I WANT TO PAINT YOU, A novel that I'm working on, but it isn't published yet, Chapter 1, 1st Draft

Chapter 1

      The war in Vietnam and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were impossible not to think about in the summer of 1968.  The city of Chicago was like every other city in America; every day it was on the television, the radio, the front page of newspapers.  None of this was on Gerard’s mind though.  The only thing that he was thinking about was the model that was standing in front of him and the way the late afternoon sunlight filtered through the windows and filled the studio with what he thought of as the perfect light to paint by. 

     “I’m getting tired.”

     “We’re almost done for the day.  Don’t move.  You look so perfect and beautiful.”

     For the next hour neither of them spoke a word.  Her eyes studied him every bit as much as his did her.  There were many things she liked about him.  He was tall and strong of build.  He had manly features and yet there was a sensitivity about him, something uncommon in men.

     “That’s enough for now,” he said.  “The light has changed and so it’s no good for painting anymore but it’s absolutely perfect for a glass of wine on the balcony.”

     She smiled at him as she began to put her clothes on.

     “Don’t you ever think about anything other than painting and watching the sunset?”

     “Sometimes,” he said, as he walked over and began cleaning his brushes.  “But what else is there?  They are the two most beautiful things in life.”

     After she had finished putting her clothes on she walked over and looked at the painting.  The colors and shapes were different than she expected.  She didn’t know what to expect really, but what she saw surprised her. 

     “What do you think?”  He asked, as he continued to clean the brushes.

     She walked over to where he was standing and hugged him from behind.

     “I can’t wait to see it when it’s finished.”

     “Good”, he said.  “Soon it will be.”

     After he finished cleaning the last brush he opened a bottle of cabernet and poured two glasses.  As he handed one to her he couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she looked in the warm light of sunset.  The soft light brought out the delicate shape of her features.  Her large green eyes had a quality to them that he had never painted before.  He had painted many different women but none of them had her eyes.  There was something special about them.  The rest of her was also beautiful.  Though she was slender at the waist, she had large breasts and curvy hips.  She was tone and firm and yet she was soft and supple at the same time.  It wasn’t the size of her breasts that appealed to him though; it was their shape and softness.  Her nipples were large, not too much, they were perfect.  Without them they would have been nothing more than two mounds of lumpy flesh.  It was the way they sloped so gently with the help of gravity and the size and shape of her nipples that made them so perfect.  Everything about her was sensuous and soft, her eyes, her voice, her hair, her graceful movements.  Her long, golden hair was cornsilk straight like pages in a book unread and it gleamed with a demure beauty in the bright sun.  It fell across her supple shoulders rather delicately as though the wind had not even thought of blowing her well combed sense of proportion out of place.  Her almond shaped eyes were bluer than the turquoise water and just as shallow; but there was something in them, a passion that wanted to break free as she talked about her desire to join the Peace Corps.  What he liked most about her though wasn’t her physical qualities.  What he found inescapably compelling about her was the beauty within her soul.  She was extremely gentle and her voice was soft.  She was also quiet by nature.  Some of the women he painted talked a lot and it made it difficult to concentrate.  She understood the power of silence.  It gave her a mysterious quality. 

     He was very excited about painting her.  The energy she had was coming out in the painting.  That was the toughest thing to paint, the qualities of the soul.  Many women are physically beautiful but that’s where it ends.  Nothing else about them is beautiful or worth painting.  Once he felt the ugliness of their souls he couldn’t paint them.  They would just be naked flesh, nothing more than a centerfold, the latest skin of the month.  He was seeking a beauty deeper than flesh; he was after the beauty that animates the flesh and gives it life.  It’s what brought the painting to life and imbued it with a special mood.  Some women have this special mood about them but their physicality obscures it. Others have beautiful symmetry and proportion and good bone structure but that’s all they have.  Barbara was a rare combination.  She had both qualities; an uncommon physical beauty and an equally beautiful soul.  Though she was young, she was already an experienced model.  She could stand in position for a long time without moving.

