Talent Is Overrated

Encouraged by Professor Hansen in my junior year, I switched my major to art despite not being able to draw a  lick.  In time, I found that I was not alone, as it is indeed among the rarest of gifts.  The ability to visually depict the physical appearance of things is granted to but one person in every thousand.  I base this on the fact that of the two thousand students enrolled in the college, only two (both art majors) had the gift.  True, not all two thousand students were art majors, but if they had possessed this gift, one can assume they would have been. 

Fortunately, there was a rapid decline in representational work as the art world was over taken by abstract expressionism.  The ability to draw was no longer a prerequisite for creating great art, or art of any kind for that matter.  The artistic community experienced a flurry of one-upsmanship aimed at producing work that was devoid of talent altogether.  I found my personal favorite in an issue of Art Forum Magazine.  It was a black and white photograph showing a desert landscape accompanied by the following caption:

Latitude 35.0083 N, 115.4750 W Longitude;

Mojave Desert, California, USA;

Location where 50 cubic feet of carbon dioxide

was released on April11, 1961.

When I enrolled in my first art course, I received my own key to the art building.  I would have  access to the building any time of day or night, were inspiration to come calling.  There were no scheduled classes to attend as this was more a program of independent study where all work was submitted at the end of the semester.  Despite being more than four weeks into the semester, I took a few weeks to devise my approach and select a medium in which to work.  I immediately eliminated drawing with pen, ink, pencil, charcoal and chalk as it was certain to be the milieu of the two gifted students.  Since oil painting and sculpture were too labor intensive, that left water color.  Granted, I couldn't remember doing water colors since third grade, but it would lend itself to producing lots of work, quickly and easily.  If I worked fast enough, even tossing away nine of every ten, I should finish with an adequate amount of acceptable pieces.  In addition, I planned to properly mount and mat each piece.  I had learned first hand by framing prints for the college President's home, how presentation could improve the overall impact.  I conceived of a mass production approach and scrounged around for spray bottles prior to my first work session.

The first time I went to the building to work was on a Sunday around one in the morning when I knew I would have the place to myself.  The building had ample materials for my needs, including paper, paints and used mats.  The best location for my painting session proved to be the figure drawing studio with a cement floor that would be easy to mop and the windows were covered.  I had only to move a dozen easels aside to create a large open space.  I covered the floor with large sheets of paper (26 x 40 inches) except for a few narrow pathways that would enable me to move about and avoid stepping on the paper sheets.  I used paper intended for water color as well as a variety of other types.  I used an empty Windex spray bottle which I filled with water and used to wet the paper as I made my way along the pathways.  I used additional spray bottles in the same manner to randomly disperse a variety of colors.   

At one point I noticed that I had inadvertently stepped on a few of the pieces of paper.  I looked closer and saw that the tire tread soles of the Mexican sandals I was wearing had created a terrific look.  I reserved a section of the floor where I continued with this technique.  The other pleasant surprise was how the simple use of a little white color can dramatically affect a painting.  This is most noticeable when the white background has been covered by colors and the addition of white suddenly reintroduces a bit of stark contrast and an immediate focal point.  I hadn't planned on using white, figuring it would be thinned out too much to show.  However, as I began lobbing solid gobs of undiluted paint of various colors around the room, I saw that with a busting blob of white flung from ten or more feet, things really came alive.

In my excited state, I had forgotten to check the custodial closet to ensure it was open and that there was a mop I could use.  I found the closet was open and inside were a trio toilet plungers.  There was a traditional model with a red rubber end-piece shaped like an inverted bowl; a second model with a black rubber end-piece shaped like a globe; and finally, the mother of all plungers, black and fitted with an accordion shaped bellows device.  I grabbed up the plungers and returned to the figure drawing studio.  I began cautiously as I didn't want to ruin what I had done so far.  I tried each model to see the results.  Thwock!  It was beyond anything I could have imagined.  I instantly devoted a quarter of the floor to this technique  Thwock!   Thwock!   Thwock!   Thwock!   Thwock!   Thwock!   Thwock!   Thwock!  Thwock!  Thwock!   Thwock!   Thwock! 

I returned the plungers to the custodial supply closet and turned the thermostat up as far as it would go.  It was getting close to three in the morning and I needed to dry the painted sheets of paper so I could remove them from the building before five.  I removed the painted sheets from the figure drawing studio and placed them next to the heating vents in the other rooms. 

I mopped the floor, cleaned and replaced all items that I had moved or used.  I loaded up with a variety of different sized mats to take with me as well.  The mats were expensive if purchased new, hence, the mats that were available to students were recycled.  Once your work had been presented or exhibited, the painting or drawing is removed and the mat went back on the shelf.  I took the painted sheets and mats home and began working on the next part of my plan.

I set up a work area in the patio of my parent's house.  The next task was to pass the various size mats with their rectangular openings over the surface of the painted sheets looking through the opening to discover the best compositions.  The mat windows were much smaller than the painted sheets, none larger than 10 X 14  inches.  Using this technique enabled me to locate dynamic mini-compositions that simply disappeared if you viewed the full sheet.  I had gone to the library and found books on elements of composition which insisted on (1) a focal point placed slightly below and to the right of center; and (2), a balance rather than extremes for visual effects such as chaos and order, light and dark, etc.  My window method made any intellectualizing unnecessary.  As I slid the small mats across the painted sheets, I would find visual creations whose brilliance had come by means of pure accident with results beyond the reach of a rational mind.

After I had marked and cut out the best of what the windows had revealed, I dumped the remainder of the sheets.  I had managed to harvest around fifteen percent of the total area covered in paint.  I then sorted the mini-compositions into several groups based on similarities such as size, colors, etc.  I titled and dated the pieces in each group to represent a theme.  One such group was the Arroyo Seco Series.  The Arroyo Seco was a tributary that fed from the San Gabiel Mountains into the Los Angeles River and was within walking distance of the college.  Each piece of the series was entitled to suggest I had visited and captured a specific section of the Arroyo.  One such title read "Arroyo Seco Series – Avenue 60 Overpass".

I put in one more late-night mass production effort at the art building before the end of the semester.  During this session I repeated the same discipline but also found use for some other items from the custodial supply closet.  The furniture polish and the bleach were a disappointment but the Dutch brand cleanser and the plumbers snake were winners.

At semester's end I turned in over 170 pieces.  Most were grouped in one of the twelve series I had concocted.  Every piece was framed with a mat, titled and dated.  It looked like I had my own gallery.  It was one course down and eleven more to go to make it to graduation.