Getting Back on the Bike

This past weekend a friend gave me a watercolor set. An early birthday gift, and very timely. I had been wanting to get back into painting but kept procrastinating. Part of it was that great fear: I am going to be the only person ever to forget how to ride a bicycle. And then there's the whole, What am I going to paint? Well, missy — you have thousands of photos taken over the years with the express intent of painting them "someday." Someday is here.

I have always loved drawing and painting sculpture, and recently I stumbled across a statue by Nnamdi Okonkwo on a morning walk. The sun was creating dramatic shadows. Shadows do heavenly things to sculpture. This piece in particular seemed to be settling into the earth, feeling the sun on her face, comfortable in her own bronze skin.

I can't explain how drawn I was to it. I think the sculptor says it best: "My work is simplified and expressive of an inner largeness and capacity of the human soul. My emphasis is on aspects of our common humanity, which I find beautiful, noble and even divine. It is my hope that my sculptures are, for many, a shrine of hope and inspiration." — Nnamdi Okonkwo

I had assumed a woman had sculpted this. I was delighted to discover it was a man — a 6'9" man from Nigeria who entered the US when he was recruited by BYU-Hawaii to play basketball in 1989. By 1997 he had both a BFA and an MFA in sculpture. The US has been lucky to have this talented artist in residence ever since.

The whole time I was painting, I kept thinking back to a college art professor who told me to paint what I know. I had painted a Middle Eastern woman in nothing but black ink — standing in sand, gauzy fabric whipping around her, nothing visible but these deeply penetrating eyes. How could I not try to capture that? What was I supposed to paint instead — my messy dorm room? According to my professor, yes. Exotic Middle Eastern women, no.

I remember being irritated. I didn't yet have the skill or confidence to debate him. And it would be one thing if he simply hadn't liked the piece — that's legitimate. But he did like it. He graded it lower because he said it didn't represent me. Thank you, sir. I suppose the female figure drawings in your studio are more legitimate because you have carnal knowledge of your subjects? You see them through the male lens — you can claim connection through intimacy. And this is somehow more valid than the female lens? Where I see beneath the cultural differences to the woman herself. Where I see her silenced, but still fierce.

Yeah. I call bullshit.

To anyone picking up a pencil, a paintbrush, or a hunk of clay: do whatever the heck moves you. Not what you think someone else thinks you should create. If your thing is cows and you live in the middle of Manhattan, do it. If you live in Alaska but love painting tropical sunsets, do it. No one but you knows your muse. It can be ever-changing or always the same. One of the reasons humans make art is precisely because it isn't literal. We get to reimagine our world and invite others to come along.

This statue spoke to me. In her simple attire and relaxed demeanor, she is the essence of confident beauty. I wanted to try to capture that — while letting watercolor do what watercolor does, which is wander around the page with complete disregard for your intentions. I haven't used the medium in years, and I didn't have the page nearly wet enough for much of that magic to happen. Also, feet and hands still frustrate me. I had one petty, fleeting thought: apparently I don't know feet and hands. So I used the time-honored chicken-out technique and covered them in foliage. But even as I was chickening out, I was gathering courage from my subject. The courage to bypass self-doubt, trust the line, and commit.

It was a good start to getting back on the bike.