Patience, Fretting, Impatience

Kenny Rogers still provides the most useful structure for decision-making in my world. You know: hold 'em, fold 'em; walk away, run. Maybe I'd adopt a more awesome rule like Kant's Categorical Imperative if I had a clue about what it means.

For now, I'll stick with the Yes/No, On/Off, Dog/Cat, Coke/Pepsi world of oppositions that Kenny hath wrought.

No more ado: patience is my new virtue. You could consider it a sister art of being methodical, which is also a newish trick that I've been attempting. Something like Patience is being methodical while being challenged.

My final drawing class was last night. Friends, drawing is patience. More than anything, I learned that no matter how gifted a draftsman you are, drawing takes time, mistakes and more time.

Our challenge last night was to produce a shaded drawing of a spot-lit plaster cast of a human foot. My perspective caused a severe angle with a scrunched view of the toes and shadows that made the bottom shape subtle, elusive. My reaction to my first quick outline was that it was horrible. Not the way to do it. The better way to think here is that this is the start, the sculpture underneath has yet to be revealed.

So after helpful advice from the instructor, I kept carving and different parts started to look footish. This poor person still had terrible problems with his toes (industrial accident? land mine? kickboxing?) which were bunchy and alien.

Round two of advice: see the big toe as one block, the rest of the toes as another. Get the shapes right, then worry about the detail. Okay. This was still hard but I blocked in the shapes using reference points to align the parts correctly. Wow! The swelling in the foot was reduced and the patient had a chance of keeping his appendage.

I could continue with tales of getting stumped, figuring it out or getting help. The point is that drawing complex things is hard. It is difficult. Every time. The only solution is to try. You then get closer or not. You do it again and again. You build in giant mistakes while you learn to see and get your arm under control. I expect that as I continue, I will make just as many mistakes, they will most often be more refined.

This was patience in action. Kept making marks until I felt stuck. Got impatient, called for help. Did not fret. Fretting no good. Fretting is not movement, it's being stalled. If there was no help, I looked harder and then made more mistakes. The positive person in me thinks it's more like focusing binoculars. When you put them to your eyes, do you toss them down in frustration if you can't see? No, you adjust them until you can see.

There are no shortcuts here. I had continued to hope for them, fretting all the while, fearing the irreparable mistake, staying stalled. Silly man, it's all about the mistakes, the attempts to get it. I want to be like those guys hanging in museums, passing time with my pencils and paper, hands and eyes. I want to keep correcting, sharpening my focus, taking the time to find my subject in all its breathtaking clarity.