The Work of An Artist's Hand

Once I was painting the ocean and squeezed out red from my paint tube. A man approached me and said, " I had to come see your painting. I own a gallery and when I saw you dip your brush in red paint to paint the ocean in the middle of the day....I thought I better have a look."
He gazed at my watercolor, then handed me his card, and told me to see him with a my portfolio when I had a chance. I found it gratifying that from a tiny sketch of a red tinged ocean this gallery owner thought he saw something worth looking into further.

I wonder if my son and his bride will gaze at the colors in their faces on the wedding portrait I am painting and feel similarly.
"Why are their faces so red?" asked Asherel.
"Too much?" I asked.
She nodded.
"I suppose you will tell me the purple shadow beside the nose has to go too?"
I am struggling with this portrait. I mixed up more realistic flesh tones and got back to work. And then I noticed that the bright white dress I had painted, might not really be a bright white dress.
I emailed Karissa, the beautiful bride to be.
She was studying for finals, and writing class papers, and applying to law schools. I knew she would drop it all to answer me over this important question.
"Does your dress have a touch of ivory in it?"
There was the email equivalent of arched eyebrows and a long pause.
"I have no idea," came the response, "It's white- exactly like the picture I sent."
But white has a thousand potential nuances. And my printer doesn't print exactly as the monitor displays the color....
"It definitely has a touch of ivory in it," said Asherel.
So back to work on the dress which I had actually thought was done months ago.
"Does Matt's hair really look like a basketball?" asked Asherel, of course in the kindest manner possible.
It was too perfectly coiffed and rounded. I sighed. I am using water soluble oil paints so they are easily cleaned like acrylics, but take a week or so to fully dry, unlike acrylics. That means any big changes require at times a week of waiting between new coats. It seems that every time I lay down my brushes and say, "It is finished!", when I look back at it, or Asherel does, a new flaw emerges. And when I change one thing....well then suddenly everything around it needs changing. This is one of the most laborious labors of love I have ever engaged in.

How did God get it all done in a week?
There is one thing that all the struggles, turmoils, stumbles, and falls of my life have taught me. I am not God.
If I had been, we would all be walking around with one eye 3 cm higher than the other, noses just slightly off center and teeth that curved and meandered. Our cheeks would be suffused with a greenish purple glow and our necks would have an extra tendon. For this reason alone, it is good that I am not God.

However, I think one of the hardest lessons of my life has been that even if I were offered the job, I would not want to be God, nor am I qualified. As a kid, I think I thought I could pass muster. The older and "wiser" I get, the more I understand that running a universe smoothly is much harder than one would think.

And maybe similarly, my perspective is as limited as my qualifications. Perhaps all that I see is my little corner, but the real God has to see every corner....simultaneously. Maybe all this senseless stuff makes sense to the one who can gather it all into one canvas.

Last night, I finished the last sparkle of white on my portraits' eyes and stepped back.
"It is good!" I said.
But that is what I said before I started repainting them this morning too......
"Well ok, it is good for today. We will see about tomorrow when it comes."
Unlike God, I can't see around the corner either.

Song of Solomon 7:1
 ¹ How beautiful your sandaled feet,
   O prince’s daughter!
Your graceful legs are like jewels,
   the work of an artist’s hands.