away from the city outside, a great escape from the noise and bustle of Manhattan.

There was also the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. We loved it and returned there many times. I used to stand across Fifth Avenue against the wall under the leafless, winter trees that lined the park, stamping my feet to keep warm while Suzie bought a hot dog from the corner vender. 

"Over the top, please!" she'd order in her sing-song voice. 

Meaning with everything, or "All the Way" as New Yorkers called it, and we'd laugh. 

She always got it wrong.

I’d light a Marlborough and look across the street to admire the sweep and simplicity of the graceful Guggenheim building. I thought it extremely beautiful in the silver winter light. I enjoyed the elementary mathematical precision touched with whimsey of the design. Suzie would join me and finish my cigarette while I finished her hot dog and we’d cross the street to see what treasures waited within. 

Then there was the Museum of Modern Art.  

I love modern art. It speaks to me more directly than any of the other visual arts. And now to see them in person! Not just pictures in books. I could stand and admire Vincent Van Gogh’s Wheat Field with Crows, and turn to view a sublime Joan Miró Constellation painting without moving from the spot! Dali, Klee, Warhol, Lichtenstein, Matisse and on and on and of course the greatest ever, Picasso. 

I couldn’t stay long in the midst of such greatness, it was overwhelming as a viewer and belittling as an artist.

Why should I even try to be an artist, I thought, when I’d never be as good as they?  

Luckily, I was too stubborn to listen to myself when I talked like that.

What if everybody thought that way? Nothing would be achieved and there would be no cultural progress for our civilization. 

Which is not to say that as an artist I achieved much or advanced civilization even by an inch. 

It is only to say that I can be quite stubborn, sometimes.

Watering the Grass

   “Have you seen the grass in the front yard?” asked my wife.

   Uh-oh, I thought to myself, here comes trouble. 

   Whenever my wife stands at the sliding door with her hands on her hips and asks me a question from forty feet away that has no answer in that particular tone of voice, I know trouble is coming. 

   I was sitting at the patio table, drinking a beer. It was a warm, sunny March afternoon, with spring in the air. We’d spent the day working in the garden, and I was tired. So I’d stopped, had a shower and was now trying to relax with a beer.

   “What do you mean?” I asked, trying to be pleasant and feigning interest.

   (Like a good husband must now and then.)

   “Nothing,” she answered. 

   The expression on her face said it wasn’t ‘nothing.’

   “Then why ask me?” I said. It was silly of me to say that, but I can’t help being logical, even when the occasion is all wrong and it’s the last thing I should be. 

   Which probably isn’t very logical, now that I think about it.

   “I was just in the front yard and it’s as dry as a bone!” she said. 

   Everywhere we’ve ever been, in any type of weather, she notices and points out the poor, dry, under-watered plants that are perishing all around us. To her, no matter the geography or climate, everything is always as dry as a bone. I call her, usually behind her back but sometimes not, the Water Queen.

   “What would you like me to do about it?” I asked, still trying to smile. 

   “Have you seen it?” she insisted.

   “Maybe it’s brown from the frost we had last month,” I suggested. 

   “No. It’s dry. I was out there working and I can see it’s dry!”

   “Well, why don’t you turn on the irrigation and water it, then?”

   She didn’t answer. 

   “You water everything in the yard except the grass,” I said. “What’s so different about the grass? If it needs it, water it!”

   “I’m not watering your grass,” she responded simply. I suppose, because I mow and tend it, that in her eyes it’s my grass. 

   “So, are you scolding me for not watering it?” I said. “Or telling me what to do? You know I hate being ordered about and told what to do!”

   “I’m not telling you anything,” she said.

   “Then what are you saying?” I ask.

   “I’m just saying it needs watering.”

   “I’ve done enough for today,” I responded, which however true, was in retrospect another silly thing to say. Why can’t I just smile and nod at her when she complains about things?

   “So have I!” she answered, her voice rising. “I’ve been working all day!”

   “I’m not denying that. You’ve worked very hard. And it looks beautiful, too. But why mention it if you don’t want me to do anything about it?”

   “Forget it!” she said angrily, and walked away.

   But now I want to know. What is she complaining about? What does she want of me? 

   (You see, I actually like to please my wife and do things for her. It’s one of the ways I show my love.)

   I got up, leaving my beer, and followed her inside. Which in retrospect was another silly thing to do.

   We met in the kitchen. “Why did you mention it, if you don’t want anything?” I asked.

   “Why don’t you go and have a smoke?” she sneered. “It’ll make you feel better!”

  “I’m trying to give it up, remember?” I said. 

   (She was right. It probably would make me feel better. It had been eight weeks and three and a half days since my last joint. But who’s counting?) 

   “Why don’t you show a little support when I’m trying to quit,” I suggested. “Instead of throwing it in my face? You complained when I smoked, now you complain when I don’t!”

   She had no answer for that, it being true, so she changed tack. “I’ll call you when the dinner is ready!” she hissed. “That’s all you want! To hear the dinner bell!”

   “Huh? What?” Now it was me that had no answer. I’d asked her earlier if she wanted to go out for dinner. She’d said no. She had dinner all planned, she said. She likes to cook. And she’s a good cook, too. 

   But when she’s angry, I’m a bastard for eating it.

  “You’re escalating this!” I said. “What has the dinner bell got to do with watering the blasted grass!” I was losing my temper. “We don’t even have a dinner bell! You’re just bitching now!”

   That, even without retrospect, was another bloody stupid thing of me to say.

   “You’re not fighting fair!” she accused.

   “Is it fair to throw smoking in my face? Or to get snarky about dinner?” 

   “If you’re acting like this now,” she said sarcastically, “I can’t wait for you to fuck up our vacation like you always do!”

   “What?” I was dumbstruck. I hadn’t seen that one coming.

   “Yeah!” she said, sensing the upper hand. “You always fuck up our vacations!”

   “I don’t fuck it up all by myself,” I insisted. “We do that together!”

   “Oh?” she asked with a superior air. “What about Thailand?”

   “That elephant stepped on my foot on purpose!” I argued. “I’d run out of bananas!”

   “And Hawaii?”

   “Who knew I was about to sit on a sea turtle in that rocky pool? I’ve still got the scar on my ass where it bit me!”

   “Italy?”

   “Those stray dogs in Pompeii attacked me without warning! It was the marinara sauce I’d spilled on my pants at lunch! Remember?”

   “France?”

   “I’d never tried absinthe before. And the elevator ride to the top of the tower made me dizzy!”

   “Spain?”

   “I didn’t know the bulls were running that day!”

   “Mexico?”

   “Ah!” I said. “Someone pushed me into that cenote!”

   “New Zealand?”

   “That glacier was slippery! I blame global warming for that!”

   “Australia?”

   “Crazy kookaburras! I was lucky to escape with my life! You’d figure a golf course was safe enough! But when that cassowary started to attack …”

   Etc etc all over the world. 

   Yes, I lead an adventurous life!

   I ended up going out to dinner after all.