A Man's Soul

Rod Adams is a watercolorist.  He is curmudgeonly amicable with a voice that rumbles at a pitch usually just below what I can hear clearly.  Drinks coffee all day and taxes his angelic wife to no end, but still, I felt for him when he had a terrible time of painter’s block.  Feeling ill and in a general slump, he was not interested in painting anything.  I offered to paint his portrait as a way to keep him connected to the art studios and involved in painting, even if it was in a different way, as a model.  I was so happy when he said yes.

     During the winter months I generally am not able to paint and I experience a kind of winter blues.  It is frustrating to feel like I have nothing to say and am unable to handle things through my painting because the paint flies, but it all lands badly.  Painting a portrait from life is a very rare opportunity for me, but it is something I really love to do.  Our faces are universal and unique.  I like to think about the bone foundation and how the cheek curves and how the mandible sets.  I imagine the muscles stretching over and around and I am intrigued.  Everytime it is different.  And yet, everytime it is the same.

     So Rod and I finally synchronized schedules and met up on a Thursday morning.  He sat down and settled comfortably in a plastic blue chair in front of the window, in just the right way for me.  After some time, he began to tell me his story.  His life and his family heritage; things that mattered and people he’d met.  I feel his words helped paint this first session although I still have a ways to go.  We are meeting again at The Electric Company Artist’s Co-op, on Wednesday Jan 29^th in the morning for another session and probably at least one more time after that.  But in this first round, I think I got him; I got his soul.  

     He is now fired up to paint my portrait and I love that.  Maybe we have started something…