The Sixty-First Night

 

Nick was looking at some of my paintings when he said:

“Do you think I should paint?”

“Walls?” I asked, joking.

“No, you idiot! A painting!”

“You’ve got nothing to lose by trying,” I replied.

“Would you teach me?”

Ah. There it was—the inevitable question that hit a nerve.

I took a breath and answered:

“Can you draw?”

“I can do stick figures.”

“Hmm. Drawing is the foundation of painting, architecture, and sculpture. The better you draw, the better you paint.”

I left the stove and walked over to him.

“To draw, you have to train your hand and your eye, and that’s boring. Really boring. Pure tedium, especially in the beginning. Eventually, it becomes automatic.”

“So you don’t just grab a pencil and start scribbling?”

“Not at first. And do you know why I don’t teach drawing anymore? I never had a student who was better than mediocre, and every single one of them thought they were the greatest thing to happen to art since Michelangelo. Not one of them had the humility to admit they knew nothing about drawing. Instead, they assumed they’d been born ready, already knowing everything they needed to know.”

“And that pissed you off…”

“Big time.”

I paused, then continued:

“When I was seven years old, I decided I was going to be an artist, and I made a drawing that became the cornerstone of my career. It was called Soirée, and it depicted a scene set in what I understood to be a nineteenth-century salon. On the left, a man seen from behind was playing a grand piano; on the right, another man was asking a young woman to dance. The technical flaws are many, and they’re enormous, but there was already a great deal of attention to detail, to the movement of the figures, and to their individuality.

“Art was my first love, and I’ve remained faithful to it to this day. Nothing annoys me more than pretentious people who think they’re great artists and can’t even draw a decent straight line.”

“I’m kind of losing my desire to paint,” he said with a smile.

I answered with a smile of my own.

“Sorry if I sounded rude or discouraging. I only meant to be honest and sincere.”

I went to a drawer in my studio and came back with three blank sheets of paper. I handed them to Nick.

“These three poor virgins are going to be deflowered by you. Treat them with respect. At some point, when you have some time, draw a landscape on one, a still life on another, and a person on the last. Do what you know how to do. Don’t try to impress me.”

“I told you, all I know how to do is stick figures.”

“Then draw stick figures. I drew them too, at one point in my life.”

I gave him a little pat on the shoulder.

“Who knows? Maybe you’ll discover a late-blooming vocation.”