Frida and Me

Posted on September 17, 2003 in Reflections

Many years ago, I took up painting, briefly. I worked on small canvases, most the size of a book cover. I won’t attempt to characterize it as anything other than primitivist. It had feeling, but no skill. I dropped it to attempt photography instead. I have not gone back.

Last night, I watched Frida. Frida painted her feelings, quite graphically. It made me realize that I missed painting, that I missed the words of the heart. In the middle of the film, I paused the DVD, went downstairs, and wrote the brief entry that appears earlier. I felt that I had lost something and marked it’s passing.

I remember only one painting that I made. A white face similar to the one depicted in Evard Munch’s The Scream. Around it a series of rough concentricities — yellow, orange, and brown. I had just moved in with Lynn and had started an unhappy job with a plastic injection molding company. The painting represented the intense pressure I felt myself under, working a job that soured my joy. I still have it, somewhere. It seemed worth the varnish at the time.

It can be hard to take photos that reflect your feelings. Mine express detachment. Views of gnarled trees reflect a way of seeing, cunning. I feel little emotion except “hmmm. There’s a picture there.” If there is a way to put myself into my photos, I have not yet found it. I strive for spareness, accuracy, a heretofore unseen slice of the world. Emotion seldom figures in a composition except, perhaps, in some of my former Yugoslavia pieces. I seek hallucinations instead (see my Mount Rainier pictures for examples.)

My writing does a better job of canvassing the surrealism of the self. If I was better with a brush and had the imaginative power of composition that Frida had, I would, at this moment, paint a two-sided canvas. On the front side, you would see the face I show to the world. The reverse would depict a cross section as if my back had been removed from top of the head to the soles of my feet.

Tomorrow Lynn goes to New York. I will spend the weekend thusly: Thursday night, a current affairs book discussion group. Friday, a teeth cleaning at noon. Saturday, a book signing (two local authors have published a book about Greek women athletes). Sunday, I shall drug myself. Monday, Lynn comes home and I have a writing group in the evening.

I shall be half a man, a front without its accustomed support.