Futility

So I lied. I wasn't done with the wedding painting like I proclaimed a mere two days ago. I kept looking at the painting of my son and his soon to be wife, and I couldn't stand it any more. I know I insisted I was done, but it just doesn't quite look right. I had to go in and change it....again.

"Your soul sucking painting?" Amy asked me later when I called to see how she was recuperating from her nasty bout of pancreatitis.
"Yes, that one."
"Send me just Matt's head and let me see if I can help," asked Amy.
So I sent her Matt's head, not on a platter, but on gmail.

She sent back a photoshopped correction of what she felt was wrong. She lengthened the nose, dipped the upper lip, and squared the chin....the very changes Asherel told me to paint out last week. I am beginning to feel like a yo yo.

I even incorporated math into the process. I measured the distance between all Matt's features and then set up a ratio/algebraic equation to discern if my painting ratios matched. I found one measurement off by 1 cm., corrected that, and felt it did help. I may not be much of an artist, but I was pretty self-impressed by my math skills.

If I had another year....I think I could do it. But I only have two days. Then we are off to a Beatles tribute concert and then to go take care of recuperating sister Amy. Then it is wedding time.

Now I wish I hadn't made fun of all those portrait artists that use projectors to trace their subjects from a photo. At this point, I would be sorely tempted to cheat that way. It's like how I chastised my mom for all those years for dying her hair. Now that I am old and grey....if I hadn't made so much sport of her maybe I would become a blond and see if I had more fun. Smugness has a way of rebounding onto oneself.

And I must say, I have a whole new respect for God's skill in making each of us look exactly the way we are supposed to. It is much harder than you would think.

Karissa, the lovely bride to be, is nothing but grace and kindness. They will love the painting, she writes, because it was made by me. It is very sweet of her, and I almost want to paint a mustache on both of them just to see how far that sentiment could survive.

"Does it look like Matt?" I asked husband, Arvo.
"Do you have a picture of him?" he asked.
I didn't say what was in my mind, which was, "It is your son....remember him?"
I showed him a picture, which he scrutinized. He gave some good and thankfully simple advice. I agreed with those observations, mostly because I could do them without totally repainting any feature. I have noticed that my receptivity to any advice on the painting is in direct proportion to how easily I can incorporate the changes.

I have reached this point of total frustration in my art many times. Sometimes, I let the bitter defeatism take over and I take a glob of black paint and paint over my struggle with frantic, vicious strokes.( This might be that "lack of maturity" the art gallery owner who rejected my work was referring to.) I have had to leave the room to prevent this from happening to this year long labor of love. Funny how anyone looking at the final result would never suspect it took me a year to get even this far. They can't see the layers and layers and layers of failure underneath the current layer.

Again, I knew God was painting me a message. To many people, I think I appear to be at least on the fringe of respectable normalcy. I mostly can get through each day without causing too much damage to myself or others. But there are layers and layers and layers of failure underneath the surface....and the surface is still not what it should be.

I guess if it were, I wouldn't recognize my need for God. Perhaps all that failure is a blessing. Success never seems to bring me quite so desperately to His side, begging Him to take my brush and guide my hand.

Two days aren't enough....but it is all I have. So I better stop writing and make the most of my time.

Job 7:3
³ so I have been allotted months of futility,
   and nights of misery have been assigned to me.

Daniel 12:13
  ¹³ “As for you, go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance.”