Odilon / Taking a break from fine-tuning a tiny piece of a painting for the past 3 hours

Odilon Redon is the inspiration for my dream painting (an assignment for class) which is taking forever.












It is Saturday afternoon after Open Studios, 34 Stuyvesant is the spectacle of a post-house party, empty beer cans lining the stairway, wine cups lying morosely in the puddles outside.

It's a quiet day, a cloud-soft day, and the painting studio is dark. Sleet slants the view from the studio windows onto slippery grey rooftops. the old fans give a whirl whenever a breath of December air reaches through their withering teeth. The guards didn't want to turn on the lights in the building in order to save electricity when no one's here. moving the easel next to the window is the best one can do.

It is easiest to be conscious when the world is hungover in bed or unconscious at four in the morning. Because everything that is usually shared--with roommates, peers, strangers--the sidewalk, the studio, the couch on the 4th floor of Barney, your thoughts, your attention, your concentration--is now fully, completely, yours. Your attention can be undivided, you own it as you did before but now it is easier to keep it.

Everyone's coming in to paint now, clip clopping boots and heels, washing brushes, putting on iPods, talking, moving, dividing, scattering. the guards have turned all the lights back on, as though to say, "Party's over, kid..."







On that note, BACK TO WORK!