     “How’s your brother doing?  You haven’t talked about him much lately.”

     “He’s not the same, Gerard.  I don’t know what’s happened to him.  Ever since he’s been back he’s like a different person.  I’m worried about him.  I think he’s strung out on something.  I don’t know who he is anymore.  He used to be the life of the party.  We laughed so much back then.  I still see him through the eyes of a little girl watching her big brother, the high school quarterback throwing touchdowns that all the girls cheered for.  Everything is so different now.  He can’t hold a job.  He doesn’t have a girlfriend.  I’ve introduced him to different girls.  He’s gone on dates with some of them, but it’s just one date and that’s it.  He’s withdrawn.  I don’t know what to do.  Half the time I cry myself to sleep.  He’s still fighting something but I don’t know what it is and I’m not sure he does either.”

     Gerard drew in a deep breath as he looked at her.  He knew what she was talking about.  A lot of guys were returning home like that.  Having served in Korea he knew what it meant to fight a war.  He knew what it meant to watch your friends die.  He knew what it meant to be a silent soldier and not talk about what you’ve seen and what you’ve done because civilians don’t understand.  He knew exactly what she was talking about.  It isn’t about the wounds that heal, it’s about the ones that don’t and never will.  But this was a different kind of war.  The country was divided.  The Korean War didn’t have the protestors and the antiwar movement that this one did.  Barbara’s generation was opposed to it.  They were fleeing to Canada and burning their draft cards.  To serve with honor meant nothing to them.  Maybe they were right.  They weren’t coming home to a hero’s welcome.  They were returning to hostile crowds of peace loving, drugged out, long haired hippies.  They were alienated the minute they stepped off the plane.  They had left a chaotic world of senseless violence only to return to another.  They weren’t wanted in Vietnam and they weren’t wanted at home either.  There was no place for them to go so they withdrew into themselves, tortured by war torn memories.

     Like the country, Gerard felt ambivalent about the war.  He understood the younger generation and why they were opposed to the war.  He also felt opposed to it because he knew that war is the ultimate curse of mankind.  Ever since JFK was shot in the head on that day in Dallas so much had changed so fast it was difficult to know what to think anymore.  The values that he had been brought up with during the Great Depression on a small farm outside of Omaha, Nebraska no longer seemed to apply.  Back then people were hungry.  They were desperate.  A lot of the men he knew were out of work.  There was always a wandering hobo with ragged clothes or some wayward straggler stopping by and looking for work as a farmhand.  Sometimes his father would take them on, sometimes he wouldn’t, but he always let them sleep in the barn for a night or two and he always made sure they had some whiskey to drink and cigarettes to smoke.  Some of them had tobacco but they were out of papers.  Others had rolling papers but no tobacco.  Some of them barely spoke English.  Others had never milked a cow.  It didn’t matter to his father who they were.  He knew they were hungry and desperate and he did what he could to help them.  There were nights when he didn’t eat anything so there would be food for others.  The ones that had their women and children with them caused him the greatest sadness.  It’s hard to see a man in that condition, standing there with a parched throat and dirty face reduced to begging strangers for a handout, but to see their women standing there in worn out dresses holding onto the hands of their children with looks on their faces is something that will never leave you.  His mother did what she could too.  She would put her arm around them and take them into the kitchen and cook them a hot meal and while they were taking a bath she would stitch up their clothes as best she could.  They weren’t churchgoing people, not as much as some of the neighbors were, but they didn’t need a preacher or anyone else to tell them that everyone was suffering.  Everywhere you looked it’s all you saw.  There wasn’t the prosperity like there is today.  The old timers would sit around and talk about it.  They’d sit on their porches in the thick summer heat in their overalls and straw hats talking about how FDR was ruining the country.  If anyone had a new shirt or a new pair of boots it was an amazing thing.  His family was lucky.  Since they lived on a farm they were able to keep their bellies full but there wasn’t any extra money.  They came very close to losing the farm.  He overhead his parents talking about it often, at some point the conversation always went back to the stock market crash of 29’.  That’s what started it all.  A year later Gerard was born; it was a rainy October morning in 1930 when his mother first looked into his eyes and he into hers.

