It began with a question...

As I begin yet another move, I find myself pondering about how this all came about.

Many have heard me speak about the incredibly strange artist named Wulf Barsch and his bizarre teaching methods. It is a moment I have referenced many times. He is a great believer in the Aristocratic method of teaching and begins every class with "so, do we have any questions?"

Obviously there are many questions asked in those dimly lit classrooms, but the one that stands out came as an answer to a question I have since forgotten to a student whose name and face I simply can't recall. The question was: do you think God does things arbitrarily?

It's a simple answer, because it's a simple question, but because of the resounding truthfulness of that answer, I can't ever leave that moment behind.

No. I don't believe God does anything arbitrarily. (This is also the moment I stopped believing in coincidences.) Because of that, EVERYTHING has meaning. Every word, every line, every space, every pause, every tear. Nothing is overlooked or forgotten or even considered insignificant.  It is simply the nature of God.

I'm going to Utah on Wednesday to learn to be a master painter because I learned the answer to that question. And for the record, I don't particularly classify myself as a religious artist, even though I am an artist who is heavily influenced by religion. My subject and center of discussion is humanity. I paint life, past and present.

A painting by Wulf Barsch, I believe titled Pliedes. Nibley wrote in his Temple and Cosmos: Was there ever an artist less inclined to show off than Wulf Barsch? He does not hesitate to try again and again to get through to us, not seeking novelty, but fighting for expression and perfectly willing to stay with a problem. It is that, I suppose, that gives his work the sense of deep sincerity that demands to be taken seriously. (552)

Open For Business

I was not wanting to set up the shop until I had more to sell...but the overwhelming response to my soonish upcoming move has made me reconsider.

Truth is, life in itself has become a business, and with the appearance of social networking *ahem, Facebook* making a name has become that much easier. Or harder, since there is suddenly so much more competition.

My studio mates are purists. They are part of a movement to bring academic realism back into the mainstream...and I'm with them to a point. I won't lie: there IS structure to art. But there is also evolution of business, culture, technology, and most importantly, audience to consider. Currently Etsy.com is my happy medium--an attempt to begin what will become my "name" while giving me enough time and space to develop that into what I really intend it to be.

If anyone wants to see the small shop (with it's one item), you can find it at: emmablanco.etsy.com...

Similar upcoming goals to watch for: added sections to the etsy shop (and items of course!); foundations for Tracks, a comic book following an Elder Bleu--probably using Kickstarter.

Affair of Abandonment

Author's note: I originally wrote this July 31, 2007. It's posted as a note on facebook titled "That Old Familiar Feeling" if anyone really wants to see the original. This has been drastically revised, so do not expect the same thing if you have already read it (ahem, Makayla). I supposed I would also note here that the names could be changed.

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The day I fell in love was the same day I came to dread falling in love. Warren was a brat, and those are people best kept well away from. But it happened, and I fell hard, only to hit the ground and break. Eventually you get put back together. It was not necessarily a Humpty Dumpty case, you know what I mean? It sure wasn't a joyride on the way down from cloud nine though, let me tell you. But that story belongs in a different time, to a different man I refused to recall. He faded as the months passed into a shade that haunts those memories, which is a time I specifically do not think about.

One morning long after that, I forgot how to breathe. I was just walking on the sidewalk. But that's what happened. I was walking with my sister and I found myself unable to remember how to breathe.

The odd thing was it wasn't as nostalgic as it was supposed to be. I saw the man I was in love with at the moment and he glanced my way. I was planning on swooning right about then, at exactly the moment when his hazel eyes met mine; but B-4, boom, I was hit and my battleship was almost sunk, and there I was with no idea how to respond other than to gawk at him. Gawk at his plain, scruffy face, his Cheshire Cat grin hanging almost six full inches above me, which was only present because it was ten in the morning and not a minute before.

He was gone in less than ten seconds. Come back, come back, I cried, but he heard nothing, because I couldn't breathe. I forgot how.

The world could have been spinning, or it could have stopped. I wouldn't know until I had realized time had stopped and the sun hadn't moved, whenever that would be. Does time move if occupied space does not?

Anyway, I ended up looking at some old drawings that day. They were just lying there, so out of pity and boredom I picked them up. They were sketches of athletes. Faceless, flat athletes from the discarded pages of ESPN magazine the year of the Riddick-Morrison rivalry.

I found myself in awe that once upon a time, I did those drawings. I found myself, even at that very moment, transported into a dream world, where nothing tangeable seemed to exist, watching, waiting, wondering exactly what kind of person would find figures, movement, and life so fascinating that they would copy it on a dirty piece of paper.

