A painter’s tale

 

It was spring outside today and I wrote a story in memory of the Ukrainian and Russian masters of old.

Once upon a time there lived a painter. There are different sorts of painter, and in different times in his life he was each.

When he was a younger man, in the first half of his career, he was an artist. Not a painter of artworks, no. Not a painter of fine arts. But a painter of wildlife, of wildlife paintings that have been so popular so long in the Midwest and the South and Great Northwest and Canada. More specifically of ducks. Nothing remarkable – no realistic duck portraits for State or Federal Duck Stamps; no very fine brushwork for the fancy magazines; no especially creative flare that ever brought a painting to motion. Just sellable paintings that could be shown and sold at malls and strip malls rather than galleries.

He had grown into painting having been a drawer, or copier, or a tracer, as a boy, then having been introduced to other mediums in high school and college. He developed the ability to make trees and water and the marsh grass, and he learned tricks for painting ducks on the water and ducks in flight.

He had a very successful series of paintings depicting sunsets in a chiaroscuro manner with the ducks – picture a pair of mallards – setting their wings over water against the sunset. The paintings were popular and sold well, but were very kitschy. For example, even with the strong sunset backlighting the mallards, the mallards on this side would be fully in color. He knew this was not how light operated; nonetheless he painted it. Or there was a silly (if charming) log cabin painted not 15 feet from the cattails; and the oil lamps inside the cabin creating the chiaroscuro at, like, 350 lumens. Not very realistic. Something to go in the den, not a study.

Then he came up with an ingenious and interesting series of paintings that depicted mists, so that half of the canvas was a gray or white, and the ducks were here in the near ground. Ingenious because it took less paint on the canvas and less time for detailing.

He did have one gift in his trade, one great understanding of the subject, the ability to execute one thing greatly: The gleam in the eyes of his ducks. The glimmer of reflection that all things with faces have. That yellow spot on the red and black eye of the wood duck. The gray spot on the blood-red eye of the canvasback. The white on the yellow eye of the ringneck. That twinkle could stop customers, could hold someone for five seconds. Could look into a person.

To his son and daughter, whom he rarely saw all those years, he did hand down an interest in art. In painting – and, in fact, many modalities and mediums – and in art appreciation and history. They both surpassed him in knowledge and understanding and skill and talent – even annual income and net worth. The daughter even took up ducks and fine art (but never did get the eyes to come so alive).

They exceeded his annual income until, when he was beyond middle aged, he looked in the mirror and recognized himself, and he gave up painting ducks on canvas to try to sell and instead joined a painting crew.

He did that for a few years and found that his hand was very steady, but he wasn’t strong with the ladders or rollers or heavier pails. He enjoyed working outside, and he enjoyed putting up blank interior slates for homeowners (and secretly enjoyed the fumes). Eventually he started his own company – very small, very humble, with a couple kids working with him in the summer. They always did the heavy stuff while he did the trim and corners and fine finish because he had a very steady hand. First, he’d trace freehand the edge of the ceilings – him upside down – and the walls, but it always came out true. Nothing to see. Nothing to catch the eye. If the homeowner or guest saw a flaw it was not painting.

Eventually he was older, and took in fewer jobs. He didn’t hire the young guys for the season and didn’t do his taxes correctly. One lady wanted her house painted and he came by but it was a two-story, and the side opposite the garage was two stories with the dormer and two small windows up on the second floor, and he told the lady softly without looking up that he couldn’t handle extension ladders anymore. Plus, as he had recently told an older couple, I lost my steadiness. That was a thing of pride for him, his steadiness on the corners and edges and trim and behind meters. Now that had gone.

I think I have done something wrong. Maybe I should’ve done things differently. I need to keep working. Now this unsteady hand of mine can’t put the gleam of life in the ducks’ eyes. He missed that special talent he had, and thinking of it he looked down and to the left.