     His father hated the banks.  The only time he ever heard his father’s voice filled with that kind of anger was when he talked about the banks.  He didn’t like FDR anymore than anyone else did but it was the banks that he hated the most.  Gerard used to lay awake nights praying for them to pull through.  He prayed for everyone, his brother, his parents, the farmhands, the neighbors.  He prayed for the animals too.  He knew they had to kill them to stay alive but he never felt good about it.  He cried all night the first time he watched his father take the life of a hog.  It never did get easier for him.  Like all farm kids he grew used to it but the violence of it was something he never could become comfortable with.  Then the war came.  A lot of the men that had been out of work, men who had become used to standing in soup lines were now dying overseas.  One of those men was his brother.  Another was his Uncle.  He had other uncles and he never did know his mother’s youngest brother all that well, but Thomas was his only brother.  He was only twenty three years old when they received a letter one day.  It said he died valiantly in the cause to liberate Paris.  All of the death that the war brought left jobs open for the men that came back alive.  Had the war gone on longer Gerard would have ended up fighting overseas in Europe or in the Pacific against the Japanese but the war ended the summer he turned fifteen years old.  Russian tanks had already pushed the German lines back to Berlin and fate had decided that he would not die on the blood stained beaches of Okinawa or Iwo Jima.  President Truman’s nuclear decision made certain of that.  After the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the Japanese no longer refused to surrender.    

     A few years later war broke out again.  This time it was on the Korean peninsula.  Since his family was still struggling from all of the years of the depression he didn’t want to be a burden to them.  He didn’t want to be one more guy sitting on a porch contemplating the paint that had pealed.  There wasn’t any money for paint so all the porches and houses and barns and left the wood bare and exposed like the banks had done to just about everyone.  It was relaxing to watch the grasshoppers jumping about in the tall, leafy green grass.  Nothing could feel more natural than watching fireflies lighting up summer nights or listening to the rain dripping from the leaves of maple and oak trees.  Like everyone else he felt warm and content when he had a glass of lemonade or moonshine to sip on but there was more to life than worrying about the price of corn or cattle.  There was no money for him to attend school so he decided to enlist in the marines.  He had no desire to kill people.  It just seemed like the only good choice for him to make at that time.  Like many boys he was anxious to prove his courage and serve his country.  His father was very patriotic.  His mother was too.  He wanted to make them proud.    

     He found the Asian women to be extremely exotic and beautiful.  He had left home a naïve Midwestern farm boy.  He returned as a man.  Most of them were nothing more than a momentary release from the horrors of war.  There was one though that he did fall in love with.  He was nineteen.  She was seventeen.  She had the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen.  Before he could ask her to marry him her village was bombed.  She along with her family died in the raid.  His passion left him.  Everything left him.  He spent the next five years mourning her.  Everywhere he looked he saw her eyes looking back at him.  He dreamed about her all the time.  Sometimes it was her face, her eyes, her lips, the feeling of holding her; the touch of her tiny, slender fingers holding onto his.  Other times he awoke to the sound of bombs exploding, the sky was on fire and smoke drifted in the wind as people screamed frantically as they ran for shelter but there wasn’t any; there was only death.

     “Just give him some time.  He’ll be okay.  He made it back alive.”

     “I hate this war, Gerard.  I hate everything it’s done to our country, and I hate it most of all for what it’s done to my brother.  Every day I worry about who’s going to get drafted next, who I’ll never see again.  I just want it to go away.”

     Gerard put his arm around her and kissed her on the forehead.

     “Someday it will.”