"You did that" he said. My heart screamed with insanity. I knew that place because I chose to leave it so long ago.

I found myself sitting on the edge of my seat, reeling. There they lay, those tattered pieces of paper, right there in front of me. I faced a girl who gazed back at me, and I could feel within myself the sudden eagerness to discover the real reason for the disappearance of a once radiant self. I grabbed for her, catching the cold wisps of smoke, which almost felt like hanging on to a fairy tale, the one that I had exiled from remembrance.

I clung to the lines as they bent and curved. Swing batter batter, swing, I heard myself murmur as the pencil had wasted itself like a breath of song on a swell. Smudged fingerprints interrupted subtly, almost like the undertone chatter of background noise. Easily forgettable I noted.

Then there it was, like the sun breaking through in the middle of the chaotic thunderstorm. The warm, striking, yet isolated realization that they were never lost; but perhaps rudely pushed aside in the frantic rush that life's events tend to bring. With reverence to the all the forgotten things that make up my life, yet, overflowing eagerness to greet the found splice of my former self, I held out my hand in a practiced gesture of welcome.

It was almost like coming home, Warren told me. He was with me, talking to me, haunting me with smiles and brief outburst of joyous laughter. It was undeniably quite a settling feeling as the sound wrapped around me. One that is so easily forgotten, yet...so unforgettable. And how can it be? Dripping as it is with quintessential nostalgia. I easily forgot that it was him that I had banished and as the rest fell away into disregard, he came to possess them. Yet there they were, there he was, all of it as timeless as the the tire swing in the backyard or the dining room table that I'd eaten Christmas dinner at since my mother broke the glass one of my early childhood.

Warren was as handsome as ever.

My drawings became silent next to the scrapbooks and journals that told countless stories that I smile to remember, which Warren narrated to me, simply existing all the same. And that's all it was; that's all it had to be: just an old familiar feeling.

I smiled, but withdrew my hand. I kicked away, almost dreamily, as one would relaxing in a swimming pool on a hot July day. He stayed, saying nothing. He knew I would be back. Goodbye, I sang to him.

The air was hot, but I could breathe. I felt a pang of guilt as my eyes wandered the drawings once more. He was gone and they were simple sketches once more, and I was left knowing that if I never told, Warren would remain a shade and my tall, hazel-eyed tryst would never know. I laughed like a ten year old who had a secret.

Emma loves Warren forever.

Siren with the long dark hair

"This stuff," she said of a small silver case, "once you get it open, it will save your life."

It said 'Go Smile' on the top, and housed five small vials inside. She showed me once she got it open.

"On day, my teeth were green--I don't know how, but they were--and I just popped this out and this what is inside is a teeth cleaning solution. You just pinch the sides here until you hear it crack, and then the stuff will come out through this white end here, and then you use it to clean your teeth. Really. See? I wont crack it open, because one case is $30 each for 7 of these little things, but feel the end of it."

I touched my finger to the end lightly before she quickly moved it away.

"Hey hey hey" she said, scowling at me, "That's going to go in my mouth someday."

I wondered what part of the vial I was supposed to feel then. She sighed inwardly as she put the vial back in the case and proceeded to use the mirror on the inner part of the lid. Her makeup was fine, her long dark hair a little messy, she straightened it with a carefree air that would probably fade around noon. The truth about Miriam is that most days she is absolutely beautiful. Those are the days I am convinced that God put her in a wheelchair so that she would stay out of trouble.

Mully once told me that her heart ached whenever she saw Miriam. When she saw her in the mornings before school, going to her locker, Miriam did not use a wheelchair. Miriam didn't like to stick out. Mully would watch her as she made her way down the short hallway, her hand against the old, narrow lockers. That hallway was for the forgotten. The side that Miriam walked on was the side the photography room was on. It was too small and cluttered to really make the transition from classroom to studio.

Amy McBride did a show before Miriam's time at Magruder called "Censored." It was originally titled something else, but the administration of Dr. Steinberg had stifled the edge of her voice, for the communities sake. She wrote everything in red that year, except of course, for her name.

It was always just after 7 when Mully walked in with her thermos of special brew coffee that she never actually drank. Spaid and I were usually already in the studio across the hall, discussing our work for the day, and Miriam walked alone in the hall to her locker to wait. Her friends would come and get her bag, and then they would walk her to class, the same way they would do for the next couple of years when I left.

There was a kid who smoked a joint in the studio. He passed it around two whole tables before little old pinched-face Portugal asked if anyone smelled anything. Everyone laughed, but it was because they were high.

