Watercolor rose

It's like writing. In that fer'ner way. Brushwork.

Mute.

(Eng. sub if you want words)

Toni is one of the smartest women I've known. She told me that she has zero artistic ability. 

All children have artistic ability. Something somewhere happened to squelch that. At some point probably fairly early she decided everyone else was better and that was that.

I showed her this. How to suggest something with blurs and a few scratches. And let the viewer fill in the rest. 

She could suggest a strawberry by painting a red comma, or a red "c" shape, the unpainted white is strawberry not shown, blown out such as an overexposed photograph. And your mind fills in the missing half. Green flecks at the top to suggest the leaves and the stem that they vaguely resemble. A few dots for seeds and boom strawberry right there. More easily done than described, written as a Chinese word, not painted or drawn, like this:

I had watercolors at hand for the Egyptian style frescoes and showed her. 

She picked up the brush and loaded it with red color. She rolled the brush around in watercolor fully saturating the brush then holding the brush like a retarded person, as if to prove her point, she slopped the brush onto the paper, splat, then clumsily formed a retarded "c" shape. Then like a mong with no hand coordination whatsoever she put the brush in the water to clean it of red and dunked and rolled it in green and did the same thing. Then the same thing with black. 

Look, Toni, if you insist on acting like a goddamn retard then just forget the whole thing. You're right. You're hopeless. 

She pissed me off. 

I saw her purposefully go into retard-mode just to prove her resolution that she has no drawing talent. 

I cast back to my first day in Kindergarten in Bethlehem Pennsylvania were Jesus was born. 

True fax, there was even a gigantic star atop Bethlehem Steel that convincingly proved it.

Mum was so worried. Finally, a way to get rid of her little nuisance for half a day. Was this going to work? 

We entered the building like walking the cement steps of the neoclassical building into a college. This was important. This was a pivotal life-moment. We walked the long hallway a very short distance like the room was right there at the front. Large doors too heavy to push. We entered. 

The room was filled with people my age wearing their daddy's t-shirts as smocks each standing in front of gigantic easels. They were all painting a scene of a circus. 

Mum spoke to the teacher. 

I was enraptured with what the kids were all doing. I was amazed.

Right off I noticed each painting had dripped. 

Grossly. Each painting was ruined with drips. Loaded with drips. More drips than actual paintings. The drips ruined the scenes. All the scenes were circus tents. 

The paint was tempura. The brushes were all fat. The children loaded the brushes and soon as the brush touched the paper the color dripped straight down. As if everyone's painting was sobbing. 

Why is that happening? 

They're putting too much paint on their brushes. Duh. They need to wipe some off first. Their paper is upright not flat on a table. The tendency is to run. They must prevent that by putting less paint on their brush. 

Let me do this. 

Gimme a t-shirt.

I wanna do this. 

Gimme a brush.

Next thing I know I'm standing in front of an easel with the biggest piece of paper I ever saw.

Next to a girl painting a circus tent. 

I talk to her. I tell her to put less paint on her brush.

Easel much taller than myself. Blank paper bigger than me.

For me!

I know how to make a tent. I know how to make tent flaps. For a door. It's like you flip them outward.  So if you shut them then they match. These kids can't even match their tent flaps with the empty space for the tent door. Ha ha ha, they're too big and not the right shape.

I know how the ropes hold the tent. And the stakes hold the ropes.

I know how to make a swing set. You draw an "A" then draw another "A" right next to it and connect them at the top with a pipe. Then you add the seats, one swinging forward and the other swinging backward, then you draw little people on the seats. 

Oh man, I so want to try this and not drip like all these dummkopfs. 

My circus will be ACE!

And it was. My circus tent and swing set were totally ace. 

But the stupid thing dripped. 

I was careful about loading my brush just so but it still dripped. 

But not as bad as everyone else. 

Theirs totally dripped all over the place and mine only dripped once. 

I didn't even notice my mother was gone.

And I didn't care how I'd get home.

It would be fine with me to stay right there and paint circuses for the rest of my life. 

That day was momentous.