     She set her wine down on the coffee table then she took the glass out of his hand and set it down next to hers.  Then she put her arms around his neck and kissed him.  His mouth opened wide to welcome her tongue.  The way his arms felt around her waist, the gentle strength that he held onto her with drove her crazy with passion.  She had already been wet with anticipation, it had been building the entire time that he had been painting her, but now the insides of her thighs were on fire.  Her belly, her hips, everything started to burn.  He was as much of gentlemen as she had ever known but once the moment came he filled with a fierce passion that overwhelmed her.  

     Though he was almost twenty years older than her she was in love with him.  More than once she came close to telling him but each time she lost her nerve.  He was the most amazing person that she had ever met and she was afraid of losing him if she were to tell him how she feels.  Being in his arms was the only place to be.  Nothing else mattered.  In the secret depths of her heart she fantasized that he loved her just as much, even more, but to ever really tell him would be to risk losing him and that was too much to think about. 

     She felt herself growing weaker and stronger at the same time as his hands moved across the outer edges of her nipples.  They moved slowly as though he wanted to touch them but hadn’t made up his mind as to how.  She tilted her head back and closed her eyes.  Everything faded away as she drifted into a world that only he could take her to.  Knowing that his mouth would soon take her nipples into it made her entire body tingle.  A feeling started at her toes and then made its way up her legs, she began to tremble and convulse more from the thought of it than anything else.  He felt the aching warmth of it and responded by undoing her robe and sliding it off her shoulders until it was gathered around her feet.  His hands were moving decisively across her breasts now as his tongue continued to kiss her deeper and deeper.  As his hands brought her nipples to the desired state of ecstasy she took hold of his shirt and began yanking it out of his pants.  She couldn’t get it off fast enough.

     He wasn’t her first lover.  She had been with other guys before, but they were just boys.  All they were interested in was some fast action in the backseat of a car.  It didn’t matter if was the Beatles, Stones, or the Kinks that were playing on the radio.  As long as she was on the pill they were ready to go.  The moment was over before it had even begun.  Just when she was getting hot and wet they were ready to kiss her goodnight and drive her home.  They didn’t care at all about her satisfaction; they only cared about their own.  She didn’t know that then.  It was all she knew.  She thought all boys and men were like that.  Then she met Gerard and her world changed forever.  That’s when her sexual revolution took place.  Finally, it made sense.  He never rushed.  He always took his time.  Only now, she had become the canvas and the artist was burning with passion.  He touched her in ways that no one else had ever touched her.  He brought to life feelings that she knew no one else ever could or would again.  That was one thing she did know.  She would never meet another man like Gerard.  A strange power moved through him.  She felt it the first time they met.  It was the power that made him a great painter and it was the same power that made him a great lover.  She never told him that she felt this amazing feeling emanating from him because she didn’t know what to call it; she had no way to define or conceptualize it.  She did know, however, that there was something rare and special about him.  She could feel it moving through him when he was painting her but the first time they touched she felt it physically.  It wasn’t just her imagination.  Some unknown power, some greatness had been bestowed on him and like every other feeling she had for him she never said anything about it to him.  She was afraid that he would laugh at her and think her immature and start talking about composition techniques and mixing colors, all of that technical stuff that she could care less about.

     When her nipples were warm and wet with wine and the hot summer sweat of July he reluctantly removed his tongue from them and led her by the hand into the bedroom.  She frantically helped him remove what was left of his clothing as fast as possible and then he took her into his arms and they fell onto the bed in an inseparable embrace.  There was no holding back now.  She was sopping wet; she couldn’t wait for him to be inside her.  She broke away from his kiss the moment he started painting her.  It was impossible not to.  He had pierced her. The penetration of it caused her to let out a moan.   Then, with an insatiable hunger she seized the back of his head with her hands and thrust her tongue back into his mouth as he painted her in new and extraordinary ways with every stroke.  He was immensely powerful and yet he possessed exquisite sensitivity at the same time.  Her feet were wrapped around his waist for a moment, the next she was running her toes and heels and the arches of her feet down the backs of his legs.  He painted her and painted her as though he was never going to paint her again, as though it was to be the last canvas they would ever share.  Colors exploded in her mind as sensations exploded throughout her body.  Her heart was pumping so fast it felt as though it was going to burst.  He was still coming on.  He lunged into her again and again with his lithe, hard body until he exploded too.  His wetness met her wetness.  They were both drenched in sweat when the hardness of his muscle gradually gave way to a feeling of completeness and well being.  As the intensity faded away he looked deep into her eyes and kissed her for what felt like forever. 

