Someone’s Always Leaving :: Oil and Latex on Canvas – 36” x 48” – 1981 or 1982
I skidded to a serpentine stop at the bike rack between the Arts and Architecture buildings near the elevator and connecting bridge. I always looked forward to riding into the plaza from the east because it was downhill from the center of campus. I was there to set type on the Star-O-Mat and work in the darkroom. Before I did that, I stopped in the painting studio to drop off a gallon of house paint. It was just after the dinner hour and classes were long over, so the studio was empty of students except for a close friend. He was sitting with his back to the door and smoking a cigarette in front of my most recent painting. I’d been working on it into the wee hours the previous night and left it on an easel near the back wall.
“Hey man, what’s going on?” I asked. “Just taking a break from the sculpture studio and having a smoke. Is this finished?” he asked. “I’m not sure. I think it’s close. This is my first time looking at it since 3:00am this morning. Now that I’m standing in front of it, I see a lot of things that bug me. I might paint over part of it. I have a new can of white latex.” “I’ve been sitting here and staring at it for twenty minutes and I can’t see anything I’d change.” “Really?” I said in disbelief because we usually had suggestions for each others work. He snubbed out his cigarette, stood up, smiled, and proposed we meet up later. “Don’t paint over it,” and he shuffled out.
In retrospect, our small community of art and design students and close friends were unusual because things felt so open, safe, and collaborative during those years. At the time I didn’t think anything of it. I assumed this was how it was everywhere. The way it was supposed to be. I took it for granted because years later I realized how rare it was. It doesn’t mean there weren’t struggles, disagreements, or hard days, but that level of creative group energy didn’t happen again like it did at a small state university embedded in a farming and ranching community. I didn’t paint over it and days later when my instructor and I met to look at it and talk about it, he asked me how my love life was.
Songs :: Shelter by Lone Justice, The Leanover by Life Without Buildings, Turn to Me by Lou Reed, Caroline No by The Beach Boys, and Gentle On My Mind by Glen Campbell
© C. Davidson