Skip to main content

Noodles: A true history.

This is the story of a potato.  No, I’m kidding, it’s not (though I do have a potato story...remind me to tell it sometime when it sounds less boring).  This is actually the story of an artist.  Specifically, the story of me, as an artist.  A metamorphosis story, if you will.  It began a long time ago, on an unknown day, when I was first given a marker.  I drew an astonishing picture.  Because my parents failed to realize its monetary worth at the time, it has been lost to the crumbling echoes of history.  However, here is a wan representation: 


If you’re weeping from ecstasy now, take a minute, get a Kleenex, have a sip of lemonade, calm your fluttering spirit, and then read on.  
Recognizing true talent when I saw it, I groomed my natural gifts until they shone.  Or, rather, glowed.  I had a keen eye for color, a delicate taste for nature’s palette:


Finding paltry inspiration in the natural world alone, I turned my starting eyes and tingling fingers to a nobler subject - the human frame, itself.  I made a specific study of the human mouth:


Years passed, and when it seemed my talent could find no higher peak to climb, no subject worthy enough to subject itself to, I climbed still higher, and made a shocking discovery.  I can’t draw worth beans.  Hands, in particular.  But also people, places, and things.  I’m okay at Pictionary but physically incapable of drawing a straight line.  And you know how artists talk about shadows and light and hoity toity la dee dah oh mymymy?  It’s a foreign language.  I decided that since I couldn’t draw like anybody with a grain of self-respect, and couldn’t do a decent watercolor to save my life, I was a complete failure.


 I had reached a plateau:

Only to take a bit of a fall:

From which I’ve been recovering ever since.  I trudge grudgingly in the path my younger feet flew up, carrying my own baggage and making crude sketches in the rocks as I go.  On the heights above me struggle the toiling artists who have gone before, palettes and charcoals and stencils in hand, muses singing above them...and below me I see the world spread out, flat and expressionless, orderly and self-contained, reminding me that an artist is only as great as she allows herself to be.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Noodles: It’s autumn, all of you.

Hi world.  It’s me, your favorite super sheltered, extremely Scandinavian, strangely endearing pile of soggy, tomato-drenched crinkly noodles! Otherwise known as Baby Swedish Lasagna under an Inadequate Tent. The reason I bring up my origins is this: I grew up without hearing anyone say “y’all”.  I believe the contraction never crossed my path outside of a book until middle school, when it became trendy among my equally sheltered, pale-skinned friends. I started saying it often, with little understanding of its pronunciation, spelling, or proper usage. At some point, perhaps in a fit of cultural sensitivity, maybe after the madness of middle school had seeped out of my neurons, I stopped using it. Except in emails. Yes, my friends, I am an email y’aller.  It just works for the already-awkward group conversations.  There’s honestly no equivalent in northern dialect.  Check it out. “You guys.”  Offensive to feminists. “You girls.”  Offensive...
4 comments
Read more

Noodles: I’m not easily suede, butt...

My house is currently being shown by a realtor to an average of two potential buyers each day.  They come and they go, and, in real estate as well as trail etiquette, they take only photographs (as far as I can tell) and leave only footprints.   Technically. Not to abruptly change the subject, but have you ever sat on a suede* couch?  If you did, I bet you drew pictures on it with your finger, because the material shows light when you brush it one way, dark the other.  It’s a very impressionable fabric.  I have one of those couches.  It’s tan-ish, it’s comfy, and I like it very much.**  It’s in my living room, because it’s a couch and that’s where couches seem to prefer to live.  They like it dry and temperate with a little bit of soft lighting and a nice view of their territory, as well as easy access to the street in case they have a conflict with the armchair*** and need to make a quick getaway.   But I digress.   All you rea...
4 comments
Read more

Noodles: There are just some things you can’t ask your doctor.

So you turn instead to Google and let your questions be seen by all the world, including snoops like me. I happened to look up a strange sensation I’ve been experiencing lately (yes, I do it too, and yes, I’m probably on the brink of death) that involves a crawling sensation on the back of my scalp.  Since it’s not tick season, I assume it’s a tiny person attempting to scale my head in order to have a look around.  Unfortunately, I wear a lot of hats this time of year so even if they make it to the top, they aren’t likely to see much. But that’s not the point. If you ask Google to give you any information involving tingling sensations and your own head, it will immediately throw at you a list of questions asked by similar unfortunate individuals, along with the all-knowing answers provided by an unspecified internet friend. Some of them make you shake your head in pity, such as this sad, lonely soul, who asks, “Can I test myself for a brain tumor?” The answer is undecided...
Post a Comment
Read more