     “Oh my God, Gerard.  That was incredible!”

     “Yes it was.  It always is.”

     They both laid there for a while breathing heavily.  Then she propped herself up on her elbow and looked at him.

     “Do you mind if I put some music on?”

     “No.  Go right ahead.”

     She leaned over and kissed him, then scooted over and dangled her legs over the side of the bed and stood up.  She walked into the living room and began sifting through the records until she found her favorite Dylan record.  Then she took the Hank Williams record that was on the turntable and put it back in its cover.  Then she took out the Dylan record and for a moment she just stood there naked feeling the beauty of the moment as she tried to decide which side she wanted to hear.  A moment later Gerard heard the living room fill with his spare haunting voice and the strum of his acoustic guitar.  He smiled.  He figured that she’d most likely put on some Dylan, either that or the Airplane.  She liked other music too, bands like The Mamas and The Papas and Blood, Sweat and Tears, but it was the Airplane and Dylan that she played the most.  Gerard knew his Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk records didn’t appeal to her much.  Jazz more or less happened before her time.  Dylan and the airplane were her generation.  It was what she grew up with.  Dylan was a choice they both agreed on.  Other than sex and their love of art there wasn’t much that they had in common.

     He heard Barbara singing along to the music as her footsteps took her into the bathroom.  She stood in front of the mirror looking at herself.  More or less, overall, she was happy with the girl looking back at her.  She turned to the side to look at her profile and then turned back again and leaned close to the mirror to examine her makeup. 

     “I’ll be back in a minute, Gerard.  I’m just going to freshen up a bit.”

     “Are you staying tonight?”

     “I was planning on it.  Is it okay?”

     “You know it is.  You don’t have to ask.”

     She took her lipstick and mascara out of her purse and set them on the countertop.  Then she leaned forward until her face was only a few inches from the mirror and applied fresh lipstick.  When she was done with that she took out her mascara and eye shadow and applied both heavily.  She, along with most girls her age, preferred heavy eye makeup.  She knew Gerard didn’t care either way but she wanted to look her best for him.  When her makeup met with her approval she took a large brush out and started brushing her long hair.  When she was at last satisfied with how she looked she sauntered back into his bedroom and plopped down on the edge of the bed.  She had set her purse on the nightstand but with a rather delicate grace she reached into it and took out a small wooden container.  She opened it and took out a joint.  She put it between her lips and lit it, inhaled several times, then passed it to Gerard.  Gerard sat up and looked out the window at the beautiful starry July sky as he inhaled the joint and held the smoke in his lungs.  As he was exhaling he passed it back to her.   

     “Are you hungry, Gerard?”

     “No.  Are you?”  He asked, after he had finished coughing.

     “No.  I just thought I’d ask.  I could make you a sandwich or something if you want.”

     “Thanks, but I’m fine.”

     “I can’t wait to meet George’s new girlfriend tomorrow night.  Where did you say she’s from?”  She asked, as she passed the joint back to Gerard.

     “Brazil,” he answered, then he took another hit from the joint.

     “That’s right, Brazil.  I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone from Brazil before.  He’s always meeting these exotic girls from other countries.  Where was the last one from?”

     “India.”

     “That’s right.  I liked her.  She was a really nice girl.  I enjoyed talking to her; I just couldn’t understand what she was saying most of the time.”

     Gerard exhaled and passed the joint back to Barbara.

     “I liked her too but I don’t know that I’d call her his girlfriend.”

     “What would you call her?”

