The first time I met Brian at a sidewalk cafe, he was flushed and drunk and high on having revived his identity as a trumpet player for the night. The trumpet sat on the table, a little dull, as Brian stammered the question: 'Are you guys having fun?'
Yes we were, afloat on your drunken excitement, there was nothing more we could ask for on this breezy spring night. I was looking at a blackout that would befall on my life soon enough; I was happy to have someone do all the talking.
'So you're an art writer,' he examined my name card. 'I must get in touch then.'
***
Brian showed me several of his sketches and paintings. The sketches are of monsters like the ones I've seen in Pakistani miniatures and other forms of ancient memories, and Brian's creatures have a nihilistic take. The landscape paintings are a different story: the colors are too bright, bordering on cartoonish, a degraded representation of his sensibility.
Brian is colorblind. For him colors--or the idea of colors--are something he must tear out of his system. They mean little to him, the way landscapes are impressions floating in and out of his life. Nothing stays.
'You don't need to understand my artwork unless you're to write about it, which you won't,' he said to me.
***
There's always something to understand. Yesterday I brought a CD: a mix of dark wave and neo-classical with an industrial twist, resounding in a vast mental space. Brian and I listened with our eyes closed. His apartment is small but uncluttered--he has his DVDs, artworks and paintbrushes neatly arranged in different boxes and shelves. When it was over he shot up from the couch.
'This is great! Very stimulating,' he said. 'Too bad I don't know German.'
I had nothing to say. I have listened to this music over and over in the last fourteen years. The darkness remains but the space has been filled too, by familiar thoughts and solitude. If I ever look up at Brian--or anyone else--I see a closed door when they see an opening.
***
Some memories are happier. Brian loves to drive. Back in Sydney he drove a Honda to go to work on the outskirts of the town. At dawn the highway was empty except for a woman biker in occasional leather pants. Or Brian turned a blind eye to other cars speeding past, so he could picture the woman as some random paper toy he let go of in the wind, when he was playing with his elder brother in the countryside during their childhood.
'How did you know that?' Brian's eyes lit up. 'How did you figure out all these things about me that I've never told you?'
***
One question Brian and I will always have different answers to: What does it mean when we depict others in our works? Over the years Brian has had family and lovers come to him in deep grievances: 'You've never drawn or painted me.' To him it's an important concession to make: he does not concede unless he truly cares for them, so much so he wants them to keep them in his creative space forever. I'm the opposite: the people I've loved most, I cannot write about them.
'That means you care more than you want to,' he said.
'One day even this will break,' I said.
Yes we were, afloat on your drunken excitement, there was nothing more we could ask for on this breezy spring night. I was looking at a blackout that would befall on my life soon enough; I was happy to have someone do all the talking.
'So you're an art writer,' he examined my name card. 'I must get in touch then.'
***
Brian showed me several of his sketches and paintings. The sketches are of monsters like the ones I've seen in Pakistani miniatures and other forms of ancient memories, and Brian's creatures have a nihilistic take. The landscape paintings are a different story: the colors are too bright, bordering on cartoonish, a degraded representation of his sensibility.
Brian is colorblind. For him colors--or the idea of colors--are something he must tear out of his system. They mean little to him, the way landscapes are impressions floating in and out of his life. Nothing stays.
'You don't need to understand my artwork unless you're to write about it, which you won't,' he said to me.
***
There's always something to understand. Yesterday I brought a CD: a mix of dark wave and neo-classical with an industrial twist, resounding in a vast mental space. Brian and I listened with our eyes closed. His apartment is small but uncluttered--he has his DVDs, artworks and paintbrushes neatly arranged in different boxes and shelves. When it was over he shot up from the couch.
'This is great! Very stimulating,' he said. 'Too bad I don't know German.'
I had nothing to say. I have listened to this music over and over in the last fourteen years. The darkness remains but the space has been filled too, by familiar thoughts and solitude. If I ever look up at Brian--or anyone else--I see a closed door when they see an opening.
***
Some memories are happier. Brian loves to drive. Back in Sydney he drove a Honda to go to work on the outskirts of the town. At dawn the highway was empty except for a woman biker in occasional leather pants. Or Brian turned a blind eye to other cars speeding past, so he could picture the woman as some random paper toy he let go of in the wind, when he was playing with his elder brother in the countryside during their childhood.
'How did you know that?' Brian's eyes lit up. 'How did you figure out all these things about me that I've never told you?'
***
One question Brian and I will always have different answers to: What does it mean when we depict others in our works? Over the years Brian has had family and lovers come to him in deep grievances: 'You've never drawn or painted me.' To him it's an important concession to make: he does not concede unless he truly cares for them, so much so he wants them to keep them in his creative space forever. I'm the opposite: the people I've loved most, I cannot write about them.
'That means you care more than you want to,' he said.
'One day even this will break,' I said.
i've come back to read this post several times. lately (for some time, actually) i've been thinking about how some writers/readers present the mystery and then explain it, but others (which draw me in) somewhat share the mystery, without resolution. this is what i feel in your writing: you part the curtains a bit and share a view, but hold back from explaining away what the reader might be seeing. the mystery lives on.
ReplyDeletewhen a writer observes, it is as though a camera lense is placed between writer and object. i find it hard to write about those i care most about because i don't have that distance with them. that's my thought for today. perhaps i'll think differently tomorrow.
enjoying what you share,
sherry
Thank you, Sherry, for the lovely note. It's very comforting to know people keep reading my words.
ReplyDeleteThat's the reason why I've never truly wanted to write a novel or any longer story (I always do short short, less than 3000 words) - I just don't like to lift the veil.