"It's empowering to see her, struggling like that every morning. Alone." Mully often sat with me to talk about why I hadn't done a drawing that was due two weeks ago. I was perpetually behind. I still am. "As empowering as it is though, you can't help but cry for her inside for having to live in that condition every single day."

"I suppose so" I shrugged. I never really thought about it, because I saw it every day too. Mully sat still, looking at my painting. "You should move that fish; and I don't know what this is, but it probably could be replaced."

"It's a sea worm" I told her. I wondered if Mully did cry for Miriam every morning.

This morning when I sat with her, she was improving an infomercial for Go Smile teeth care from Sephora.com. I got up and left, knowing that she would remain at that table for hours, studying for a math test that she would eventually take on the late day. She would sit alone in her chair, joined only by those studious fellows who needed a place to sit close to an outlet, so that they could log onto their laptops and check their Facebook. They would ask her if it was all right if they say there, and she would simply say yes, or nod, and they would continue on their business all the while wondering why she was in a wheelchair. But they will never ask. They will never ask because once they do, they have to care. Because it is a heartbreaking place to be, and cardiac arrest means death ninety percent of the time.

Bittersweet Ambition

Ryan Brown was crazy. He wanted me to drop everything and go to Florence. That's in Italy. He's always been like that I suppose, but somewhere in our teacher-student relationship that quote just to the right by J Fettingist became more and more true, and I had stopped receiving all the things he was putting into my head and was blatantly objecting to them. I only did that because he was crazy. He wanted me to go to Florence.

I did learn from him though. He and Wulf Barsh von Benedict would give me theory articles to read. I was a good student then (a phrase which really 'means I read them'). One of the things Ryan harped on the most was taste. He would come in every morning with a liter of diet coke and crack something about how I was short (he's 6'2"), then he'd sit down for a couple minutes and give his lecture about whatever had pissed him off in the last 48 hours.

I have to make a side note here: you know how there are certain teachers you gravitate towards? Makayla knows, certainly, because she gravitates back to Dr. Cronin. Well, that was me and Ryan. I took Observational Drawing from him. Then the senior illustration course on gesture drawing. Then Intermediate Life Drawing. He pissed me off every single day, and yet at the beginning of every class, I was ready to face him again.

One day he sat down on the edge of the model stand with a stack of papers and handed them out. It was an article called "A Note on Taste." Actually, it was a section of a chapter, "Tone and Colour Design" in a book, Oil Painting, which I'm going to guess is by someone relatively old. Anyway, whoever wrote Ryan's inspiration of the day said that taste is determined by familiarity, and that good taste can be developed. What really seems to sum it up is the last sentence of the chapter, which says:

All good artistic work is new; but its newness is of the inevitable sort that naturally grows from sincerity; not the forced newness for the sake of difference, which characterises so much of the peculiarity that in theses days masquerades as originality.

His point in the whole thing was that it isn't so much about being as it is being while meaning something. And while someone can develop a taste for something, that doesn't mean the antithesis can't exist. It also means that on the individual scale, good and bad are entirely relative, but on the grander scale, they are definite. There is such a thing as skill, and whether one possesses it or not will determine if they are good or bad.

Ryan was huge on that because here's something of a little secret: art is not just about the idea. It has to have one, but there has to be a structure. I like to think of it as language. Movements change it, but it is rooted in a place that it draws upon for stability--for definition. The thing is, once you know what good art really is, crafted through study and reflection and skill, taste is redefined.

The hard part about writing this post is that I didn't drop everything and go to Florence. I stayed. I wont lie, there are days I sincerely wish I had gone. But what really sobers me is that Ryan taught me so much about life, art, humanity, God, and myself that it seems almost like I owe him something. It is a similar feeling towards Mully; but the fact is, Ryan shared what he felt and what he knew to be true on a daily basis. And some days he was completely off. I wont lie--he's an arrogant conceited jerk...but usually he was right. Ryan inspired me to be a great person. I studied every reference he gave me. I aimed as high as I could with every line until I stopped caring. And he said to me that June day in his studio, "Look at you! You're coagulating right in front of me! I don't know what happened to you, but pull yourself together. You don't even get dressed for the day."

I could hate him for that day. But the thing that I've realized as I sit with Makayla and discuss her relationships with Cronin and Muhlestein is that I miss every second of Ryan's influence in my life, and that I will always regret the day I walked out of his studio and never went back.

I didn't draw this. This is a photo of Ryan.

(My mother never knew what he looked like, but she hated him to the core.)