     “A girl that he painted and spent a few nights with.”

     “He’s just like you, Gerard, a younger version of you.  I don’t know what trip he’s on.  He just might be the most far out person I’ve ever met.”

     Gerard laughed as she inhaled deeply then reached over and flicked the ashes into the ashtray.
     “You’re right about that.  He has greatness in him.  I think he’s going to be a famous painter someday; he’s far better than Sergio, myself, or the others could ever be.  His talent is astounding.  It blows me away.  He’s like a young Picasso.  He’s only twenty two years old but he’s already that good.  His self portraits are by far the best I’ve ever seen.”

     She passed the joint back to Gerard.

    “That’s not what I meant, Gerard.  He’s got a new girl every week.  You painters sure know how to seduce a girl.  You know our weakness is vanity.  To have someone paint you more beautiful than you are, more beautiful than you see yourself, not many girls can resist that.  I guess that’s the difference between you though.  To him they’re just models, girls to have sex with while he’s painting them.  To you, it’s something different though, isn’t it?  I mean, you like being together don’t you?  It’s not just because you want to paint me.”

     “Even if I wasn’t painting you, if we never talked about art once, I’d still want to be with you.  You know that.    Oh, I forgot to mention it earlier.  We have to stop and get Sergio.  He called today and said he needs a ride.”

     “Oh God, Sergio?  Gerard, that means the three of us are going to be jammed together in the front seat of your truck.  I hate sitting next to him.  It’s going to be really hot out and he’s going to be sweating all over me.”

     “I know it’s a tight squeeze,” he said, as he passed the joint back to her.

     “I don’t understand why a cab driver always needs a ride.  Why doesn’t he just take his cab?”

      “You know he can’t afford it.  Just because he drives one doesn’t mean he can drive it after hours when he isn’t working.”

     “So what time are you picking me up?”

     “I’ll be by a little after seven.”

     “That’s some really good stuff.  Where’d you get it?”

     “Linda.”

     “Jeremy’s Linda?”

     She laughed as she shook her head.

     “Yeah.  She’s the only Linda I know.”

     She was silent for a moment as she looked down at her feet and contemplated the pink toenail polish that she had painted yesterday, then she looked into Gerard’s shimmering blue eyes.  A smile broke out across her face and then moments later it turned to laughter as she extinguished the joint in an ashtray.  Gerard couldn’t take his eyes off of her.  She looked even more beautiful than before.  Desire started flowing through him again.  Before he knew what had happened she was sprawled out on top of him.  Her laughter had stopped.  Something else had taken its place.  She wanted more pleasure.  She knew exactly how to convince him.  She knew the routine.  All she had to do was take him into her soft, warm mouth and move that beautiful blonde head of hers up and down in conjunction with the steady rhythm of her hand.  When she could no longer hold back the urge to fill the emptiness inside of her she started kissing her way up his body until her mouth was on his and they were once again in the throes of an inseparable embrace.  

     He loved the way her breasts felt when she was on top of him.  Gravity brought them right to the tips of his fingers and the edge of his tongue.  He loved the feeling and taste of her erect nipples.  He loved everything about her.  She was the same girl as before, the one that stood naked and motionless before him in the light of sunset, and yet she was different.  The fresh perfume that she had put on was intoxicating, even more than the marijuana and wine. 

     She was relentless.  She gave herself to him and gave herself to him and gave herself to him with every movement and motion of her belly and all the softness below it until he brushed the hair away from her face and whispered in her ear that the moment had come.  The urgency in his voice brought about an even greater urgency deep within her.  She put her mouth against his and thrust her belly and hips into him with all of her strength as she bounced up and down on his blood swelled hardness with a final burst of crazed passion until every part of her body was quivering with an almost unbearable tension.  It was too much…almost.  She wanted to sustain it and yet she wanted it to end.  When she felt him shudder for the final time, a moment the French call the petite death, she collapsed on top of him and nestled her head against his neck and clung to him with every part of her. 

