Today’s Quote: “Formal learning can teach you a great deal, but many of the essential skills in life are the ones you have to develop on your own.” Lee Iacocca
I made a frustrating discovery at my painting class this week,
only to make another startling one an hour or so later. Fairly
new to this class–this was my fourth lesson–it dawned on me that everyone had a formula for organizing their palettes. Each
student had a color scheme that he followed very precisely, and
each one laid out paint onto his palette in exactly the same way.
I didn’t make this observation until this particular class,
because I had never allowed myself the liberty of walking around
the painting loft at the beginning of class before. This class
had been going on for many years. Everyone knew everyone else,
and Clyde, our instructor, had known his students for years, too. They lunched together after class, joked around during painting time, and in general, were one big happy family. But I was intimidated by them. They were all very New York artsy. Most were much older than I, each with ten to twenty years painting experience. I was the baby of the class. The one with a dozen or so paintings under my belt. No one really asked me my name. No one particularly cared. So when I garnered enough courage to ask Clyde about this palette technique, he responded that yes, there was a precise way, with very precise colors, that one laid out his palette in preparation to paint.
That’s not how I had been taught. Two previous teachers had done
it much differently. My original instructor, Luisa, is Colombian. A brilliant painter, she painted with a Latin flair. With boldness, yet with precision. We students painted casually,
poolside, with frequent interruptions by Luisa’s Colombian
housekeeper, who refreshed us weary painters with piping hot
espresso at the snap of Luisa’s finger. We made up our palettes
by laying paint onto Styrofoam plates, and we laid out only those colors that we thought we needed for our painting that day.
My second teacher taught me only six lessons. She hated the plate idea, and when I showed up for my first class with a stack of Styrofoam, she relegated me automatically to the neophyte bin. She insisted that I go out and buy a proper palette, and enlist a glass cutter to custom-cut a rectangular piece of glass to fit inside. That was the proper palette—and don’t I dare come to class without it! And again, we laid paints as needed for our particular painting of the day.
So by the time I got to Clyde’s class at the famous Silvermine
Art School in New Canaan, with proper glass-lined palette in
hand, I was feeling fairly confident. Several canvases tucked
under my arm, my enormous art bin loaded with tubes, brushes,
charcoal, Liquin, turpentine, and the like, I settled in quite
easily. And Clyde had never discussed my palette with me. So on
this fourth class, I finally asked Clyde about this palette
thing. He immediately walked over to Alex’s easel and brought
back a chart–very official looking–of oil colors arranged in a
precise order around a rectangle, with no variation and with
exact oil colors spelled out. We were to lay our colors around a
rectangular palette every week when we arrived, in exactly that
order, regardless of what we were painting. And he hated the
glass idea. He wanted me to use disposal paper palettes masking-
taped to a tray table. Hmmm.
A couple hours later, I went to our local library to look up the
paintings of Wolf Kahn. No luck. But I did read the latest issue
of American Artist magazine, which had an inspiring article about John Asaro. I drooled over his work–he has an unusual palette of glorious, sun-bursting colors and a fresh, bold stroke–to get to the bottom of the article and see that he had a very precise palette, which the writer spelled out to a fault. It was different than Clyde’s.
Why all this fuss about my art class and palette? Most of you
don’t paint in oils anyway!
The lesson is this: All three of these art instructors were
extremely accomplished. All were prolific painters. All had
exhibited in shows. And John Asaro has received international
acclaim. But they had all learned the proper fundamentals. Then
they went on to discover their own technique. Their own style.
Such is motherhood. There are certain fundamentals that you must
learn. You must learn proper care of a newborn. How to clean out
her ears, suction her nose, bathe her. There are fundamental
principles of good hygiene that you must not only practice
yourself, but teach to your children. You must learn the
fundamentals of good nutrition so that you can provide nourishing meals for your family. You must learn the fundamental principles behind aerobic exercise and of strength training, so that you can be a model of fitness for your kids as well as help them begin a lifelong commitment to exercise. You must learn about certain classical readings, so that you can help develop your children’s minds. I believe it is fundamentally important that you nurture your children’s souls by providing them instruction in religion, and that you guide your children to have faith, reverence, and love for God. It is fundamental that you inspire your children with gorgeous music that transforms their souls and instills in them appreciation of the giants who have come before them.
But the techniques with which you do so can be as varied as there are moms and kids. For I might instill proper fitness by having my daughter perform classical ballet; you might let yours tap dance on your kitchen floor. I might teach my kids music appreciation by having them play classical violin. Yours might fiddle, or bang on their drum set in your garage.
It’s important that we learn from each other. Through direct
observation, and from reading good articles and books on
creativity and on motherhood, we can gleam great insights into
how to do our job even better. I learn a lot from my readers, who send me emails with priceless stories and anecdotes, whose
perspectives have blessed me and have helped me grow as a mom and as a person. I would not have learned the “palette lesson” had I not directly observed other students. If I did not ask questions.
Motherhood is not a science. It’s an art. As you lay down your
colors, make sure you have the right fundamentals. But then
release them with your own style. Your own technique. Dare to
paint your days with your own fresh, bold stroke.
