[CW12] The Lost Paintress

The Lost Paintress

Stroke after stroke, the paint is hitting the wall. It splashes a little, it drips, it’s imperfect but it’s the best I got. I’m not happy with this black, I should have bought another, but I already started with it so now I have to finish this with it.
It is still a few hours till sunrise, but I’m soon done with this one. I don’t like people watching me paint. It makes me uneasy, it makes me think about how they see me, how I look when painting. I don’t want to think about those things when painting, I just want to think about what I’m painting. When I paint I don’t have a body, I don’t have hands, I don’t have a past — or a future. The paint is not exiting my spray can, it is not wielded by me, it just appears on the wall like an imperfect projection from my mind.
I wasn’t sure what to make tonight, what to paint at first, so I just started putting shapes on the wall. When I try to make plans or try to come up with a thing to express I just find myself coming up empty most of the time. Sometimes I had a good idea during the day that I’d like to paint, but oftentimes I just start putting lines on the wall and see what my hands can do. They move on their own and I roughly guide them with the knowledge I have, with what I learned of perspective, of colors, of themes, and of meaning.
But they just move, they move on their own, they aren’t mine. I just watch them do their work and give them advice, like a friend or a mentor. I can trust my hands to do a good job most days, I can go over what they made after and fix little imperfections but at that point I could also not. I don’t even know why I do it, most people walk just past this wall like they done hundreds that day and not even seeing what is on it, let alone stop to think about it.
I know why actually, it’s for myself. If I never correct my mistakes I will keep making them. If I don’t care for my paintings quality, how could I ever expect someone else to? Do I even want someone else to? I think I shouldn’t… but then I could just paint all the walls in my room until I have no space and keep it to myself, but that feels wrong too.
The final line, let’s see what I — my hands — made.

I think this is the third time this week I painted a girl in front of a mirror. Each painting is different, but aren’t they all the same? A girl, standing in front of a mirror. Sometimes the mirror was broken, sometimes the girl was kneeling, sometimes she was facing away. Today the girl is crying in front of it, and the girl in the mirror is laughing at her.
I am a hack of an artist sometimes aren’t I? It’s hardly a metaphor, it’s assaulting the viewer with a blatant message. It’s the third time I drawn this girl this week, I think I should be allowed sometimes to be blatant in my messaging. I like nuance, I like being subtle and smart and requiring the observer to think about what I made… but most just walk past this wall like any other. I may get only one shot at telling them what I think, so why pussyfoot around it?
Because people like feeling smart, they like to think for a moment before getting it. People hate being preached at, people love thinking about “the artists intent”. I don’t even know half the time what I wanted to make when I started painting.
Most of the time I walk through the streets in the day, half looking at my paintings and half looking for people looking at them. The more I paint the more I learn the artists intend, the more I get to learn myself. I have painted things I never even thought I would ever say or feel, I have unlocked hidden rooms inside myself by painting the walls and opening the windows.
I don’t think I could do that if I just painted my own walls, I need to see people walk past them to understand more what other people see in them, see in me. I need people to stop and have a reaction, to talk to the person they are with and comment on what they see. I need my own art explained to me to understand what I might have meant. I need a mirror.

I walk down the street as the curtain on the night closes. I have painted so many walls in this street that it sometimes feels like I’m running out of space. Each house has at least four walls and this street has dozens of houses, and yet. I can’t just paint any wall. I don’t want to.
More affluent houses or business have cameras or even guards, I can’t touch those much. Sometimes I try to anyway, mostly when I have something against them. But most of the time I choose walls nobody really minds — not even the people they belong to. I wonder how other graffiti artists handle this. Do they just want to send a message? Do they even have these thoughts? I don’t know, I never talked to another.
I am very alone in this street, there isn’t much art by others. All you can find around here besides my paintings are the doodles from teenagers. The people here are richer than in other parts of the city, so even if the police is powerless their money keeps the street “clean”. I have on occasion traveled to other parts of the city, to see what others made. I saw all kinds of messages and expressions. People are really creative, they have themes and motives, they draw breathtaking murals or use… creative materials for their art.
I don’t think I can hold any water to them, I stay away from the other streets, they have much more to say than I do.. at least that’s how I feel. This street belongs to me mostly but if someone else would turn up suddenly and outshine me with their art, I might just go looking for a new street. I don’t like my paintings being compared to others, stand next to others. I know it is much less profound than that of most others, has much less to say and much less mastery to it. I am still learning I think but even then I might not learn at the rate others have. I started out late, I haven’t painted bridges when I was eight, I haven’t decorated train cars as a teen, I only just really started.
My art might not say as much yet as that of others, but it still says a lot to me, it speaks to me. I can’t paint an entire wall by myself in one night like others, I struggle to contain my moderately sized art to one night because I am scared to leave something unfinished.
I think I don’t get better but then I walk down the street and see one of my earliest paintings. It has small doodles and letters on it from teens and others leaving their mark… some might think they ruined my mural. I don’t think so, they left their mark on here just as I did — none of us owns these walls. We could never afford them and that’s why many of us paint on them. Their silly little doodles or weird expressions are now part of my art, they don’t ruin or overwrite it, they join it.
Even the ones that are mean, even the ones that insult me or my art, they are now part of it. They are more opinions I can draw from, more feedback. They hurt but hurting is better than not having feedback at all. Even the ones that hate on others, even the ones that hate on things they shouldn’t, they were made likely in the heat of the moment — they are pure emotions and I love that.

The sun is rising, I wonder what I should draw tomorrow. Maybe another girl and another mirror.

[CW12] The Lost Paintress