     He took her again and then again as the moon moved across the starry midnight sky.  Eventually, she fell asleep; he tried to do the same but he couldn’t, so he got out of bed and walked into the living room and looked at the painting again.  As he looked at it his mind began to fill with images and moods.  He had planned on waiting till the next day to start working on it again but the imagery and mood he felt was so profound he wasn’t able to resist the urge to pick up a brush and start working on it. 

     It had already gone through three different evolutions since he first started working on it.  His initial idea was to express something soft and yet just out of reach.  Then, as he started working on it he felt compelled to transform it into a more abstract piece flowing with emotion more so than softness.  This happened on the third day after he started working on it.  It seemed the perfect painting to him but then he decided to add another layer of complexity to it, a dimension that he has been striving for all his life in one way or another. 

     They always start off as one thing but then something else takes over, some force that lives through him and often seems to have a life of its own.  He felt it happening again as it has so many times before.  He thought of it as another dimension, but that’s not the right word really, there isn’t really a way of putting it into words.  The images are something that he sees and feels, but it’s not so much with his eyes that he sees them, but something more like in a dream, some ethereal world that he can’t really seem to capture but he lives in it all the time nonetheless. 

     He felt himself becoming more and more alert and focused as he began working with tremendous speed.  It was the best feeling in the world.  He was applying the paint thick and fast.  He couldn’t apply it fast enough.  If only his body could keep up with the pace of the imagery and the moods that flowed through him, but no matter how hard he tried he could only capture a small portion of it before his human weakness limited him.  It was this that made him feel most sad.  If he wasn’t limited by hunger, pain, fatigue, he could really paint something of worth.

     As much as he needed the models, he could never concentrate as well when they were in the studio.  There was always that aspect of his awareness that was cognizant of their presence, their restlessness, their expectations, their wants, their needs, their limitations, the mood they would often try and impose on him.  It wasn’t until they left and he was alone again that he could immerse himself more fully in that other world.  He wasn’t an artist or painter so much it was more of just a bridge to that other world that he loved so much and decided to devote his life to.  Painting was simply the vehicle that took him there more than anything else.

     He worked deep into the early morning hours.  Other than when the light is good, it is the best time of day to paint.  Most people are asleep and so it is quiet.  He was free to work without distraction. 

     Then, there are the moods of the night.  He always felt more at home when it’s dark out, when the moon and stars are out.  The quiet mystery of the night brought out something in him that the sun’s light never could.  His imagination wandered the distant reaches of the universe.  He was no longer a man with limitations.  He felt like an eternal being without end, a being observing the cosmos.  It’s something that most people are afraid of.  They spend their lives doing their best to avoid thinking about it.  They keep themselves as busy as possible and surrounded by other people because the last thing they want to feel is being alone and thinking about it all.  It scares them.  It terrifies them.  The questions of existence, the vast incomprehensible size of the universe, they want nothing to do with it.  They stick to the mundane.  But he wasn’t interested at all in the mundane.  His soul was in touch with something greater than himself, the great mystery of creation and existence.  There were times when he felt it during the day but it was at night when he felt it most clearly.

     If there was any difference between him and the average person, or even the average artist for that matter, it was this hunger, this drive, to feel and experience what others seek to avoid.  In this sense, he was fearless.  He had the courage to seek out and explore the nature of his soul.  From the time that he was a small child he realized that he was different from the others around him.  He realized that he was in touch with something they seemed to be oblivious of as though the only reason we exist is so we can build hot dog stands and eat ice cream. 

     He couldn’t determine what this thing was though.  Perhaps no one can.  In his effort to understand it he read book after book on philosophy and eastern religions, books on physics and astronomy, books by gurus and worldly travelers, but he never felt more in tune with the energy that guides the universe than when he was in front of a canvas.  The first time he picked up a brush he felt something come alive inside him.  A mysterious power started flowing through him.  He had no idea where it came from or how it worked.  He only knew from that moment forward that he was born to be an artist.