Saying Yes to Art

Queen of the Moon / Pasted Paper Collage / 2018 / Russell C. Smith

Two weeks after the day of his death, you signed up for drawing sessions, where you could draw from half-nude models in an outdoor garden at the Bohemian Arts Center, Saturday mornings. You were 15, and said you were over 18. No one really cared. You were already doing a thing so unimaginable to him, it was like you’d never been his son at all. You had an eye, and for a time you felt as if you were a walking eyeball. Wherever your eye came from, it made you stand out, and helped to keep you hidden. You hitch-hiked to the air-conditioned mall with a sketch pad, pencils and pens in a shoulder bag, and drew old people sleeping on benches, teenage girls reading, cashiers eating lunch. After riding your 10-speed out to the beach, you asked sunbathing girls in bikinis if you could draw them. Half said no, and half said yes. One said maybe and asked why. You said it was fun to draw the figure. She said she liked the word “figure” and wrote down her address and told you to come over after six in the evening. Her backyard was the beach. Her hair was scented with salt water and her skin smelled of suntan lotion. Downtown, in the dusty backroom shelves of the best bookstore in the Southeastern United States, you found art books holding the key to artmaking and life-living. For several years, you drew friends and objects in every room in the house you grew up in – with charcoal pencils, and ink and brush. There was never any question as to whether hearing his last controlling wish would be cared about and put into practice. You didn’t see any reason to hold back curiosity and wonder, seeing where it had already taken you. There wasn’t going to be anymore not doing something because of one so wrong who wanted it to be. Or not be. There were long lists to make. There were promises you made to yourself needed keeping. There was still much undoing to be done, and much unlearning to begin.