
My cousin, on the left, holding the black rabbit, had a birthday recently and I sent her this photograph of the two of us. It’s a slide my father must have taken in the 1950s. We’re standing in front of my aunt and uncle’s house, on their dairy farm in Smyrna, New York. I loved animals, but because of my mother’s asthma I couldn’t have furry pets, so I liked visiting the farm animals. I remember various pet dogs and cats, the chicken house out back, occasional pigs, and the huge herd of Holsteins, but not these rabbits — the fluffy white one one I’m holding looks slightly demented. But my attention was caught by two other things in this photograph as well.
One is the pair of pants I’m wearing, with their design of palettes and brushes and paint. Did I choose them or did my mother or someone else in the family give them to me? Did someone find the fabric and sew them? I was born into a family of makers; my father and grandfather were excellent woodworkers, all the women knew how to sew, knit, crochet, embroider, cook, grow a garden, and some — my mother and aunt — painted pictures. On my father’s side, everyone was musical, and my school had an active music and drama program. I had an easel and art supplies from the time I was very young, and always liked to draw and paint — but would I have discovered this if I hadn’t been encouraged? Would I have asked for a musical instrument on my own, without those external factors? And would I have persisted, without watching the adults around me, observing their enjoyment and satisfaction, and how they dealt with errors, mistakes, or making a dress or a chair that was harder than anything they’d tried before? What if I hadn’t had good teachers? What if all the music and arts programs at school had been cut, as is the case now in so many places?
The other thing I notice in the picture is my calm, direct look into the camera, and a sense of the person behind her gaze. It’s uncanny, how much of myself I see in that little girl, already.
Why, I wonder, do some children seek to emulate certain adults in their families or close circles, while others are rebellious, wanting to do just the opposite? What about a sensitive creative child, like my husband, born into a family that was not artistic at all, didn’t know how to encourage it, and had a much narrower bandwidth about what constitutes a valuable use of one’s time? Nobody was dressing him in clothes with prints of cameras and film, though I can imagine those existing in the funky design world of the 1950 and 60s. He and I grew up in such different environments, and yet ended up in similar places, partly because of discovering our natural talents and desires, partly because of encouragement from older people — outside the family in his case, inside the family in mine — and partly because of innate determination, persistence, and a basic tendency toward non-conformity.
Somehow we get launched on our particular paths, through some combination of nature and nurture, but then we encounter obstacles that can hinder progress. These can range from lack of education, money, or opportunity, or running into a destructive teacher, to basic character traits like lack of the necessary drive, stubbornness about fixing problems, or inability to take criticism.
In my case, my biggest problem has always been impatience. In music, I never wanted to play scales and exercises, and my teachers didn’t insist. I didn’t learn music theory. When you have a basic natural facility, and good skills like sight-reading, and you aren’t in a highly competitive environment, you can coast along for a long time. The same is true in studying, in art, in writing, and even in relationships. I’ve become a much more patient person over the years, willing to step back and analyze a problem and figure out how to fix it — which may require a lot of work — but that kind of patience wasn’t natural to me. We’re born with certain character traits. I doubt that anyone could have trained me to be a patient child; I would have rebelled. As an adult, I’ve had to make up for those omissions later on, but sometimes my impatience still gets the better of me.
I’m working on a new oil painting now, and it’s reached the stage where the decisions are on the fine-tuning level. Lots of stepping back and looking, not too much brush-on-the-canvas. In the days leading up to yesterday, the process has gone well, and I’ve been pleased to be able to keep the brushwork loose, the forms somewhat abstract, the colors within a range I had decided upon earlier. It’s close to being finished.
But yesterday, as I looked at the painting and felt like I should work on it, I just didn’t really feel like it was going to go well. Sometimes, starting to work breaks through that kind of psychological barrier, whatever it is, and I find myself able to focus. I knew, instinctively, that it wasn’t one of those days, but nevertheless, I put on my apron, took up my brushes, and began. Sure enough, it went badly, but I kept going. I started watching myself, kind of standing outside and observing myself over my shoulder, as I made mistakes and poor decisions. It was almost amusing. Once in a while this happens when I’m sewing, knitting, or even practicing the piano. I’m just not concentrated, I know I should take more time, but I plunge ahead carelessly, impatiently, without measuring when I need to, without correcting the perspective, without mixing the colors carefully enough — there are a million ways things can go wrong and errors can be compounded. Inevitably, I make a mess that requires going back and correcting, taking out seams, ripping out rows of knitting, or having to rub out hours of brushwork with turpentine. It’s such a waste of time — and I know better!
Having basic facility come easily is actually a problem; getting to the next level requires a lot of patience and work. Fortunately my parents were able to recognize this tendency and help me through my frustrations as I learned difficult skills. My father was extremely impatient in nature, but also a perfectionist when it came to skills; he would practice a sports skill for years, fuss over a piece of woodworking until it was perfect, or spend weeks fixing an antique clock. My mother was very patient in nature, but never spent the time to figure out why a piece of knitting or sewing didn’t fit properly, or why a recipe had failed. She liked the process, but perfection didn’t matter to her. People did. She’d patiently hold wires for my father as he tried to repair something, or sit beside the piano night after night to help keep me at my practice.
The girl in the photograph above doesn’t look impatient; she looks calm, but I remember the conflict between my desire to do things well, and my impatience with how long it took. This isn’t a question of talent; it’s a question of mental and emotional self-recognition, learning to focus and analyze, and cultivating self-discipline. As an adult, there have been many stages in my life where I reached plateaus, and had to figure out what I wanted to do, what the problems and obstacles were, and how to go beyond them. I don’t think that process ever ends, if we’re honest with ourselves, and if we want to keep growing.
It was enlightening to me to watch that innate impatience take over yesterday. There’s no parent or teacher anymore who’s going to correct me; it’s entirely up to me to listen to my mood, realize what’s likely to happen, and master myself. Realize I’m too tired or distracted, take a step back and breathe, or put down the brushes and go for a walk. Then come back and, without touching a brush or a keyboard, figure out what’s causing the difficulty, and make a plan for dealing with it.
The girl with the paint-and-palette pants didn’t know where she was headed; she just knew she had some raw materials and some things she especially liked to do. I’ve been lucky to have had people throughout my life who encouraged me, and the strength of character to move beyond the ones who didn’t. Later, when most of our mentors and guides have left us, we have to find out how to continue on our own. It helps me to have internalized what these people lived: that the process is always more important than the end result, that pushing forward into new terrain is more satisfying than repeating yourself, and that patience with yourself and others is a virtue worth cultivating.