Vanishing Point

The distinct scent of oil paint lingers throughout the studio, my hands and forearms smeared in various color, with pallet and brush still in hand, I step back from the easel and stare with the deepest feelings of content at the freshly painted canvas.
The walls decorated in the frames of my life, the vivid images of painted seascapes, and landscapes, florals and plant life hang throughout the room.

We all have something that we are passionate about. Something that we use to express who we are, something we could not live without. What would happen to us if it were taken from us?

For me that would be my art and my ability to create. I often wondered what would happen if I lost my ability to use my left hand. So with that fear I have practiced for many years painting with the right was well. Some paintings I purposefully painted it’s entirety with the right hand. Then I wondered well what if I lost both hands? Well there are art societies of people who paint primarily with their mouth and with their feet.

I was never worried that I could lose my ability to see color, but I do have a slight fear that I could possible develop a degenerative eye condition through my family blood and go blind all together.

My grandmother on my mother’s side had this condition for most of her old age. She had to wear sunglasses inside, she wouldn’t recognize you, but would squint and follow your voice to try to identify the silhouette that she could see before her. She couldn’t sew, or nit, read recipes or her watch.

What if this happens to me? What about my paintings? If you go blind, does your memory keep that imagery for reference? Do you still dream in color?
How would I paint? Does muscle memory apply to painting blind, could you paint a flower by memory?

How would I measure my struggle to mastery? What means would I have to experiment, and discover? How would I reflect and share myself?

Then there’s the poor studio, the easels would stand purposeless with nothing to rest upon them. The pallets and brushes abandoned unused, the canvas’ still wrapped in their plastic. The scents of oils, acrylics and gesso no longer linger. The dust from the pastels swept away. How could I childishly make a mess, with nothing to play with? What would I get my hands dirty with?

My studio, my artistic nature hollowed out and emptied by a black abyss, left barren in a colorless world.

Or what if I continued to create art, but color didn’t matter. What if I began an art collection of abstract objects? Three dimensional sculptures or two dimensions paintings based upon texture. What if I then revolutionized the blind art world and opened a museum of touch? You could walk through and feel the pieces and do what you can not do at other museums.

Maybe being blind could enhance the spirituality by heightening the other senses; no longer distracted by the visual. Perhaps it would teach lessons in superficiality and could remove judgment from the mind and expand and transform the artistic nature into something else.

We all have something that we are passionate about, something that we use to express who we are. Let us take a moment, and celebrate those somethings we cherish, and let us hope that we never meet its vanishing point.