24. "Learn to Paint."

A work in perpetual progress.

This one is a little different. 24. “Learn to Paint” is a swerve into the surreal that I hope will offer a bit of an escape, a laugh or two, and perhaps even some joy for anyone who needs it. (Also sorry no audio again I promise it will return soon). xx

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Close your eyes. Now, open them so you can read this. 

Imagine you are standing before a museum. It’s an architectural marvel in the middle of the woods, a stately-three story structure with red brick and ivy running up the walls. The building feels forgotten in time, ripped out of a storybook and dropped into reality. A babbling brook rushes along the side of the building and bluejays fly overhead. Unsure how both you and the museum got here, you decide to go with it, stepping over the moss-covered cobblestones and pulling open the heavy wrought-iron doors, eager to see what’s inside. 

The entry hall is cavernous and striking; a colorful mural of a pompous horse by the sea decorates the domed ceiling. Your every step is amplified as you head to the reception desk, ready to fork over a fee only to discover that admission is free. Capitalism does not exist here. Grasping your ticket, you make your way further inside and look around. It’s late in the day and most of, if not all, the other patrons have left. Rays of early evening sun flare through the lobby’s floor-to-ceiling windows as you grab a map (also free) and peruse the offerings. Kind of an odd collection, you think to yourself as you mosey on. 

If it was quiet in the lobby, it’s dead silent in the gallery hall. Your every step and breath echoes through the gorgeously adorned space as you curse yourself for wearing those heeled shoes today, trying to tiptoe to minimize the noise. At the end of the museum’s main hallway, a security guard dozes off in a chair positioned directly in front of an imposing eight-foot paper mache woman whose bedazzled breasts tower over the guard’s head like an awning. A beat-up and dog-eared copy of “He’s Just Not That Into You” rests on the guard’s lap, and you wonder if perhaps he’s working through some stuff. 

The guard lets out a loud snore as you pass through the first doorway and into an exhibit. 

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You’re startled by an old woman standing in the gallery, wrinkly hands folded behind her back and subtle smile stretched across her painted face as if she’d been waiting for you.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she croaks out. “Oh!” You exclaim, a bit terrified, wondering if like the museum, she also appeared out of nowhere.

“I’m Doris. You’re the only person visiting the museum. You would like a guided tour?” It sounds more like a command than a question, so you nod yes. 

Doris lets out a wicked smile. “Yipee,” she proclaims and pads to the exhibit description sketched on the nearby wall, red orthotics soundless as she steps. “This is a weird museum, and this is a weird exhibit.” You do not feel like you needed Doris to point that out, but you’re glad she’s self aware. 

“Do you know Keith Haring?” She stops in front of the wall of text. “Of course,” you mutter, suddenly hopeful that you’ve stumbled into some private collection of the 80’s pop graffiti artist. “This exhibit is nothing like him and the art is worse.” Doris explains. 

“Do you know Monet?” Doris looks at you expectantly as you nod. A quick glance around the room confirms these are not the paintings of French impressionism founder Claude Monet, so you wonder where this is going. “I’m not a fan.” Doris states solemnly.

A beat, then she turns to the exhibit at hand. “Let’s get into it, shall we?” With long, languid sentences, Doris reads the writing on the wall. 

LEARNING TO PAINT: A WORK IN PERPETUAL PROGRESS

The fledgling artist, one Emily Bice of Brooklyn, has had a long, twisted, torrid affair with painting – not unlike her relationship with finding relationships. Until recently, she lacked any formal training, unless her middle school art class and several paint ‘n pour sessions count. Her ability to draw shapes and shadows is at roughly a third-grade level, and her style can best be described as “Contemporary Children’s Book Surrealist Chic.” 

Doris stops and looks at you sternly. “This is not a real style of painting, do not try to look it up.” You weren’t planning on it. She continues reading.  

Ms. Bice’s depth perception is so skewed it’s worrying to think about the artist behind the wheel of a vehicle, a concept viewers of this exhibition should luckily not have to dwell over after this sentence ends. 

She is not a very good painter, but she dearly loves the medium. Her studio (a box of art supplies on the bottom shelf of a bar cart) is littered with messy masterpieces made for no one but herself. Lopsided flowers, earnest-eyed animals, a monster house that can’t stop smiling. Her art, and the enjoyment of the activity, is rooted in a naively childish glee that, like a high-quality acrylic, shows no signs of fading.  

The passion has not faded, but the practice took a backseat her first few years in New York. Though wonderful, the early days were marred by instability and rootlessness (see: 20. “Change Apartments From Time to Time”). And while in some ways those destabilizing factors have remained the same, as of late, the artist has found herself feeling grounded. Nothing is set in stone and the future remains as foggy as an impressionist painting of early morning London, but she is settling in. In June 2024, she bought a paint set and an easel, items she had not purchased since selling her collection after leaving Los Angeles in 2021. 

Ms. Bice would need it if she was going to properly attempt 24. “Learn to Paint.” These are the early results of a work that will always be in progress. 

Doris finishes reading with a flourish, clears her throat, and hobbles over to the first painting. 

