painting again

I saw him eating a banana during his lunch break at the supermarket, his whole being seemed to press up against the wall. It's like he wanted to disappear. And indeed, I almost walked past him without noticing him. He looked like part of the wall, hiding behind a claw machine. Looking at his phone, his pale pimply cheeks moving as he chewed. I had never heard him say a word. He would come over to help us whenever we had problems with the self-checkout machines. 

The contradicting thing with the machines is the self part of it. Because 3 out of 10 times you need the staff to help you check out your groceries. This irony reminds me of many other things in life. But I am not clever enough to put them into words to tell you what they are. Back to the banana-munching self-checkout guy - he is now eating some chocolate muffin. I remember Z telling me how the pumpkin and poppy seeds muffins at Woolies were great as they gave you the calories you needed quickly in a compact form during those short breaks at work. Fast food business really sucks the soul out of people.

I am trying to write a song, but this is turning into a novel. The self-checkout guy is gone now. I had painted him looking like Z in some ways.  At least they (the self-checkout guy and Z) have a job now and even if they are eating muffins for lunch, they have a purpose in life. I mean at least they are taking home a salary. Me? I have stopped working for someone else for a while now. When people ask I tell them I work from home. I paint. Make art. My mother keeps asking me how many paintings I have sold and I am at the point where I am starting to make up lies to reassure her. She's got a heart problem. But that's not the point of this story. I don't even know the point of all these writing. There is NO point. Just me rambling.

I now own 7 pairs of boots. I had to buy SIX pairs of them to finally find the perfect pair - a $10-dollar secondhand leather boots from the tip shop. When I put them on, I walked so fast with them I almost flew. Yet the next day I went back to wearing my heavy, ill-fitting hiking boots with the red laces. I told myself If I wore them long enough, I would get used to them. My feet and calves hurt that night, but I tried again the next day, tightening the laces. It felt better but still not as good and comfortable as that perfect $10-dollar boots. THIS IS THE POINT OF MY STORY - WHY DO I LIKE TO SUFFER? Why can't I just accept what's best for me and stop trying to change what does not work?

Both Z and the self-checkout guy know what works for them, even if what works is only temporary. (I like the red laces of that ill-fitting hiking boots though......)

You know what does not work for me? 9-5 office jobs.  I knew that long ago. I had always wanted to keep painting and making art, but I have stopped doing it daily for some time. I got distracted. So many things around me and in my head. Working for myself is like checking groceries out with a self-checkout machine. I still need some OTHER/OUTSIDE forces to help me. I can't simply rely on making art in my own room. I can't exist like the invisible self-checkout guy eating lunch with his body pressed up against the wall. I NEED to be SEEN.

Why did I stop working on my art regularly, for such a long time? I think it might be because I felt there was no need to make them because no one was gonna see them or appreciate them. Gee. Does that sound self-piteous? Didn't I say that I work for myself? Why did I care if no one looked at them or liked them? Did I really need that sort of approval from others? 

A few years ago, a friend of mine had asked me to make some art for his music albums. There were 4 or more of them, the albums I mean. For one of them I decided to make a portrait of him. When he saw the portrait, he was upset that I had made him look older, when I had actually made him look younger. Two other people thought I had made him look younger too, but K thought the portrait was not flattering enough. I was shocked that K had such a distorted idea of how he really looked. I then realised that he had deep issues with his image and aging and was in some deep denial of how he really looked. I noticed that his friends seemed to tell him or make him think he looked way younger than he really did. And because that was what he wanted to believe, he had become blind and deluded.

here are 2 versions of K I painted. I think he would have hated the one on the right if he were to see these. Hm. Maybe he might hate both. 

Very few people like how they really look. At least the people I know or have drawn and painted are like that. Then there are those who have a strange idea of how they really look. It is like there is an image in their mind that they see when they look in the mirror - they DON'T SEE their reflection, they only see what they want to see in their mind. I remember drawing a lady at an art gallery years ago and she kept asking me to make her chin look a certain way. I told her I wasn't a plastic surgeon. But then I realised that it WAS fun to be a sort of plastic surgeon when i make portraits of people. The kind of plastic surgeon that accentuates the quirks in a person's face. You can also call it a celebration of imperfection, but this way of describing it makes me cringe. I dislike the words Perfection and Imperfection. It is so stupid. There is only the thing as how the thing is - no such thing as perfect or imperfect. Our mind is fucked up because we are always measuring one thing against another.

I don't like relying on a photo to paint someone. My experience with the person I am drawing or painting, how I feel about them, no matter how superficial or shallow or how intimate and deep, the colour of their dress, the way their shoulders hunch, etc.. - so many little things govern how I paint them, YES, and some kind of magical ""plastic surgery" with paints and colours and textures.....

and YAY! I am painting again!!! 

This is one of the many ways I paint my papa

This is one of the many ways I paint my mama