Was That Blob Intentional?

Off to my left is a canvas with oil paint that has yet to dry.  It’s odd smell.  On the one hand its repulsive, a chemical smell, while at the same time it transports one to a nineteenth century studio with a view of Montmartre.  My wife has suddenly taking up oil painting with a vengeance.  Good-on-her. 

This red and black effort, is probably best described as a pattern.  It’s interesting.  There is something vibrant about a fresh canvas.  I picked it up now my thumbs are daubed in red oil paint that I’ve inadvertently rubbed on to my index finger.  I went to the kitchen and discovered that there are seven or so other such canvases.  Certainly, some are more fully realized than others.  Was that blob intentional?  Quietly I consider the uneven quality of the grid in a freshly wrought green canvas.  Mastering the urge to critique I decide to ask questions.

At different times my wife has thrown herself completely into one or another artistic endeavor.  When I met her she was a poet.  In her younger days she was a folk dancer.  She has put untold hours into playing the guzheng, which she does well to my ears and flower arrangement is only superseded by her passionate interest in cooking.  It occurred to me, and I told my kids this, that mom was a junren or a real Confucian intellectual.  The Confucians not only were on-point to adjudicate, but at a moment’s notice they could, without hesitation, play an instrument, compose a poem, write commanding calligraphy.  They were never “specialists” but rather broadly capable generalists who necessarily had mastered the arts.

We’d lots of talk about going into the city for dinner.  I was game for that, I suppose.  The older one insisted that she had SAT’s this weekend.  She had to study.  No time for superfluous city dining excursions.  Well, ok.  Let’s head to Han Feng.  Piazza Café is a local favorite that has been here for as long as I can remember.  They serve solid family style Chinese, they have pizza and tacos if that’s your thing.  But the older one moaned and said she’d gotten sick when we last ate there.  I found it hard to believe this was anything other than a one-off as we’d all eaten there one hundred times before.  We dined last evening and sure enough, she complained of a bellyache the next morning.  No one else had any such issue.  I suppose we won’t be heading back again at least not with her.  For some diagnostics you still need a specialist.

Wednesday 10/03/18