Fruit bowl on oil, June 2024

Ms. Bice dipped her brush into formal training at the Creatively Wild Studio in Dumbo, Brooklyn. Under the intimate tutelage of Lawrence, a hunky and talented painter teaching Monday night adult Intro to Oil, she learned the benefits of blending color, lifting paint off of the canvas, and just how hard oil paint is to get off of a white t-shirt. Lessons were not cheap, so the education was abridged, but the artist emerged triumphant with a finished piece, perhaps the first and only of her work to display any actual technique. Painting is quite a privilege, Ms. Bice noted on the subway home while cradling her still-wet canvas of fruit. Then again, all art is. 

Doris pulls out a lemon from her chaotically crocheted bag and holds it up to fruits in the painting. “They look nothing alike! When life gives this artist lemons, she should not try to paint them.” Doris leaves the lemon on the floor and marches on. 

Winterdale Arch on watercolor, July 2024

It was a crisp Sunday afternoon in Central Park and she was lonely. It is a rite of passage for every New Yorker to sit on a boulder among the city’s rambling green and feel a little sorry for themselves. Sometimes there is crying. On this day, there was painting. In a park buzzing with people, Ms. Bice focused only on the solitary bridge and the flock of birds circling overhead. She painted a forest where there were only a few trees, and a foreboding body of water in lieu of a welcoming paved path. Perhaps this was due to an inability to get the leaves right or a color so muddied blue was the only remedy. Or maybe there is something deeper going on here. Feel free to decipher with a therapist, it’s like a rorschach blot only a watercolor arch. 

“I discussed this painting with my therapist, per the description’s suggestion,” Doris offers after loudly reading the text. “He suggested I start coming in three times a week.” 

Monsters in Brooklyn on acrylic, August 2024

A Monday in Williamsburg by the river with pizza, paint, wine, and a friend. What started as a landscape of the New York City skyline quickly devolved into a monster as Ms. Bice accepted the limitations of her abilities. The scrapped work didn’t matter and the new one was more fitting anyway; there was excitement in the air, a flutter of possibilities as conversation trumped canvas.   

Doris doesn’t offer any commentary. She instead stares at the purple monster, lost in some thought you’d rather not interrupt. After a few moments, she wipes tears from her eyes and turns to you. “I have nightmares about this painting.” She adjusts her thick wool cardigan and steps towards the final piece.  

The Circus on acrylic, October 2024 

After a non-stop few months and a brief hearthurt interlude, the artist returned to the easel. This time, there was no pretense or attempt to incorporate skill. She just wanted to turn her brain off, have some fun, and escape. So, Ms. Bice lost herself at the circus. She made a big red tent and filled it with stars and little monsters (not the Lady Gaga stans, actual tiny monsters) whose facial features include weird eyes, dorky smiles, and misshapen heads. The finished piece was eclectic and silly and colorful. It was perfect. It was her. 

“... Well?” Doris barks at you. “What do you think?”

You’ve reached the end of the small exhibit, deeply underwhelmed and overwhelmingly confused. Part of you wants to ask for your money back, even though you didn’t even pay. As you inch towards the exit, Doris stops you, her manicured claw pointing towards something dangling haphazardly from the far wall. “Wait! There’s one more!” 

A single sheet of paper, a note from the artist typed out in 12-point Times New Roman, hangs tacked up by scotch tape and a Hello Kitty band-aid. 

Painting on paper, November 2024 

Whenever I enter an art museum, I am overcome. I go down a rabbit hole, struggling to understand how a feeling or an image or a place can be captured so intricately, so wonderfully with just paint and a blank canvas. I feel both inspired and defeated, haunted by the intimidating reminder that I’ll never create something so remotely great. In the presence of powerful art, it’s easy to get lost in a fantasy, to be transported to another world and to let reality fade away. It provides an escape. 

It is beyond my scope of comprehension how someone can produce such feeling with a simple paintbrush, how they can capture the look of sadness in an eye or an ice cold winter morning or the calm after a storm. I express through stories and scripts and essays in dialogue. My paintings are canvases filled with too many words; brevity is not my strong suit. I am in awe of work that has the power to move people through a singular image. 

Often when I start a painting session,  I am inclined to immediately give up because I know the result will not be special. It’ll be middling and mediocre and smudged and rudimentary. It won’t be anything that belongs in a museum. It will look like something a child could do. 

Yet, when I finish a piece, I am unbelievably proud. I love how stupid the work is. I think the monsters are cute. They make me happy. And that is reason enough to paint. 

I’m not sure any of these paintings are good, but I really don’t care. 

Art does not have to be expensive or viral or critically or commercially successful to be worthwhile. It just has to mean something to someone. It just has to make you feel. The best pieces I own are two tiny yellow canvases of naked ladies painted by my best friend Maddi when she was in med school. 

That said, if you’d like to buy any of these works, they are $10,000 each. 

“You see? She knows she’s bad,” Doris blurts out after you finish reading. This one, she let you take in on your own. “It’s kind of funny, right? Plus it makes the other artists on display feel confident. If this girl can do it, anyone can.”

You sit with the words for a moment, then Doris aggressively sighs. “Okay. The tour is over now. Would you like a hard candy?” 

Doris reaches into her bag and pulls out a handful of lint-covered Werther’s Original Butterscotch, offering them with her outstretched palm. You politely decline. Doris shrugs, unwraps one, pops it into her mouth, and wanders back over to the purple monster. 

You take one final look around the room and exit the exhibit. 

The guard is still asleep, and a pool of his drool has formed next to the paper-mache woman’s toe. You consider calling it a day and going home. But entrance was free, so… what the hell. You walk across the hall. 

The next gallery is yours. What’s inside?