Vernon Lee, the English author, wrote of her deceased friend John Singer Sargent that any biographer could just sum up his life as :“he painted.” Such was the constancy with the brushes that consumed the master for most of his life. Lee added a clarification:
“ . . I recognize that his life was not merely in painting, but in the more intimate understanding and enjoying of the world around him, and which the work of his incomparable hand enables some of us, also to understand and enjoy, if only in part. “
In other words, Sargent’s way of enjoying life was to squint at the big print of the world and jot it all down. And really, who could be so lucky? To find the kind of work that allows someone to meditate and work at the same time. Moreover, to make it your profession and allow others to enjoy the discovery if they are so inclined. I used to look for reasons to keep on painting. Maybe because I couldn’t stop.
To be so lucky. To feel the hours go by as if they are the only hours that count. Any person that has a hobby or a job they love has these moments. It is not always, and it is not guaranteed but most of us get hints here and there. Beyond “therapy,” or “stress-relief,” or the worn-out-by-use: “telling your truth,” art is reaching out for recognition. As anybody who paints would tell you, taking up the brush can be quite the stressful endeavor and your “truth” might turn out to be a muddy mess. If hanging “therapy” on the walls sounds a bit odd, it is.
I always enjoyed painting. Initially, I’d want to see on paper what worlds I could imagine, I painted a lot of dragons attacking sailing ships for some reason. I had just discovered the magic fluidity of watercolors. Materials insinuate themselves; I know that now. Then, like all adolescents with their basic needs covered, I set off to try to prove myself to others by showing off with drawing. Soccer was another popular option for rising stars in my native Spain but I was as gifted with the ball as penguin in a sarong wrap. I learnt perspective to make things fall into place. I went to school to draw from the nude. My father introduced me to the painting outdoors. In front of the wider world, all concerns about being “special” were quickly vanquished . The outside world refused to merely be copied, it refused to stay still, and it refused to just hand me the answers straightaway. The outside world is a brat.
Cut to today. I’m still -humbly- trying to make a “career” out of this painting business.
Many museum visits, sunburnt noses, downpours, workshops and paint-caked clothes later, I have landed on a particularly beautiful landscape. That of Vancouver and Bowen Island. Turns out the world was there mostly to be looked at, not fought, and it is inexhaustible. I’ve also learnt to squint. When you squint you get the gist, the difficult bits dissolve, you sweat the small stuff just the same but you can barely find it. Something else happens when you squint, you are halfway gazing inside yourself where another source of light helps along. Miracles happen, you sell a painting, you stop lamenting that you can’t to go to Tuscany on a painting trip because this new landscape is even better, you paint because it can’t be helped. Squint, and breathe.
Plein air works in oil and watercolour by Jose L. De Juan. runs Oct. 23 to Nov. 17 at the Gallery @ Cove Commons. The opening reception is Oct. 26 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
